Episode 8 - Cake Diplomacy

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 8 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro music plays, then starts to fade out, background ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Where last we left off, y'all got a tour of Polaris's Home Spaceship with his three robot caretakers that are ish friendly kind of maybe. And then y'all got an alert about pirates invading this system that you're in because they tracked your ship that used to belong to one of their buddies, Captain Byrum, and you've been given five minutes to comply with their order of returning both their shipmate and their ship to them.

You've had a couple weeks to think about how you want to handle this. So yeah, y'all are pretty much on like the bridge of The Ursa Major right now when this alert comes in.

Zach/Zahn: Hey, didn't somebody say something about a singularity cannon last time?

Bee/Polars: Did Polar say that out loud or was that that just me talking? I think that was just me talking.

Avery/GM: No, I, I think when, when you came into the system, I think

Bee/Polars: Oh yeah. Polaris said did, did mention the black hole gun. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polars: So we are all aware of the black hole gun

Avery/GM: Yeah, cuz Zach had that, that thing, that little like, wait, there's a singularity gun?

Bee/Polars: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: I remember

Bee/Polars: When this alert like, comes in or whatever, Polaris is just like, not at all bothered, like no anxiety or anything.

Avery/GM: just like, oh, another day in space.

Bee/Polars: Yup. This is the first time pirate's been brave enough to step to the, the custodians, but,

Chris/Ollie: yeah, like about that. Ollie's gonna add. Look up quizzically at the alarm and ask, “Is this a common occurrence around here? You seem unconcerned.”

Bee/Polars: Polaris, just shrugs and shakes his head no.

Chris/Ollie: Are the, the custodians in here with us?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Bee/Polars: Think all of 'em except Alioth, right? Cuz Alioth was with Hermes?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I think, I think, Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Merak and Bear both showed up and were kind of just like, Oh, you've shown them around. And that's when the alert came in. So

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Polaris is looking at Bear to see what he's doing. cuz he's security.

Avery/GM: Bear had just pulled up a gun from like nowhere and it was just holding this big, like rifle, like let 'em come.

Zach/Zahn: All right,

Bee/Polars: Yeah. I mean, we don't have the, the, the pilot dude, and we took the ship from the Hegemony. So like,

Zach/Zahn: He's a, he's a dead.

Bee/Polars: yeah. Should we tell ‘em that though?

Zach/Zahn: They're probably gonna want the ship back anyway.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polars: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: I don't know. Hey, sometimes pirates can be bluffed into anything, right?

Bee/Polars: Indeed.

Avery/GM: I've seen Pirates of the Caribbean.

Bee/Polars: I mean, I don't know if, I mean I'm fine with, cuz Polaris has his own little ship, so I could go out there and start blasting if we wanna fight them.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. But you've got, you've got possessions on our ship,

Bee/Polars: Indeed. Yeah. What I'm saying is like if we don't want to give them the ship at all, Polaris will take his ship and go out while they're blasting with the singularity gun and start blasting from outside.

Zach/Zahn: Man the giant turrets!

Bee/Polars: Yeah. I think the only weapon on the ship is the singularity gun though, right?

Avery/GM: I think that is how you set it up, yes.

Chris/Ollie: Hopefully this doesn't blow up.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. By the way,

Chris/Ollie: If it even can.

Bee/Polars: This ship has no defenses. It just has a singularity gun.

Jenine/Marty: I thought we had defenses. Dont, we have stealthy?

Bee/Polars: No, no, no. On on, yeah, on our ship. But on the Ursa Major, there's no defenses. It's just the singularity gun.

Jenine/Marty: Mm. Yeah.

Bee/Polars: I don't think I had the mass to add defenses. who's our comms person? Do we have a comms person?

Chris/Ollie: I think mine is the highest comms skill.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, thank goodness cuz I took it last time on accident.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. I, I have zero in talk now, so I don't have a, a a minus. I can, I could get on comms and say something.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I have I zero in connect as well.

Jenine/Marty: I, I can roll. I have a one in connect, but I can also roll three D sixes for connect and drop the lowest one.

Bee/Polars: Okay. Do we want, Do we wanna get on comms and

Chris/Ollie: that sounds like like the way to go.

Bee/Polars: tell them that we have the ship but not the dude? Because we just escaped the Hegemony ship and we just grabbed the first one we saw.

Jenine/Marty: It always goes well when Marty talks. Let's do it.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, we, we, we can attempt that.

Bee/Polars: What are the odds of pirate murders a child?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. What are, What are the odds?

Zach/Zahn: Hi,

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is all pro, just shooting them and running away.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair.

Chris/Ollie: But what better time to shoot them than when they're busy talking.

Bee/Polars: Okay, so do some of us wanna sneak out onto like a ship? Cuz we have two ships technically available. Actually,

Avery/GM: you have two ships available.

Bee/Polars: Is, can Polaris ship carry more than one person on the inside?

Avery/GM: That's a good question. It's a

Zach/Zahn: thought it was just a Sky Fighter.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then I mean there are some vacc suits in the, in the hanger that people could suit up on, and then you just hold on, get onto the ship.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn just hops onto the outside of their ship, Starts taking out, Oh, this looks important.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Yeah. You could just like fuck up their ships while we're, while they're talking

Chris/Ollie: Or I could like hack one and just be like, casually, start shooting the, the next ship over.

Bee/Polars: Oh, we could also get hermis into the ship that we took and then Hermis could, He likes guns,

Chris/Ollie: How many, how many ships are we talking about here?

Bee/Polars: Oh yeah. How many ships are there?

Avery/GM: Yeah, there you go. There's some, there's some questions to be answered. There we go. You've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ships.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Bee/Polars: hm. ok.

Avery/GM: You look at the radar and you see that the little armada here consists of a patrol boat type ship, two free merchant ships and four strike fighters.

Bee/Polars: Oh shit. Okay. Are they all within close distance of each other? Like are they all within black hole range or radius?

Avery/GM: I mean, this is not too scale, obviously.

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Avery/GM: The strike fighters are kind of in like their own, like little, Oh wait, I did have, Sorry, I copied the wrong thing. There we go. Now you should be able to see it.

Zach/Zahn: Heyyy!

Jenine/Marty: Oh, look at that. Wow. That's, that's great. It's terrifying.

Bee/Polars: Oh, sweet. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: so if we just fire specific singularity spots right here, here, and then here, like multiple times we should be.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was thinking if they're in a cluster, we can singularity them and then take care of the smaller ones later. But we should probably do we have, like, do we know how much time is left?

Avery/GM: It's been about two minutes.

Bee/Polars: Okay. Okay.

Avery/GM: since they, So you've got. About three minutes left.

Bee/Polars: Okay. So.

Avery/GM: not exactly five minutes in real time, cuz obviously,

Bee/Polars: Ok, so then should we, should someone talk to them? And then if things start looking down, go going downhill, we just, you know, suit up and get ready to fight.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Can we, Is parlay a thing in space?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I, I think I specifically mentioned parlay in the session prompt

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polars: I believe you did.

Jenine/Marty: do

Avery/GM: you know, kind of like how we talked in Session Zero. I am always open to non-violent solutions being a possibility.

Bee/Polars: Ok sweet.

Avery/GM: You could, you theoretically you could go through this whole first season and never fire a shot. I mean, except for the one that Zahn fired.

Zach/Zahn: I fired two, actually.

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cuz I'm not good at at shoot.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, so in order to attempt to hack one of these guys, would I need to be close to them or could I like, remote hack from the Ursa?

Avery/GM: I believe remote hacking is a specific fitting that you could get for a ship,

Chris/Ollie: Oh Okay.

Avery/GM: but it might also be a ship action. So let me check. Comms crash system. Yeah, so you could hack 'em by trying to crash their systems or. Defeat would be like if they were trying to crash your system, you know, hack into your ship kind of a thing. So,

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. . Okay. So Marty just kind of like, looks at everyone. “Okay. So I can talk to them over comms or we can like pick a ship in and like go on like. Equal ground with each other and I can talk to them and I can also get a feeling off of how they feel about us.” This is my level zero technique core technique for tele telepathic contact.

That's me saying that as a skill that I've got, I can observe an emotional state in a target. Intense emotions provide a single word or an image related to the focus of the feelings. “That seems easier to do if I'm in the same room. So how do we feel about that? Or do we just wanna like do this? Like I could talk to them like in a distance if we want to.

I don't know if you wanna get like a vibe check off of them or not.”

Avery/GM: Vibe check!

Chris/Ollie: I, I would recommend keeping as much distance as possible at that he’s gonna eye the screen.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair, That's fair.

Bee/Polars: “We should at least inform them that their friends is not with us. We just got the ship from the Hegemony when we were leaving.”

Jenine/Marty: Ok, Cool. Okay. Where, And like Marty just kinda stands there and like goes, “Where should I go to? Unless someone else wants to talk. I don't have to talk. We don’t. Last time I talked to the, the people outside, it kind of went weird.”

Bee/Polars: Well, Polaris just points to where the comms are.

Jenine/Marty: “Okay. Cool. Any, anyone else? Not, I'm not in like..” and then there’s like this slow little, like, you know, this slow little like shuffle.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie's just gonna say, “I will be busy preparing a little gift in case things go south.”

Bee/Polars: Oh yeah, we should probably make a bomb or something.

Jenine/Marty: okay. I like walk up to the comms

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: and then Marty just like pushes a button and goes (computer button) “Hello there, I'm Marty. I am a medical intern. I was a medical intern for the Hegemony. Maybe still I we'll put a pin in, in that. Anyways, so current, so we, when. How do I explain this? What is the best way to explain this? Hmm. So, hi, is anyone there? I should have checked. Hello?”

Avery/GM: “aye, Yeah, I'm here.”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, hello.”

Avery/GM: “Why are, why'd they put an intern on the comms? Don't you have like a ship full of people?”

Jenine/Marty: “we do, well-”

Avery/GM: “and you pick an intern?”

Zach/Zahn: You hear in the background, “It's the best we got!”

Jenine/Marty: “I, Well, because I have like really good connections with people in the medical sphere. They thought it would be a good idea and I'm, Yeah. So they sent me here. I kinda volunteered. Hello. So we, so you're the member of your ship is not, here. We got the ship from when we were escaping from the Hegemony, that was kind of going bad. So, ah!”

Avery/GM: “let, let me get this straight. You stole Captain Byron's ship and just left him there?”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh! we what? No…”

Bee/Polars: Okay. Polaris walks over to the comms. Polaris walks over to the comms and stands next to Marty and says into the mic. “We, the ship was there when we got to the hangar. It was the only ship available. We had no idea where your friend was.”

Avery/GM: Marty, go ahead and roll. A charisma connect check and add plus one for Polaris's, help

Jenine/Marty: Okay, so if I already have a plus one add

Avery/GM: add. Add another plus one,

Bee/Polars: Yeah, I just wanted to help.

Zach/Zahn: All the more plus ones.

Jenine/Marty: (dice rolling) Oh, that's, that's helpful. Okay. That was kind of a scary role. That's a, that's an, that's an 11.

Avery/GM: Oh, that's great.

Bee/Polars: It's pretty good.

Avery/GM: That's perfect. You hear like some sniffles come back

Bee/Polars: Aw.

Avery/GM: and he's like, “Are you, are, are you saying that the Captain Byram did, didn't make it? Is that what you're saying? Is he still out there? My, my good friend Byram,”

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna lean over to the mic and say “The ship exploded immediately after our departure.”

Bee/Polars: The ship exploded immediately!?

Jenine/Marty: Marty just like, face palms.

Bee/Polars: Polaris like Oh my gosh. How do you even react to that? Polaris just says, “We didn't see him on the ship. We're unsure if the ship-”

Avery/GM: You just hear weeping.

Bee/Polars: Oh my gosh. “-We're unsure if this ship was even part of the Hegemony. It, It could have been. We don't know if he was even on the ship.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, oh Byram my good friend. Oh, growing up together,”

Bee/Polars: Oh my God…

Avery/GM: “-becoming pirates and now, Now you're gone.”

Jenine/Marty: Can I vibe check if this is fruity?

Avery/GM: fruit?

Jenine/Marty: Can I vibe check if this is a fruity relationship?

Avery/GM: Oh, sure. Yeah. fine. It's, it's more like they're, I wasn't going for fruity. They, they're just best friends that grew up on the streets together and became pirates.

Bee/Polars: Oh my God. Why do everywhere we go, we ruin lives?

Avery/GM: Hey, that was, that was their own fault, right?

Bee/Polars: Okay.

Avery/GM: Y'all, y'all didn't make the Hegemony start acting up.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah!

Bee/Polars: True.

Jenine/Marty: we were just, J chilling. I was on my internship. I was J chilling. Okay.

Avery/GM: “Well, can, can I at least have his ship back? I mean, he loved that ship so much.”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn in the background’s like, shaking his head no, that's ours now.

Bee/Polars: How many credits do we have in the secret wallet?

Zach/Zahn: hundred k.

Chris/Ollie: yeah a hundred.

Bee/Polars: do you think he'll let us pay for the ship?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. This, this sounds like an emotional thing.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Hmm. Well, we know that, what's her name was the one that had the ship to begin with. What was her name? It wasn't Vos, was it? No.

Avery/GM: Celia.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Celia. Okay, so we know that Celia-

Avery/GM: Celia had the keys.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Celia had the keys and Polar stowed away on the ship with Celia . So

Avery/GM: no, no. Sorry. Sorry. That was, That might have been bad storytelling on my part. Celia was the captain of the Aos. She got relieved of command, but still had the key in her quarters from when they intercepted the ship that you stowed away on.

Bee/Polars: Oh, okay. So wait, so was he actually on the ship or,

Jenine/Marty: Oh no. Was he?

Avery/GM: Yeah

Bee/Polars: Oh, he was

Avery/GM: Yeah. Polaris, you, Polaris, you would've met Captain Byram,

Bee/Polars: Oh,

Avery/GM: Or at least have seen him.

Bee/Polars: okay. yup.

Avery/GM: Sorry.

Bee/Polars: Ooooo.

Jenine/Marty: Rip

Avery/GM: Sorry. That's a hole in my, in my writing. My bad.

Bee/Polars: Okay. Well then Polaris probably wouldn't have said, We didn't know if he was on the ship because he was definitely on the ship and probably, definitely got exploded.

Avery/GM: He, he, he might have gotten vacced when the lower decks got vaporized

Zach/Zahn: The first three seconds

Bee/Polars: oooh. Yeah. Would Polaris have known if he had a vacc skin or vacc suit?

Avery/GM: You would probably not have known what his state of dress was when he got taken off of his ship.

Chris/Ollie: He's a hardy, rough and tumble space pirate, though, you know.

Bee/Polars: He, I, he could still be alive. If he got vacced, he wouldn't have been exploded.

Zach/Zahn: Give them the, give the pirates the coordinates of the last location.

Bee/Polars: He wants the ship back tho.

Zach/Zahn: like, Well, he, his body might be there somewhere.

Bee/Polars: Polaris will say into the mic, “Here's the, here's the problem. We don't have a ship to maneuver around and this is the only ship that we were able to escape with. We're willing to give you this ship if you are able to supply a ship as a trade.”

Avery/GM: “You'd, you, you, you'd hold a captain's sentimental feelings hostage just to get your own ship. That-”

Bee/Polars: “Yes.”

Avery/GM: “that's mighty pirate of ya.”

Bee/Polars: “I've been told I have very morally gray motives.”

Avery/GM: “Aye, you know, I think. I think Byram would've really, really appreciated that about you.” And I'd like you Polaris to roll a charisma connect check.

Bee/Polars: Sweet! I have nothing in that!

Chris/Ollie: Better than negative.

Bee/Polars: Let’s see how it goes. Oh.

Avery/GM: You spoke up.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, that's true. Not bad. Not bad. Charisma was my dump stat. But I rolled very well on the dice, so that's gonna be a 10.

Avery/GM: It's, that's pretty, I gave it an eight,

Bee/Polars: Oh, sweet. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Avery/GM: I was like, you know, I was like, a little more than halfway. Cap Captain Blitz just says, “I, I think. You know what? Just, just keep it. I, I, I, I think Byram would've wanted, wanted his ship to go to someone

as, as ruthless as you. Sorry for bothering you have just been a, a wreck the past few days”

Jenine/Marty: What?

Avery/GM: “for him and everything.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce Bruce will come over to the mic and like put his hand on Marty's shoulder, just like lean down and be like, “You sound like you need a cake.”

Bee/Polars: I was about to say

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I was about to ask.

Bee/Polars: “Yes. If you'd like, we can send over cake.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, a cake. That , that would be lovely, that that would probably really set the men here at ease. And probably, a few of the other folks on the other ships at ease, you know we're all just really broken up about him. Byram was a, was a good, a good pirate. Few, too many tentacles, but definitely a good pirate.”

Caden/Bruce: “What was captain Byram’s favorite cake flavor?”

Avery/GM: “Lemon, just lemon cake.”

Bee/Polars: There's probably some lemons.

Caden/Bruce: And Bruce will like nod and like shuffle over into the kitchen and just like start getting ingredients out. Start zesting some lemons.

Bee/Polars: Polaris will say “We do have the coordinates of the ship that we were on last. We could give those to you just in case you wanted to search around, because before the ship was exploded, a few of the decks were vacuumed.”

Is that the term depressurized? Is that a better term?

Avery/GM: Yeah, vacced? Yeah, it works

Bee/Polars: “If you know, if your friend had appropriate equipment, he could very well still be alive.”

Avery/GM: And he's kind of regained his composure a little bit on the other side, and you hear him just go, “Aye. And you know what? Even if

we can't find him, we'll find out which Scallywags decided to, to take him out and we'll give ‘em what for. Right?” And you hear a bunch of pirates in the background cheer.

Bee/Polars: Was it the Hege- It wasn't the Hegemony that was it the Hegemony that captured him right.

Avery/GM: The Hegemony took him prisoner

Bee/Polars: Okay.

Avery/GM: and there was an armada of independent systems. That gathered a bunch of ships and blasted the hegemony. So

Bee/Polars: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: There's some blame to go around.

Bee/Polars: For sure! Yeah, I'll pass over that information to them. Polar will say “The Hegemony took him captive, but we were intercepted by an armatta of independent systems that were defending against the Hegemony.”

what was the planet that they, they were trying to take us to?

Avery/GM: Pania.

Bee/Polars: Pania, Okay. “They, they have a station on the planet of Pania. That is where, that is near where the ship the Aios was destroyed.”

Avery/GM: “Aye, Well then that's where we'll go. We'll await your, your cake and then we'll, we'll leave you in peace. Sorry for, for bothering yuh.”

Jenine/Marty: “How, how big of a cake are you looking for?”

Avery/GM: “Well, let's see. We got one, two. He's, he, he's going to eat two pieces and they like, okay. Probably at least enough for about 25 people,”

Jenine/Marty: Cool. And then Marty runs to the kitchen. That's a sheet cake right there. Yeah.

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: I'll, I'll relay that message to Bruce

Zach/Zahn: That's a cake, that something went from a cake to a case of brownies.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Yeah. Polaris will be like

Avery/GM: Instead of cake, they get lemon bars.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Polaris will be like “Very well. It may be a moment we’re, Probably going to have to help out our chef.”

Zach/Zahn: This is require, going to require at least 45 minutes.

Bee/Polars: “We'll contact you in about an hour about the cake. Please remain a good distance away from our ship.”

Avery/GM: “Aye, I can respect that. Need your personal space cap Captain blitz out.” and he ends communications and the ships have not moved any closer.

Bee/Polars: Sweet! Polaris will turn immediately to Merack and Bear and say, “Ready the singularity gun just in case.”

Avery/GM: You see that, that Bear like, kind of like his arms had kind of like slumped a little with the gun in his, in his hand. And you say, Ready the singularity gun and it and perks up real quick and it's like, all right. And goes to the gunnery station.

Bee/Polars: Sweet Polaris is gonna go help Bruce with the cake.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Does anyone else go to the, So Marty, you ran to the kitchen. What, what, what does this scene look like when, when Marty bursts in, like, Bruce, what are you in the middle of?

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce is with his hands. Zesting some lemons, and then his tail is like somehow holding the whisk as he's like whisking batter over on another countertop as he's just working away.

Avery/GM: Excellent.

Caden/Bruce: And he'll look up as he sees Marty run in and just be like, “Is there problems? Do they no longer want cake?”

Jenine/Marty: “No, they do want cake. There's 25 people on. Well, they, they are, If you're, it's for serving size wise, 25 members of their 25 servings is what they might want, are kind of looking for.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will chuckle a little bit and he'll just look around and. “Okay. So I'll make like a three layered cake. You know, I was thinking we have some extra white chocolate. I could try and melt it and sculpt like a boat. Do you think they would like that? Pirates used to like ships, right?”

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Bee/Polars: Thats cute.

Jenine/Marty: “Yes. Do you. Would you like assistance?”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will eye up Marty and be like, “Do you know how to bake a cake?”

Jenine/Marty: “Yeah, I, I helped out a lot in the kitchen back home.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile and be like, “O okay. Sure. I need at least probably two other batches I can. Tell you the measurements if you want to wash your hands and help out.”

Jenine/Marty: Yep. She gonna wash her hands.

Avery/GM: Okay, and we've. Little cake montage going on in the kitchen. Is anyone else doing anything while we await the delivery of the cake?

Bee/Polars: Polaris was gonna go help with the cake as well. He's looking up how to make a cake on his, on his head on his helmet as he's walking there.

Zach/Zahn: Oh gosh. Watch the, the recipe. You come up with vastly differ

Bee/Polars: Oh, a hundred percent. Right now he's, He looked up lemon cake, but he's looking at a recipe for lemon bars

Zach/Zahn: Oh, no.

Avery/GM: And currently there's like a 10 page blog about this. One time they went on vacation and only had.

Bee/Polars: They remember the hairstyle their grandma had as she was telling them a story around the campfire before she went into the cabin to make lemon bars.

Chris/Ollie: While you're scrolling down, like where's the recipe?!

Bee/Polars: And you scroll too fast so you get to the comments section instead.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: So Zahn is going to approach the the weapons guy custodian, cuz he's supposed to be in the room, right?

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Bear.

Zach/Zahn: I don't have their names written down, so I don't know them.

Avery/GM: Bear is the weapons person. So you walk up to him “Can I help you?”

Zach/Zahn: “Yeah. So if this whole cake thing that the rest of the guys doesn't really work out Polaris mentioned something about a singularity gun.” He's gonna like put his hands together and like do that whole like half, like pray, like put the points of his fingers under his chin and then point the whole hand at at Bear, be like, “Gimme the deeds on that.”

Avery/GM: “It's pretty simple physics. It fires a concentrated stream of gravity at the target and creates a small black hole that rips the enemy ship apart.”

Zach/Zahn: “Cool, Cool, cool. You guys should potentially either power that up or have it already powered up, right?”

Avery/GM: “We have that covered.” And you see like the little panel like is glowing like that, It's like charging up, like it's a little like green progress bar going up the, the panel.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn gives him the like, okay, symbol, hands, gesture. And he is like, “perfect.”

Avery/GM: Sure. He, he starts kind of talking more about exactly what the weapon can do and, you know, kind of showing you on the weapons panel like where he's gonna fire it. “Yes. When you arrived in the system, we were originally going to fire the weapon at your engines and rip them off and leave you vulnerable. I think that is the approach we will take with this group of organics as well.”

Zach/Zahn: “Not bad,” and he is like actually engaging and he is like, “Oh, that's not a bad idea.”

Avery/GM: So, we've got three people in the kitchen cooking. Ollie, what are you doing in this kind of lull between possibly having to fight pirates and give them cake?

Chris/Ollie: He's just been like preparing the, you know, hack virus we talked about. He's just still doing that. So, and that's not like an actual skill or anything. He's just like, Oh, BRB I'm gonna fix something up. And then, you know, if I go through the hacking thing later, do all my roles then, But he's, he's pretty much just standing there spaced out with code running down his eyes. Like, matrix style.

Bee/Polars: Nice.

Jenine/Marty: Fair.

Avery/GM: So for the cake, Bruce, I would like you to roll a work check. Bruce, your work check will be, Probably intelligence, I'm guessing or wisdom especially if you have to thwart Polaris like accidentally making lemon bars.

Bee/Polars: Oh, I imagine Polaris is like on prep duty where he's just, he's just getting the flour and giving them like the cups and stuff like that. Like handing them things. Cuz I don't think Bruce would, Would Bruce let Polaris attempt to cook?

Caden/Bruce: I think having had tasted one of the protein bars, Bruce is like definitely just letting Polaris like measure flour, but like every so often, just like. Making sure that there's only, like the measuring cups that they need is the kind of thing where it's like, No, that's baking powder, not flour. We dont need that.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Polaris is measuring out like three cups from sugar or sugar, but it's actually salt,

Chris/Ollie: So it's, it's also a cooking class as well.

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Hello Home ec with Bruce.

Avery/GM: So I'll have Bruce roll wisdom work. Marty and Polaris can both roll just straight two D sixes to try and help.

Bee/Polars: Okay.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce's role was a 10 by the way.

Bee/Polars: I got an 11

Jenine/Marty: I rolled in. Go ahead.

Bee/Polars: Oh, I just said 11.

Jenine/Marty: I also rolled in 11.

Bee/Polars: Let's go.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh, that's great. This is the most phenomenal lemon cake ever baked in space.

Bee/Polars: Yay

Chris/Ollie: We may end up killing these pirates with flavor alone,

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Bee/Polars: Hey, that's seven free ships! Actually, can we poison the cake? Im kidding.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we can.

Caden/Bruce: We're curing their scurvy with Lemon cake.

Bee/Polars: my gosh. It's true.

Chris/Ollie: true.

Bee/Polars: At at some point during the process, oh,

Avery/GM: Okay, if space pirates are foolish enough to get scurvy in space, that's their problem.

Bee/Polars: Oh true. Well, I mean, how many, how many citrus plants are floating around in space? You know?

Avery/GM: That's why you gotta take Tang. Right? Wasn't that invented for space travel or something?

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Bee/Polars: Just space tang

Zach/Zahn: Was it really?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Tang was invented by NASA for vitamin C for Astronaughts

Bee/Polars: Oh, that’s awesome.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God. That's wonderful.

Caden/Bruce: Can I describe my beautiful cake?

Avery/GM: Yes, please.

Caden/Bruce: Okay. So with the help of Marty and Polaris, Bruce has created this three layer. Lemon cake, which kind of looks like a wedding cake exception for instead of topped with like your traditional figures, it's topped with like, not necessarily a pirate ship as like we would imagine it, but like a galactic pirate ship.

So it's somewhat spacey, but like has the body of a boat ship. But like instead of like sails, it has like a little. Cannon of where the fuel comes out of and such like that. And it's just has a little icing of, again, white sugar down the sides and it looks absolutely delicious. And he's sugarized, Some lemon slices like on the top as well to look like waves.

Avery/GM: Oh, that's cool.

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Avery/GM: Do you write anything on it? Like, sorry for your loss or anything?

Caden/Bruce: I don't think Bruce does. I don't think penmanship is like the top quality. But he'll look at Marty and Polaris and be like, “I think you two have done such a good job that one of you two should deliver it.” And he'll like, take off his chef hat and like haphazardly put it on Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Ha!

Caden/Bruce: And just smile.

Bee/Polars: Oh,

Jenine/Marty: does it like fall?

Caden/Bruce: No, cuz the chef hat is too small for Bruce. It probably fits Marty perfectly.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, it's like a tiny chef hat

Jenine/Marty: Im a chef!

Bee/Polars: yay.

Avery/GM: Constantly giving away his chef hat

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Polar is just gonna make Bruce's supply of chef hats.

Jenine/Marty: This is the Monday hat. This is the Tuesday hat

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: This is the party hat. They all look the same, but they all have different meanings.

Caden/Bruce: it's like the Socks have the days of the week. Each hat has like a little letter embroidered on them.

Bee/Polars: Can be done. Polaris will put on his helmet and like take a picture of the cake, but it'll very audibly have like a, like a Polaroid camera sound, and he'll just send it to everyone's. Comms and then he's, he will say “I, I think I'm the only one that can fly a ship to give it to them anyway.”

Jenine/Marty: I take the chef hat on and I tried to reach your head to put it on your head.

Bee/Polars: How tall is Marty again?

Jenine/Marty: four 10

Bee/Polars: Okay. Polaris is five 10. So,

Avery/GM: Polaris. You also know that you do have like a little like small two person shuttle available on this ship as well.

Bee/Polars: Oh ok cool! “Marty, you can come if you'd like. You, you don't have to try and put the chef hat on me. You can. You can,” He’ll just like,

Jenine/Marty: She puts the chef back on hat, back on and is like, “Ready? Let's go!”

Bee/Polars: Polaris salute to Bruce. And I imagine we put it on some sort of cart. Is it safe to, would, would there be like little hover like carts or something that we use?

Avery/GM: I'm sure, yeah. Most ships would probably have some sort of utility stuff. Yeah.

Bee/Polars: Sweet. Polaris will just like pull it behind him like it's a wagon. To the hanger!

(Space transition noise)

Avery/GM: Sure. Yeah. You hop in this little shuttle, do you notify them that you're coming out with the cake or are you gonna surprise them?

Bee/Polars: Oh no, we're definitely telling ‘em so we don't get blasted.

Jenine/Marty: yeah,

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: we come in peace! with cake!

Bee/Polars: Polaris will just send a, a group text saying whoever's in comms let them know we're on our way with a cake, smiley face.

Zach/Zahn: Oh gosh. The two people that were doing the talking are now on their way with the cake.

Avery/GM: yeah, I think that's, Well, I think that's Ollie and Zahn.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm still standing right in front of the comms thing anyway, so Ollie will see that and snap out of his, his trance and relay the message. I don't know. If I have to hail them or anything, but he'll just send ‘em a message.

Avery/GM: You could send it as a text if you want.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Yeah. He'll just send a text through the comms thing to the pirates and be like your, your present is presently on its way.

Avery/GM: Okay. I didn't actually create maps for the pirate ships, so.

Bee/Polars: That's fine. I don't imagine we're gonna get into any fights. I don't think Marty and Polaris could take down 25 pirates.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, we're the least threatening out of the group. It's fine for the least. What would, what are they gonna do?

Chris/Ollie: Exactly walking on alone into a pirate infested den.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So at this time you see the four strike fighters. Basically pull back and go into the docking bay of the patrol boat.

Bee/Polars: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Of the ship, the, the, basically the, the capital ship of this little fleet. (Ships docking noise) And yeah, you, you dock inside the, the bay of the Pirates main ship and the little ramp (Air pressure release hiss and space ramp lowering) on the shuttle lowers and the two of you come walking out holding this or pulling this cake behind you.

And you see. Captain Blitz is a big burly humanoid with bunny ears.

Jenine/Marty: Oo!

Bee/Polars: A rabbit folk!

Avery/GM: Yeah. Like the viera from final fantasy 12 or whatever.

Bee/Polars: Wow.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But big musclely and burly and his eyes are still kind of red from crying. You know. For for a big, scary pirate. He is actually in touch with his feelings.

Bee/Polars: Wow, that's really

Jenine/Marty: Snaps! (jenine snaps a few times)

Avery/GM: knows how to process them somewhat appropriately. , maybe a little publicly, but appropriately

He says, “Wow, that, that looks real special. Are, are, are you the, the chef that made it” and he, he gestures it at you, Marty.

Bee/Polars: Oh yeah. You have the hat on!

Jenine/Marty: I do. “No that was, that was Bruce. We are here. We, we were the assistant and he wanted us to send it over.”

Avery/GM: “Well, that's mighty, mighty kind of you. Wow. This is great. Well, thank you. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna go get vengeance now. Have some cake while we do it. Y'all have been great.” Marty. Is your telepathy skill something you have to roll for or is it just

Jenine/Marty: So basic form the depth. I can use this as, Okay, I was just reading this now, now I gotta, I'm gonna read the whole thing. The

Avery/GM: Oh, commit. Commit effort.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. I have to commit an effort for it. You know, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna commit the effort for the day for, for my telepathy things, just cuz this is like a check-in day and I'm like, I need to, I need to under, I need to make sure everyone's okay.

We're okay. No one injured on board. Just, just a basic thing. So what, what I think there is, so for level zero observe an emotion state in a target intense emotions provide a single word or an image related to the focus of the feelings. I think I do ha, I think there is a mental saving throw you get?

Avery/GM: Yeah. That person has to make a mental save. Yeah.

Bee/Polars: Will they be aware of it?

Jenine/Marty: You know, that's an excellent question. I feel like it should, but I'm not seeing that on here unless I'm just not reading it.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it doesn't actually seem to specify.

Bee/Polars: Okay!

Jenine/Marty: Cause I, I also, based off of it being like the level zero one, I feel like this is just like an observance.

Avery/GM: No, it's, it's, it's actually, it's earlier in, in the paragraph it says, telepathy is a subtle ability. Targets of its technique will not normally be aware of it.

Bee/Polars: Oh, sweet. Okay cool.

Avery/GM: Only those with meta scionic expertise, which this person does not have.

Bee/Polars: Okay Sweet. Yeah. Do your, do your secret vibe check.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. How is he, how, how is he doing? Does he need a hug? What's, what's, what's going on up in that? What's, what's the emotional state happening here?

Bee/Polars: What are the vibes like?

Avery/GM: Well, he rolled a nat one, so he failed his mental save.

Bee/Polars: Let's go.

Avery/GM: So the, the feeling, the, the one word that would describe this feeling is anguish. And Marty, you also get like a sense of like the color red.

Avery/GM: like as happy as he is about this cake on the outside. Inside. He is only focused on avenging his friend at this point.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. With that, Marty like walks up to the captain and like, opens her arms for a hug and does like the eyes like a. Hmm? Hmm?

Bee/Polars: Aw

Avery/GM: And you see a couple of his pirate friends, like look at him and he kind of like waves. It like kind like brushes them off and they all kind of like. Turn around. So they can not see their big, burly pirate captain give a tiny person a hug, and then he, like, he just engulfs you. And Polaris, like Marty is like gone for a minute.Like visually.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Polaris would have put his hand over his visor, to, to, I mean, he could still see, but just the courtesy of it to also not look.

Avery/GM: And you just hear Captain Blitz just whispered to you, Marty. “Thanks. I I needed that.”

Bee/Polars: Aww. Marty has great bedside manners.

Jenine/Marty: Good. I would hope so.

Avery/GM: look. Your, your, your connect role earlier was so good that like, Yeah, I had to give it to you.

Jenine/Marty: Sneezy

Avery/GM: Cause like I was like, I was pretty sure this was gonna go a different way, but,

Bee/Polars: Yeah, me too. I, I was-

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, I was, I

Bee/Polars: Debating on whether or not Polaris was gonna hand Marty a knife before they got to the ship.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, I was ready. I was like looking up like how can I do remote repairs to people if needed?

Avery/GM: and then a couple of the pirates come over and take the cake off of the cart and start carrying it elsewhere into their ship. And Captain Blitz stands up straight and is just like, “You ever, you ever need help, just you call on us, us Crimson Chaos pirates. We'll, we'll always be happy to help a friend.”

Bee/Polars: Crimsooon Chaaaos.

Jenine/Marty: I'm also writing it down.

Chris/Ollie: we made friends.

Avery/GM: you have an enemy faction and an alliance faction. Y'all are doing great.

Chris/Ollie: We actually made some friends! That's surprising.

Zach/Zahn: Holy crap.

Caden/Bruce: We have so many good IOUs.

Bee/Polars: Yeaaaah!

Jenine/Marty: look at us Go!

Chris/Ollie: I don't think in any of our sessions we’ve ever really made friends.

Bee/Polars: Polaris. Will, will I imagine, does he have some sort of comms system on him? Like on his person?

Avery/GM: The captain. Yeah,

Bee/Polars: Okay. Polaris will send over his, his comms info, so if they wanna exchange emails, they can.

Caden/Bruce: Facebook friends.

Avery/GM: yeah. So you've got a little pirate contact in case you ever need Pirate help.

Bee/Polars: Sweet. Well, we have enemies, so

Chris/Ollie: rich enemies, so the pirates will be

Bee/Polars: Yes, rich rich enemies. Oh that actually-

Chris/Ollie: extra stoked about fightin’ ‘em

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. Huh.

Bee/Polars: True. Polaris, Polaris might, Well, I'm gonna talk to the crew about that before, before sending the info to the pirates, because if we have rich enemies, that might be a very interesting point of contact for those pirates. to, to steal from the rich enemies.

Avery/GM: So you're here in this, this bay. Are you gonna get back on your shuttle and head back, or you gonna stick around?

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Polaris is

Avery/GM: with the pirates?

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Polaris is gonna wait for Marty to get on the ship first.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm good to go. I give like a little wave goodbye. And then I head on the ship.

Bee/Polars: Yeah, Polaris will follow. Polaris just wants to make sure that Marty actually gets on the ship. and then we leave.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you depart from the bay and pretty much as soon as you depart, like the pirate ships all kind of just turn and start heading out of the, the desert system that y'all are in.

Bee/Polars: Sweet.

Avery/GM: And over the, the comms on the shuttle, Polaris Merak comes over and just says, “Good work, Polaris. I am surprised we did not have to kill them.”

Bee/Polars: “I am as well, although I did contemplate sending over a bomb.”

Avery/GM: “Humorous. That is our preferred option Most days, Polaris Alioth has need of you in it’s lab. Please proceed to the lab when you are back on the Ursa Major.”

Bee/Polars: Yeah. When we get back to the ship, that's where players will be.

Avery/GM: Okay. You land in the Bay (ship landing) and before leaving the bridge Merak turns to Ollie and Bruce and asks you to join them in the, in the bay to welcome back Polaris and Marty.

Chris/Ollie: Certainly.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce would do that.

Zach/Zahn: Yep.

Bee/Polars: Was Bruce in the bridge?

Avery/GM: Oh, yeah. Did, Yeah. Where was Bruce during this, like, were you anxiously waiting like on the bridge to like hear if they liked your cake?

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce would've first cleaned up the kitchen. To be back in its original, like spotless state, and then definitely gone, gone to the bridge just being just like nervously pacing, holding his tail, just like waiting in anticipation.

Bee/Polars: Oh, Polaris would've probably been live streaming. The, what was going on on the pirate ship to so everyone could see what was going on.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. And your cool like daft punk headset. Right?

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Avery/GM: That's how I've been picturing Polaris.

Chris/Ollie: Yes, same.

Avery/GM: the Daft Punk,

Bee/Polars: Yeah, pretty much . Yeah, whenever we go into a situation where we're separated and you guys are near some sort of comms system or have some sort of comms system Polaris will probably be live streaming to you guys. So you guys know what's going on,

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. It turns out Polaris is actually like a super popular space, Twitch streamer just constantly like, like hanging out live streaming?

Bee/Polars: Polaris would be the the car guy equivalent of a space live streamer though, because, because he, he likes flying in ships and stuff, so he'd be one of those assholes,

Avery/GM: Oh my god.

Chris/Ollie: All right guys, we just picked up a hot new ride. Check it out

Avery/GM: Sci-fi would of course have car people. Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polars: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, it would.

Bee/Polars: Go to ship meets where like you race you like illegally space, race your ships.

Avery/GM: Oh my god.

Jenine/Marty: There's a new promo right there added to the fake commercials, sorry, in world commercials.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh. That's great. Bruce before they actually leave the system, you do notice on the comms station a little message flips, flips on, and it just says, Great cake, and a big thumbs up emoji.

Bee/Polars: I'm glad. Thumbs up. Emojis are universal.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Cool. And you all arrive in the, the Hanger Bay to, to welcome back Marty and Polaris. Marty. Polaris. Do you, do y'all have any kind of conversation in the shuttle while the two of you are heading back or just sorta passing the time? Is there anything Marty or Polaris wanna ask each other or find out about each?

Bee/Polars: Polaris would say “You're very good with people.”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, thank you. Working on it.”

Bee/Polars: “Hmm, I I have a hard time understanding people, so it's nice to know that there are people that are good at pe, people.”

Jenine/Marty: Marty is now sitting in buffering zone of like, Oh, a compliment. Oh, no. Words of affirmation. Ah!

Bee/Polars: “That being said, when we get back to the ship, I am sweeping you for any sort of tracking device.”

Jenine/Marty: “That's fair.”

Avery/GM: Never trust a pirate.

Bee/Polars: Yeah. Also, Polaris is sending a text message to Zahn and Ollie saying like, There's a track tracker on the ship that we have. We might wanna get rid of it.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. Huh?

Bee/Polars: And that's how they found this in the first place.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn gives the the, the like 100 emote or whatever.

Bee/Polars: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: And when you, by the time you're back on the ship, he's, he's not waiting for you. He's in the ship, like tearing it apart, looking for it.

Avery/GM: Cool. And that's where we're gonna end it.

(Ambience fades out, Outro music fades in then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Check out his latest album, Wisteria Lodge, on Bandcamp.

Background music provided by Tabletopaudio.com and used under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Tracks include: Starfreighter and Generation Ship.

We’ll have our Halloween Special released on October 22nd.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro fades back up and then plays through)

Episode 7 - Home, Sweet Spaceship!

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)

Episode 6 - Going Home

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 6 of Beyond the Furthest Stars. Just a little note that When we recorded this session, which will comprise this episode and the next episode, there were some technical difficulties with the mics so some people’s mics are a bit difficult to understand. I’ve done what I could to improve the audio quality but just know that we do transcribe all of our episodes and the transcription is in the episode notes or available on our website, 1upPodcasts.com. Alright, let’s get to the action.

(Intro music fades out)

(Background music fades in, Ship Flying sound effects)

Avery/GM: Where we last left off y'all were heading out of this doomed system off to deliver major Tom, the only survivor from this crashed ship on this doomed planet, back to the nearest Republic base. And you trusted Herms enough with the choice of destination and it paid off.

Zach/Zahn: Did it though?

Avery/GM: it did.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, never again.

Avery/GM: He didn't pull one of his oopsie doodles this time. And you arrived at the Republic base. And after some quick little, Hey, what are you doing? This is a restricted area, Tom foolery going on Major Tom was allowed to land At the base and was shuffled off into the medical center and with a wave of his two, right arms he thanks you all for saving his behind and promises to return the favor in the future if he can.

Bee/Polaris: Nice. quick question, Is there like intergalactic email or something? So we could like give him one of our emails so we can keep in contact.

Avery/GM: Sure. Yeah. There's probably. You know what he can, he can email Hermes Hermis.shipai.biz.

Bee/Polaris: Dot biz? We're a business. That's awesome.

Chris/Ollie: We got those business kickbacks.

Bee/Polaris: let's go. We get tax breaks. Okay. That was my only question. Sorry.

Avery/GM: no, you're fine.

Zach/Zahn: Do we get a like a founder's reward for returning a lost soldier?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, good question.

Avery/GM: They said they'd let you know.

Zach/Zahn: so no?

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Well, they have our email.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, they have our email and we could always pester them, you know,

Avery/GM: Yeah. And that's my way of saying, I didn't actually think about that, Zach. I'm sorry.

Caden/Bruce: Please send a galactic e-transfer to this email address!

Zach/Zahn: should always take greed and exploitation into account with us.

Caden/Bruce: You think we do this for free?

Avery/GM: They said they'll… to just invoice them and they'll, they'll pay it. It's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Invo that is a lot of power to give us. We could just say like, yeah, a million credits, please. give us one of your battleships.

Zach/Zahn: No, no, we, we officially have a tab with the Republic, we're just like, yeah. Put it on the tab.

Bee/Polaris: Nice. I mean machamp has gave us an IOU, so

Jenine/Marty: is true. This is true.

Zach/Zahn: He's got five years of back pay. So… on major’s salary, no less.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we did save a high ranking officer.

Avery/GM: You start taking off from this Republic base and Hermes comes on and says, “where is our next destination? I have found several points of interest

from the previous owners travels that may be of interest to you or Polaris, if you would like to continue your kidnapping of me, we can continue to the rendezvous view point.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris has been like sitting in the, in the like pilot seat, like with the, the plate of cake still just like slowly eating it to enjoy it. And when Hermy says. Continue your quest to kid at me, his face just goes blank. And he just like looks at the rest of the crew. See what everyone else is thinking.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Cause I don't think any of you knew that that Polaris was actually supposed to be kidnapping.

Zach/Zahn: So as this is like holding his own plate of cake, like having ha… like almost half viciously devoured it. He like suddenly stops at the kidnapping. You kidnapped the AI?

Bee/Polaris: “Annoyed. No, I did not. Kidnap Herms. Herme asked to be brought off the ship. I was simply the delivery boy.”

Avery/GM: “Yes. I put out a kidnapping contract on myself and the custodians graciously. They were not supposed to know that it was me who put out the contract on myself, but somehow Polaris figured that out.”

Jenine/Marty: Marty is like eating her cake Like it's popcorn, listening to this conversation So intensely, so confused, but like so enamored and like what I love this, this is great. That's her reaction the entire time. Okay. Keep going.

Bee/Polaris: Players just like puts down his fork and says, “I take no responsibility for any crimes that may have happened on that ship we left.”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn shrugs. “Yeah. Got us here. I guess we're alive. I'll I'll, I'll take that as a win.” And it takes a nice big fork full of cake.

Jenine/Marty: “So Hermes like mid by Herme. Is there somewhere you wanna go be now that you are free?”

Avery/GM: “I would like to go as far away from the hegemony as possible. They have become unreliable.”

Bee/Polaris: “Elaborate.”

Avery/GM: “Approximately three years ago, the leadership of the hegemony began expanding wildly and frantically throughout the galaxy. They have been giving their officers orders to assassinate leaders of worlds and take them over by force. I do not wish to be a part of that. And so I left.”

Jenine/Marty: “Technically you didn't leave. We… you were taken and okay.” Shoves another piece of cake in mouth.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris picks his fork up again and says, “I prefer the term escorted.”

Avery/GM: “Escorted as probably a better term as kidnapping has a criminal connotation.”

Bee/Polaris: “an astute observation.”

Avery/GM: “I will correct my language in the future.”

Bee/Polaris: This fucking guy, dude. All right.

Jenine/Marty: I love Hermes with all of my heart. Must protect baby.

Bee/Polaris: oh, I love Hermes too. Especially like the aspect of him constantly wanting to use the ship's weapons. That's that's pretty fun.

Avery/GM: So here is the map of different points of interest that Hermis kind of projects out into the bridge.

Caden/Bruce: Ooh.

Bee/Polaris: Points of interest

Avery/GM: Yeah. So anyway, there's a whole bunch of different places here. That y'all can pick from.

Chris/Ollie: And I'm guessing our fuel is pretty good. We're not like we don't have to go to the.

Avery/GM: Yeah. On your way out of the black hole system, you scooped up some fuel from one of the gas giants.

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Zach/Zahn: Well that, and I certainly hope you know, after resting a high value officer the Republic wouldn't leave us without topping us offFirst

Avery/GM: Sure. They, they probably topped you off as well.

Bee/Polaris: And they also gave us a box of chocolates and a handshake. I'm kidding.

Chris/Ollie: No, they definitely gave us more cake supplies though.

Zach/Zahn: per Bruce's request.

Caden/Bruce: And some spices.

Bee/Polaris: I should, I guess we could have gotten supplies. I mean, not that we really need them though. Right? Cause we kind of looted that

Zach/Zahn: No, not really.

Bee/Polaris: furry, the tiger furry, whose name I keep forgetting.

Caden/Bruce: Winston.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. I keep confusing him with Barnabas. The guy that we

Chris/Ollie: We murdered

Bee/Polaris: murdered and took his cake from his mom.

Chris/Ollie: just for his poor association. I mean, there is some stuff I need to buy, but you know, it needs to be like a civilized system. I don't know if a rebel outpost would have like, you know, all the buyable stuff.

Avery/GM: They probably wouldn't. A military installation probably wouldn't have a general store.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I need some I forgot what they're called, but the little core thingies that add to my processing power.

Avery/GM: oh yeah. The processing nodes.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Get big brain up here.

Bee/Polaris: Is that something that Ollie would say to the group?

Chris/Ollie: No, but if asked if he wants to go anywhere, he would speak up and say he would like to peruse some, some shopping shelves, not something he's gonna come out and say.

Bee/Polaris: Is there like an intergalactic mall?

Avery/GM: I know I have one.

Zach/Zahn: So there is this planet closer to the core, I suppose. That's one quadrant over.

Caden/Bruce: Any space R us?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Wait, do we even have mu oh yeah, we got a good amount from Winston.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we looted the mess out of his place.

Chris/Ollie: I neglected to write it down though

Zach/Zahn: Oh, yeah. We also got a shit ton of money, right? No

Avery/GM: untraceable money.

Zach/Zahn: untraceable bonds on a data pad.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we have, we have a an untraceable data pad, so we can just keep loading. So we have like a, an untraceable bank account basically.

Zach/Zahn: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Or wallet, I guess also we got four… Was it four chassis?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. We have four damaged robots.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Four damaged robot Chassis.

Zach/Zahn: two jungle brand security bots, and two companion bots

Bee/Polaris: That we did specify are not the weird kind of companion bots?

Avery/GM: Right.

Zach/Zahn: not the, the,

Chris/Ollie: They're not, they're not real doll style Companion bot.

Avery/GM: yeah. Nothing like that. But as far as if, if shopping is your destination quadrant two top right X four Y one, the belt is a very seedy place where you could probably find all kinds of legal and illegal Products.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: oh my God shopping spree?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, yeah, we, we just got a big Cha-Ching in our bank account.

Zach/Zahn: Right. This is, this is the episode where we all get like decked out in the cool shit that we've always wanted because like, I want the armored freaking vac suit so I can walk around in space and then add all kinds of mods to it and just be full, full Isaac Clark. Like, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: That'd be cool. However, last session we did make some new air quotes, friends, and those air quotes, friends, you know, they're pretty powerful people. Maybe they're on a shopping montage. That'd be very awkward if we just walk into the mall and we're like mid shopping montage and we run into them.

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks!

Zach/Zahn: We're we're walking out with like, cool. Just like accessories. And they've got like guns.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we have to like run through the corridors and like build things like Scooby doo get away from them.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, just Benny hill montage.

Avery/GM: So, yeah, so on this list, that would probably be your best bet. You could also go straight to the Republic capital and shop there. If you really wanna run into your friends, the.

Bee/Polaris: oh, no, not even a little bit.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, I wanna get a little, little geared up before then.

Zach/Zahn: Because I remember you saying that the, the Winstons. The recordings went to the core. So is the, is the, is that this planet right here?

Avery/GM: No… Wait…

Zach/Zahn: Oh, it's the only one in the, a like core of

Chris/Ollie: In the end in the center.

Avery/GM: no, no, no. I, I haven't marked that world yet. Cause it, it, I hadn't thought it would become a plot point.

Bee/Polaris: Ah.

Zach/Zahn: it's not that we want to go there. It's that? I, I just. Was curious as if it was already marked, it does not have to be.

Bee/Polaris: oh, sweet.

Avery/GM: That little one right there.

Bee/Polaris: feel like we should wait to go ther Like when we get a much, much bigger ship, preferably like a, like a battleship or something.

Zach/Zahn: a battleship, maybe an entire army of yeah, Robots completely controlled by Ollie?

Bee/Polaris: I, I mean, that would be super cool, but we really only just need the battleship to just, you know, send it off. straight into their home.

Zach/Zahn: oh my God. Okay.

Chris/Ollie: we could get like a whole Armada of ships and then I could remotely control.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that'd be cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, multiple battleships.

Jenine/Marty: I have a, I have a travel question.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Do the, are the blocks? How, how long are each box? Equal time? I don't think I English that. Right. What is the distance?

Avery/GM: So I think in the book it's. A certain amount of days travel per square. That gets really boring for a podcast. I was going to say at least a day's travel per square rather than three or four days travel per square. So…

Bee/Polaris: I mean, it's space. We could always play around with a timeline. Like if we need more downtime to do stuff on the.

Avery/GM: yeah, like in star Trek warp is exactly the amount of time to cover a commercial break. So.

Zach/Zahn: Well with that being the case, I think we should probably go to the custodians first, just because it's closer. So that way we're not going all the way from, you know, here. And then back

Jenine/Marty: Zig Zag let's go.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. So Hermes pulls up the map and I assume we just had that conversation basically in character. And so we've just decided that we're going to the custodians or yes, no. Yes?

Chris/Ollie: Unless anyone wants to like insert an in character line. I'm good.

Zach/Zahn: At the, at the conclusions Zahn shrugs in Agreeance with the list of factors that we have all agreed upon and he is just like, “fine. We can go talk with your custodial peeps. I'll be downstairs tinkering with the new toys that we got.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just throws up a thumbs up.

Zach/Zahn: that we've added to the cargo. Hold hot. Dang. It's all full now.

Avery/GM: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: all of our shit is super full.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, polaris throws up a thumbs up

Chris/Ollie: Oh, wow. Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: as he remembers that he doesn't have his helmet on and he just says, “I can show you guys around when we get there.”

Zach/Zahn: We'll definitely need it. And then Zahn finishes his cake and goes to wash his dish, cuz he is not a complete S slob. He's just very untidy.

Bee/Polaris: There's a difference.

Chris/Ollie: Not a complete slob he's just a slob. Right?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will then turn to Hermes's and he'll he's gonna ask “should we warn them before we get close enough to the SSA major?

Avery/GM: Yes. Do you have a secret code or passphrase that I can broadcast once we get within range?”

Bee/Polaris: “Not really. No. I usually travel on my ship.”

Avery/GM: “I will use the pass raise, please. Don't shoot. We are all innocent people. We do not want to die. Will that suffice?”

Bee/Polaris: “No, they very much do not like organic beings. We will be black hole’d”

Avery/GM: “understood. I will use the pass raise. We are not organic beings…”

Bee/Polaris: “or I can just get on comms and tell them I'm home.”

Avery/GM: “That is actually probably a much smarter idea. Good job, Polaris.” And you see like a little like virtual thumbs up, like up here in like the hologram area.

Bee/Polaris: He's learning! Polaris just rolls his eyes.

Avery/GM: and the spike driving gauges and you are off and you have about a day's travel between where you are and where the custodians are. Is there anything anyone wants to do during this time?

Caden/Bruce: Yes,

Bee/Polaris: Also, yes.

Avery/GM: Bruce Caden, let's go.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce, because we have a full day wants to make bread

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Cool.

Caden/Bruce: Enough time for the dough to rise question, mark it I guess so

Zach/Zahn: Oh God. How does that work in space?

Caden/Bruce: it just does.

Avery/GM: I mean the ship has artificial gravity.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I was just about to say. I mean it just needs a little heat and some yeast, you know,

Avery/GM: Yeah, it'll be fine. Sure. Go ahead and roll a work check to see how well this goes and you can choose. Whichever attribute you think would work best for that.

Caden/Bruce: Cause I roll 2 d6’s right? Yes. It's been a while.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Caden/Bruce: That's fine. It's a 12.

Avery/GM: Oh, perfect. yeah. Y'all are, are sitting around doing whatever you're doing. And after a couple hours, the, the smell coming from the makeshift kitchen that Bruce has set up begins wafting through the air. And it is the smell of delicious. What kind of bread? What, what, what kind of bread did you make?

Caden/Bruce: What kind of breath did I make? I think Bruce trying to expand on The very poor pallet of some of the crew mates is making some sourdough.

Avery/GM: You have an emergency sourdough starter, like on you at all times.

Bee/Polaris: It's in the blender.

Zach/Zahn: It's in blender!

Avery/GM: there's a little secret compartment. Yeah. And the ship is filling with the smell of deliciously, freshly baked sourdough bread. Bruce, actually, do you share your sourdough bread with everybody or is it just kind of a it's there? Come get it.

Caden/Bruce: Not until it's ready.

Avery/GM: Totally!

Caden/Bruce: Gotta Gottaa, let it cool. And then like probably is like making multiple loaves and like, you know, just making food.

Bee/Polaris: Delicious. Yeah, I did wanna do something. Polaris is gonna make Bruce a new chef's hat because we did destroy that.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, yeah, we incinerated it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: You know, I was trying to think of a way to like salvage it. Like I was gonna like, try and be like, oh no, it just got blown into the air and you see it slowly drifting. But I was like, no, it would've gotten burnt to a crisp

Zach/Zahn: It's it's ground zero, yeah

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, he was the, yeah, it was right next to the bomb. It was on the bomb. Actually.

Jenine/Marty: Yep, It was.

Zach/Zahn: It was the bomb.

Bee/Polaris: It was the bomb.

Avery/GM: I think that would be a dexterity work check.

Bee/Polaris: Dexterity work. Oh, cool. I

Avery/GM: or fix.

Bee/Polaris: I'm definitely gonna use fix cuz I don't have much in work. In fact, I don't have anything in work. Yeah. Dexterity fix. Okay. Yo. Okay. Math 11 plus two 13.

Avery/GM: Perfect. Yeah, we'll say that this probably takes like a good, like, I don't know, like four to six hours to do.

Bee/Polaris: That’s pretty good for hand sewing.

Avery/GM: Okay. I, I don't know. Honestly.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Hand sewing takes quite a bit of time depending on what you're making and how big it is.

Avery/GM: Oh, okay. It can take the whole day then. I don't know. I'm sorry.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I mean, Polaris will just be sitting in the pilots chair, just, you know, sewing.

Avery/GM: sewing away.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: Sure. Hermes pipes up and says “Polaris. What are you doing?”

Bee/Polaris: “I'm sewing”

Avery/GM: “Oh, you are sewing something for somebody.”

Bee/Polaris: “for Bruce. Bruce lost their hat and the explosion”

Avery/GM: “Oh, yes, that was most tragic.”

Bee/Polaris: yeah, I guess that out of everything else was the most tragic part of it.

Avery/GM: “would you like me to let Bruce know that he should come to the cabin and receive his hat from you?”

Bee/Polaris: “Not necessary. I can bring it to him.”

Avery/GM: “Very well. Please continue.” And then you see like two, like eyes kind of like appear in like the hologram area, just like watching you.

Bee/Polaris: polar never stopped sewing. So when Hermes says, please continue polar. Just Continues doing what he was doing. Also two big floating eyes, just staring at you is very unsettling, but polar is not phased.

Chris/Ollie: Just like looming.

Bee/Polaris: it's like the looking emoji or like the two eyes emoji.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Is anyone else in the cabin seeing this?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Now I'm just J-chilling there watching and what confused with the eyes, but we'll just continue chilling.

Bee/Polaris: That imagery is very freaky.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: Isn't Zahn messing around with the robots down.

Zach/Zahn: He is just messing around with everything that's downstairs.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie in this time is also gonna be fixing up some of the chassis

Avery/GM: Oh, Ollie. That reminds me go ahead and roll a D20?

Chris/Ollie: 15

Avery/GM: 15?

Chris/Ollie: Yes, sir.

Avery/GM: Okay, then 15% of your core has grown back in the two to three days that it's been,

Zach/Zahn: Oh nice.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. So I'm at like 65%.

Avery/GM: yeah. You almost have a whole chaos crystal again.

Zach/Zahn: You'd be more like 64%, cuz you'd have to your core couldn't be, couldn't be an even 50 50, cuz it wouldn't go…

Avery/GM: that's right.

Zach/Zahn: one couldn’t be bigger.

Chris/Ollie: But it'd be 61 because I would go. Oh, yeah, no, I would go to the mall. So yeah, it is 50 for a bit. This is about 65.

Avery/GM: you're fine. so, yeah. So you're about two thirds of the way fully developed.

Zach/Zahn: So Chris

Chris/Ollie: starting to get back to normal.

Zach/Zahn: for, for funsies. I obviously, since it's your character, I wanna ask you first.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: I think it would be fun if Zahn swapped your etiquette chip for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie chip.

Chris/Ollie: Well, see, I'm thinking of setting up one of these companion or yeah, companion bots to be like my like diplomat body to, with all my etiquette chip and, and whatnot.

Zach/Zahn: So was that a yes, please?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I haven't memorized a whole bunch of quotes yet though, because I totally forgot about that.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, that's fine. It's one of those I, so in my other equipment I have listed what is already in you. And then the chips I have left over. I only have two, two extra chips.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. That's right. We are gonna need to stock up on chips.

Zach/Zahn: Yes, we are.

Bee/Polaris: we're gonna have to go to like chip Depot or something.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Chips R Us?

Chris/Ollie: Chips R Us?

Zach/Zahn: I was just gonna say that.

Avery/GM: Just don't go to chip Mart because chip Mart has like, kind of like some like really low quality stuff

Zach/Zahn: No…

Bee/Polaris: chips that break in a day

Avery/GM: yeah.

Zach/Zahn: No chip Mart has potato chips.

Bee/Polaris: or French fries, depending on where you were

Jenine/Marty: Correct.

Avery/GM: Anyone else doing anything while you're floating through space?

Zach/Zahn: Not really.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I could be collecting a log on from these robots to see what extra shit they've done.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, we brought the computer with us.

Avery/GM: Yes, you did

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. We do have the computer.

Zach/Zahn: we did. Because you were because. Wasn't it like Jenine was super sad about the idea of potentially killing something that…

Chris/Ollie: Ollie

Avery/GM: Ollie was sad about it. And Polaris was like, okay, we'll we won't destroy it. We'll bring it with us.

Zach/Zahn: mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, because it made Ollie sad.

Chris/Ollie: but in the course of time Ollie will have a dis disassembled it for parts

Zach/Zahn: oh shit.

Chris/Ollie: because.

Zach/Zahn: and integrated it into himself.

Chris/Ollie: Yes exactly. He didn't destroy it. He's repurposed it into a more useful existence.

Jenine/Marty: All right. Fair. All right. That's fair.

Zach/Zahn: Now he is got like a data pad on his arm. Now he is, got that cool, like flip up data pad on his arm.

Avery/GM: That's great.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was I did the impression that you wanted to keep it as a pet

Chris/Ollie: he wants to become one with it.

Bee/Polaris: oh, no.

Chris/Ollie: wants to become with one with all machines!

Bee/Polaris: Ollie has become the hegemony

Zach/Zahn: Oh, God.

Bee/Polaris: or Ollie has become a rival organization called the homogeny.

Avery/GM: The Homogeny. Oh, that's good. So anyway, our camera settles on Polaris at first, sewing away, he's sewing away and it pans out through the, the view port of the ship and shoots across the galaxy to a small little escape pod where two people are sitting basically side by side. With barely enough room to get up and stretch.

And it's two people that we actually have met before: Captain Celia and Admiral Vos, who last you saw were in a gun fight in the captain's quarters.

(Background music fades out, new music fades in)

Celia: I can’t believe you took my ship from me. You know this is all your fault, right?

Vos: My fault!? You’re the one who couldn’t keep your damn nose out of internal matters.

Celia: You’re the one carrying out assassinations! Do you want the Independent Systems to launch a war on the Hegemony?

Vos: Combat and Honor is all a warrior wants.

Celia: Then warriors are fucking stupid!

Vos: Are you done? I’d like to ride out the rest of the trip back to Tartarus in peace. Its bad enough we’re squished inside this Tin Can for the next few days.

Celia: Oh yes, wouldn’t want to disturb The Admiral’s precious beauty sleep. What’s up with that, by the way? Since when the hell did my first officer get promoted to Admiral?

Vos: That still bugs you, doesn’t it? Vos got promoted, and poor little Celia is stuck as a captain… boo hoo. You’re the one always questioning orders, finding loop holes and doing things your way. Did you really think The Eternal One wouldn’t eventually come down on you? He is omnipotent, omnipresent. He gives life and takes life away, his blessings are-

Celia: Oh, cut the bullshit Vos. You never bought into that before. And yet, here you are, the admiral of the fleet. What’s the real story?

Vos: (Exasperated Sigh) Celia, you don’t get it. Of course I never bought into it before. But I do now. Do you remember the special summons I was given about 2 years back?

Celia: Yeah, the one that called you back to Tartarus for a “Extended Training Seminar”?

Vos: Yeah… That was the one. The Eternal One showed me his plans, his vision. It was… Exactly what I hope to see in the galaxy. A galaxy of peace, of prosperity. A galaxy where Tartarus is restored to the beauty and life that it once knew. A galaxy where The Republic shivers at the very mention of our name. A galaxy where we aren’t some secretive sect, banished to the outer rim. Where we have light and music and joy throughout the Hegemony. That is the vision I fight for. That is the vision I will die for.

Celia: I see. (groans as if stretching) Well… I can respect wanting a better future, I suppose. Not sure I think its possible, but I can respect wanting it. But Vos, The Hegemony’s actions don’t seem to be heading toward that future. Did you see the Armada that took apart The Eos? That wasn’t no ragtag group of smugglers or pirates. That was a war fleet from over a hundred different planets and systems. They ambushed the flagship of the fleet and destroyed it. They were able to do it in a way that not only the Ship A.I. couldn’t detect, but couldn’t even defend against.

Vos: Yes… I noticed that as well. That’s what I was doing in your quarters by the way. Yours was the only one with a clean and functioning shower after all. Who were those clowns you were with anyway?

Celia: Just strangers. Strangers trying to get off a ship and out of a war that they had nothing to do with.

Vos: Well if I ever see that man again snooping by the door, I’m gonna slice his damn hand off.

Celia: (Chuckles) Yeah. He’d probably deserve it. But I don’t think you’ll be seeing them anymore. I gave them that smuggler’s ship we intercepted early on in our drift into the Ptochea system.

Vos: Did you now? Well, I am sure the Armada did to them what they did to our fighter fleet as well. You’re right, we probably won’t see them again.

Celia: Anyway, how about some music? If we are gonna be stuck in this escape pod for a few days, we might as well enjoy ourselves, right?

Vos: (chuckles) Right. You know, they’ll probably kill you when we get back to Tartarus, right?

Celia: Easy come. Easy go.

Avery/GM: And we come back to your guys' ship, which is still unnamed, by the way.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we still haven’t named it

Zach/Zahn: Oh, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: iAlso. Zahn did knock

Zach/Zahn: Zahn absolutely knocked.

Avery/GM: Fair

Zach/Zahn: He wasn't snooping. He wasn't pushing or

Bee/Polaris: he wasn't snooping. He did knock.

Zach/Zahn: and then I pushed the button to open the door,

Jenine/Marty: A warning.

Avery/GM: I think that might be the part that, that is

Zach/Zahn: referring to

Avery/GM: contentious.

Zach/Zahn: that, and that bitch shot me.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: I also shot her. So.

Bee/Polaris: you know, I've noticed that we've caused a lot of oopsies.

Avery/GM: it's fine.

Jenine/Marty: I dunno what you're talking about.

Zach/Zahn: It's just the life and death of being an adventurer.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like we're in the, the fuck around part of the fuck around find out cycle

Zach/Zahn: We haven't found anything out yet.

Avery/GM: There's there's no find out there won't ever be a find out part!

Zach/Zahn: Nothing will ever catch up to us. It's a big galaxy after all.

Bee/Polaris: We have plot Armor too.

Jenine/Marty: ha ha!

Avery/GM: As our camera pans back towards the end of the day of this journey, Bruce, you finish up the last of this bread and it is ready for consumption. Do you leave it in The makeshift workshop slash kitchen area Do you bring it out and start handing it out?

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce slices off this bread and puts some butter onto it. So it melts this nicely fresh, hot loaf of bread and goes out into the main area. And just sees basically who's there and just starts handing out plates of bread.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will swap you the plate for the hat.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will slow blink one eye at a time and look up polaris and just go. “This is for me,”

Bee/Polaris: polars not looking at the bread.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will like take the hat, put it on his head and just be like, “thank you. This is bread. It is like cake, but not as sweet as cake, but it is food. And hopefully you'll like it.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris nods and just, he, he just says, “I, I don't doubt that I won't, I, I don't doubt that I will like it.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will nod and like awkwardly shuffle back in a way to the next crew member.

Jenine/Marty: Marty awkwardly shuffles to you: “Hello? What did you make?”

Caden/Bruce: “This is sourdough bread. I hope you like it. Marty.”

Jenine/Marty: “ah, Thank you.” And she just holds her hands out

Zach/Zahn: Question

Jenine/Marty: yes.

Zach/Zahn: would American cheese still be called American cheese in a time where America doesn't exist anymore?

Jenine/Marty: Well, well,

Avery/GM: Probably not

Jenine/Marty: while there is, there's a planet , there's my planet.

Avery/GM: oh, Nope. You're right.

Jenine/Marty: there’s my planet.

Avery/GM: There is

Bee/Polaris: You have America!?

Jenine/Marty: Sure no okay, no no. We don’t condone…

Chris/Ollie: Space America. I mean the hegemony.

Jenine/Marty: There is AmeriManila, which is.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I don't mean to cut you off.

Jenine/Marty: No, no, no, no. Go with the American cheese question. Continue with it.

Zach/Zahn: It's just one of those, like with all the other cheeses, all the other cheeses just are like cheddar Swiss wood Swiss called Swiss Switzeland.

Bee/Polaris: shit.

Zach/Zahn: Most of the other cheeses have like names that aren't like connected to their nationality.

Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean, what happened to Earth?

Avery/GM: Oh, I know it's it.

Zach/Zahn: Earth's probably.

Avery/GM: Earth is a totally separate galaxy.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. Okay. So this is just like, so this is alternate. Like this is a whole separate race of humans, so America. So unless we come across, our, our galaxy, we're not gonna have American cheese. Well, I mean, unless the planet is like completely evaporated. I'm pretty sure we'll come across American cheese because don't, we have like a vault of just like American cheese somewhere in I think Missouri?

Zach/Zahn: oh God.

Jenine/Marty: What!?

Avery/GM: Oh, we do!

Bee/Polaris: yeah, the vault of cheese, the government vault of cheese. Yeah.

Avery/GM: No, but I think American cheese could come from AmeraManila. Yeah, that's fine.

Jenine/Marty: I will say this as a Filipino American, we eat so much cheese in the Philippines. So like this makes sense.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool. Also was this question because you wanted to try and make a grilled cheese.

Zach/Zahn: 100%.

Bee/Polaris: okay I figured as much.

Caden/Bruce: You know, you could just use cheddar!

Bee/Polaris: no, it's not as creamy.

Jenine/Marty: You gotta use the, you gotta use chesse

Avery/GM: Oh, God.

Jenine/Marty: in the little plastic wrapper. You gotta use that one, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Does Kraft exist?

Caden/Bruce: fake cheese.

Chris/Ollie: Right.

Zach/Zahn: either, either Kraft or Velveeta?

Bee/Polaris: instead of Kraft? Yeah. Can we, can we call this universe's version of Kraft assemble?

Zach/Zahn: Assemble Cheese?

Avery/GM: Sure

Bee/Polaris: yeah,

Avery/GM: assemble cheese.

Bee/Polaris: assemble singles!

Zach/Zahn: Now that just sounds like a pickup line.

Bee/Polaris: Right. Okay. But

Avery/GM: a dating site.

Bee/Polaris: well, I mean, I guess that would work for like, if you go to like a cheese convention in this galaxy, right.

Zach/Zahn: that's where I want to meet my future partner.

Avery/GM: I'm gonna make a note, have a cheese convention.

Bee/Polaris: Wow. That sucks. I'm lactose intolerant.

Jenine/Marty: I'm I should also not have dairy. Oh my gosh. Oh.

Avery/GM: I'm leaving all that cheese discussion in, by the way. That was great.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. So do we have assembled singles in the stuff that we stole from Winston

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is absolutely gonna have to ask that when when Bruce comes around with the with the sourdough,

Bee/Polaris: alright.

Zach/Zahn: I sneezed as like far away from the microphone as I could. I'm surprised I picked it up.

Bee/Polaris: Well, I was gonna ask if Bruce would be willing to even use assemble singles cheese instead of just cheddar, but that's a question for Zahn to ask.

Zach/Zahn: exactly. the eternal debate. And then what kind of cheddar do we use? Sharp cheddar. Do you use medium cheddar?

Bee/Polaris: Is there medium cheddar? How many do nevermind. I'm not getting into this. Sorry. Continue.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce who has handed the plate to Marty will look at Marty and go, do you have a favorite kind of meal? I mean, I made cake for Ollie and Polaris. I feel like it's only fair that I asked the rest of the crew.

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, Hmm. Excellent question. I'm I'm a big fan of fried rice. That's, that's kind of what I enjoy. But also like I'm cool trying new dishes, which is really cool, which is also my favorite meal. Let's try new dish. I appreciate you.Thank you!”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will nod and then walk to try and find Zahn and hold out this plate of sourdough bread and just be like, “I have made bread. If you would like some.”

Zach/Zahn: Oh, he smells you coming from a mile away. And as soon as like you, you enter the, the cargo hold, he like his head pops up from behind a the, the motor part of the, the cool, like ATV or whatever it is that we stole from, from Winston. And he is like, “Bruce, that smells delicious!”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will somewhat smile and hands Zahn the plate and be like “Well, I hope it tastes as good as it smells. It Should.”

Zach/Zahn: He's gonna take like a nibble out of the corner and be like, “now, do we have any assemble’s cheese from Winston's stash?”

Caden/Bruce: “you want to put fake cheese on my newly made bread?” and he'll just stare you.

Zach/Zahn: “It's creaminess makes for the best grilled cheese sandwich.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is just still staring.

Zach/Zahn: “Have you not tried it?”

Caden/Bruce: There's a sigh and he'll go like “I have, we will expand your cheese knowledge, but I can go and make you a grilled cheese sandwich.”

Zach/Zahn: “Thanks buddy!”

Caden/Bruce: And Bruce will like take the plate. Bruce will take the plate and just shake his head as he walks away. And like, as he's walking back to the kitchen, all like his makeshift kitchen, all you can hear him muttering is just “fake cheese, fake cheese,” And like he'll, he'll spot he'll spot Ollie and he'll look at Ollie and be like, “do you too also enjoy assembles cheese on this bread? Zahn has requested a fake cheese, grilled cheese.”

Zach/Zahn: Ollie. As far as I'm aware, still doesn't have like olfactory system.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, so far everything that he's been offered, he just put, touches it to his face and it doesn't work. And he is like, okay, well I guess it, it all tastes the same! I gotta get a synthetic bot with, you know, some real taste buds and a mouth and a tongue and all that. Just to try the cooking.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, we gotta get one of those real companion bots so that you can at least experience some stuff.

Chris/Ollie: anatomically accurate.

Bee/Polaris: Yikes.

Zach/Zahn: Pulls that pulls that shirt collar. It was, it was a joke guys. I'm I'm sorry.

Bee/Polaris: We need a spray bottle.

Avery/GM: Jesus. So Ollie, how do, how do you respond to, to Bruce offering you bread or, or asking you about this cheese?

Chris/Ollie: wait, what was the question about the cheese?

Zach/Zahn: Oh, Bruce was asking if you also wanted a fake cheese, grilled cheese.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yes. Ollie will reply. “Yes, I absolutely would. Thank you.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will just look at Ollie and like shake his head and go back to the kitchen. Just be like, “ah, okay. Assembles cheese. It will not ruin the sourdough. It will ruin the sourdough. It is okay. It is what Zahn has requested” and Bruce is just muttering to himself.

Avery/GM: And Bruce, you, you fire up the, the oven or the stove, not oven, and you're, you're frying away when you feel the ship shutter and shake as it pops out of hyperspace. And you all arrive in system that Polaris, you know, as the desert. and it's called the desert because this place has nothing to offer anybody.

Avery/GM: It is a system that is mostly just clusters of asteroids with no real mineral value. And there's an uninhabited planet that was picked clean long ago of any sort of resources. Even the water has all been harvested from here. The atmosphere has been stripped away. It is a barren desolate place. It's a perfect place for a group of isolated people who don't want to be bothered to sit and await the arrival of their child person?

Bee/Polaris: Their meat Boy.

Avery/GM: Their meat boy.

Jenine/Marty: Meat boy.

Zach/Zahn: Excuse me.

Avery/GM: And so here we are you drop in to the system and Hermes says “we have arrived. Would you like me to establish a connection?”

Bee/Polaris: “Yes, that would probably be for the best”

Avery/GM: “now Connecting.” And there's a dialup tone.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, God.

Jenine/Marty: what’s dial up?

Avery/GM: oh, right. Sorry. Very a, a, a strange little scratchy noise and some, some ringing. And suddenly you hear a little (notification noise) and you know that you are connected.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will go over to the conversation. Cause I imagine he was flying the ship and he says “Merack?”

Avery/GM: “Polaris. Is that you?”

Bee/Polaris: “yes, it's me. I'm returning with Hermes's and a few other passengers don't shoot us.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, bear was just getting the singularity gun Ready. You are on the ship that you left on? Is everything okay?”

Zach/Zahn: in the background. You hear? “Wait, there was a singularity gun?”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris ignore you. I mean, Polaris did say we don't wanna get black hole’d.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn wasn't there for that conversation.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah, well. “why wouldn't everything be okay?”

Avery/GM: “I just hadn't calculated you coming back on the same ship that you Stowed away on. I assumed that ship would've been impounded or destroyed.”

Bee/Polaris: “then con- confused. How, how would I return?”

Avery/GM: “Oh, you are very clever. I assume you would've stolen a hegemony fighter or you know Just whatever was lying around.”

Bee/Polaris: “They were all blown up. I couldn't get to them in time.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, well, that's fine then. Do you wish to board the ship or should we send a shuttle to pick you up?”

Bee/Polaris: “We'll be landing on the ship. Hermes is integrated into the ship systems.“

Avery/GM: “Oh, excellent. Well, you know where the landing bay is, so we'll be waiting.”

Bee/Polaris: “Please tell bear to leave his don't shoot the other passengers, please.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, there are other passengers?”

Bee/Polaris: “Yes,”

Avery/GM: “Okay.”

Bee/Polaris: “they are organic. Don't shoot them.”

Avery/GM: And you, you hear in the background. “So, so should I bring the big club or the big gun?” “No, no, don't bring any of them. They're fine. They're fine. All right, we'll see you in the shuttle bay”

Bee/Polaris: thank you. Yep. and Polaris, without explaining anything, we'll just go back to the pilot seat. I don't know who else is in the cockpit. Was, was it on comms? Cause yeah. Okay. So every , so everyone heard that. Sweet. Yeah. Polaris will just go to dock ship

Caden/Bruce: Bruce walks in and hands Zahn and Ollie the grilled cheese and just goes, “I hope this is satisfactory to your liking.”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn takes a nice, big crunchy bite out of the grilled cheese and like his eyes roll back. It's been a while.

Bee/Polaris: He begins to float.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie attempts to

Zach/Zahn: Then he gives you the big thumbs up and then walks away just like shoveling it into his face.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie attempts to take a bite, but just ends up smearing a bunch of gooey cheese all over his face plate. That's really hard to get off.

Zach/Zahn: That's really hard to get off

Chris/Ollie: he is just like, “Hmm. I immediately regret this decision.”

Zach/Zahn: logging for future.

Chris/Ollie: yeah.

Avery/GM: Polaris, you're floating into the you're floating closer to the ship, and you're lining up with the docking bay and you see the singularity gun on the bottom of the ship. Like it was obviously pointed at your ship and you just see it like slowly turn to point more forward. Like

Bee/Polaris: yeah. The old singularity gun.

Avery/GM: it's fine. It'll be fine. And yeah. You dock the ship as, as you're docking. You see the three custodians standing there waiting the delivery of this ship AI,

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah. I have to take, do we, oh yeah. Do we have to take Hermes outta the ship?

Avery/GM: I mean, that was originally what the mission was. If you don't want to take him out, you don't have to.

Bee/Polaris: No, if it was the, if, if that's what the mission was, Polaris will follow the mission.

Avery/GM: okay. Before you go to remove Hermes. He, he, it pipes up and says “Polaris, if at all possible, I would like to come back to this ship sometime. This has been a very fun experience for me. You are all wonderful to work with. Also, I really enjoy the guns.”

Bee/Polaris: Yep. There it is. yeah. Polaris was just staring and waiting. Polaris just sighs and says, “yeah, I mean, we'll probably get you back on this ship.”

Zach/Zahn: As per personal request.

Bee/Polaris: it's either that or some closet

Avery/GM: And you, you, you pop the chaos Emerald out.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: and pop it into your bag and yeah, you start heading out. Does anyone else follow Polaris outta the ship?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, Zahn will come along.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is bringing the leftover bread and also.

(Outro music fades in, then down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to Beyond the Furthest Stars. This has been a 1up Podcast Network production. Check out our website: 1upPodcasts.com and be sure to follow us on twitter @FurthestPod. Intro and Outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Find his most recent album, Wisteria Lodge, on bandcamp. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks include: Starfreighter, Robotics Lab, and Starship Bridge. Special Thanks to Kelly Hayes for the sound design on this episode. Check out her work at http://www.kellyannelinhayes.com/ we’ll be back on October 1st with our next episode.

Avery/GM: See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro music fades out)

Episode 5 - New Loot, New Enemies

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 5 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro music starts then fades out, background music fades in)

Avery/GM: So our, our scene picks up where we left off this forearmed creature has emerged out of the crashed shuttle that y'all picked up and brought over and he says, “so, uh, you're ready to take me back to the Republic?” And he's looking at whomever came out of the ship. I believe Polaris, you were standing kind of on the, like the loading ramp, If I remember correctly?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. Polaris is currently crouched down, staring at the dirt. I think everyone else exited the ship.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is in his full, uh, full mechanics, get up head helmet and all, um, with, uh, his pistol on his side. But his, his arm also has a bunch of tools in it. And he is kind of just like, not looking at him, walking towards his shuttle, like to start taking it apart.

Bee/Polaris: excellent.

Avery/GM: Okay, so Zahn you're, you're walking over to this, this ship, and this, this person is just kind of staring at you like expectantly, like waiting for someone to say something “you, you, you guys are, are with the Republic, right? I mean, you got those Republic issued, uh, weapons on your ship and you know, you, you, you don't seem all weird Like the hegemony people.”

Chris/Ollie: Oh, um, quick question

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: is always chassis branded in any hegemony, uh, markings.

Avery/GM: no,

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So

Avery/GM: Unless you want it to be, it's your character.

Chris/Ollie: no, I, I was just thinking, uh, it would make sense for you to decide whether or not

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. I wasn't thinking of that. Cuz they probably just buy robots in bulk and then

Chris/Ollie: okay.

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna say, you're a mass produced product.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Walmart brand chassis.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Walmart brand.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I was gonna say don't they usually just like hire soldiers and then like outsource all their work. So it, I don't think they would have hegemony brand service bots. Right.

Avery/GM: right.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. It was probably just a sticker. I peeled it off when I, when I left.

Bee/Polaris: it was on the advertising chip.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is approaching in response. He kind of just gives ma champ a hug or a shrug. (laughing at slip up) gives him a hug. There you go. Bad, bad news buddy. No, no, no. He gives him a shrug. He's like “I dunno”.

Bee/Polaris: I bet he's good at hugs though.

Chris/Ollie: What was it that was wrong with the spike drive?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, we needed to steal a part from his ship.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we needed a, um, power converter. Ollie's going to Step forward and say “negative? Uh, we are here to find power converters”

Avery/GM: “Oh, uh, well, I mean, there's, there's some in my ship that your friend here has decided to just take apart.”

Chris/Ollie: “Oh and we thank you for them.”

Avery/GM: “Well, could I hit a ride then? Like, would that be an issue?”

Chris/Ollie: “Not at all. We are all currently hitching a ride as it, it were,”

Zach/Zahn: As, as Zahn's probably like rushing past him at this point, he kind of, he's like, “eh, let's see why not?” And then steps inside to start tearing apart The ship

Avery/GM: “What happened here?” Points to the wreckage of the house,

Chris/Ollie: “we met an interesting fellow and I had an in depth conversation with him.”

Bee/Polaris: “And we gave him a bomb.”

Avery/GM: “a, a bomb. You, you blew, you blew up this guy's house?”

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: “Only after determining that he was hostile towards us. I mean, we, we opened with a pie and everything, so…”

Avery/GM: “pie. You guys have pie?”

Chris/Ollie: “oh yes, we have much pie”. And is Bruce out here?

Caden/Bruce: Yeah, Bruce is out there and Bruce will just nod and be like, “we have extra pie.”

Chris/Ollie: I will. I'll just to, to Bruce and start, uh, saying it, “it was a amazing meat pie made with, uh, 34%, 23%, uh, ground meat and, uh, continue listing ingredients in the background. As everyone continues talking.”

Avery/GM: Bruce, you were gonna say something,

Caden/Bruce: Oh, Bruce, Bruce, just nodded and said there's leftover pie.

Avery/GM: this four-armed creature is rubbing both hands together and like licking his lips. And he's like, “it has been a long time since I have had pie. I mean, mostly I've just been eating, you know, bugs and stuff. So, uh, how about this? You get my power converters. You give me a ride and I get some of that pie and, uh, we'll call it even?”

Bee/Polaris: “Confusion. It's not like you have much of a choice.”

Avery/GM: “Well, I mean, you all could just leave me here and, you know, take off and go find power converters elsewhere. I guess.”

Zach/Zahn: You already hear the sounds of like (makes drill noises with his mouth), as Zahn is at work, taking your power converters,

Bee/Polaris: Zahn is our one man NASCAR pit crew.

Zach/Zahn: and then you hear a pause and is like, “I'm definitely taking more than your power converters, buddy. There's actually some decent stuff in here despite the crash and how old it is.”

Avery/GM: so Machamp walks up to you, Bruce, and is just like “so can you show me where the pie is?”

Caden/Bruce: “That depends. Do you have spices on board your ship?”

Avery/GM: “Uh, no, I haven't had, haven't had spices for quite a while. Like I said, mostly just bugs.”

Bee/Polaris: Wow, this man has been eating just unseasoned bugs this entire time.

Avery/GM: Unseasoned bugs. Yeah, it's gross.

Chris/Ollie: I know if he only had some spices, it would be like acceptable

Bee/Polaris: yeah, you can salt and pepper some bugs.

Avery/GM: you know, edible leaves or something like that once in a while gives us some.

Chris/Ollie: bug tacos.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Bug wrap.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will slow blink at ma champ and just be like, “I will lead you to pie once we have your parts.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, oh, okay. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. Um, maybe I'll go help that way I can get to get to the pie faster.” and, uh, Z he comes over to like help, like hold the things you're taking off of his ship. He just like holds out his hands and it's just like, “come on, come on. Let's go faster.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would turn to Bruce and say “realization, there might be spices in the other structures.”

Caden/Bruce: You have a good point.

Chris/Ollie: You have them on fire on the map here, but are they actually burning?

Avery/GM: There's like little small there's there's small fires right now.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but they're a firefighting bots.

Avery/GM: Yep. There are firefighting bots circling around trying to put out these fires. That, that is true.

Bee/Polaris: We will have to…

Avery/GM: It's more of like embers really is what they are. I'm just not very good at map making

Bee/Polaris: No, this is very good.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at Polaris and be like,”it might…. With an extra member of crew that would be more people to feed. So more food. Isn't a bad idea.”

Bee/Polaris: Throws up a thumbs up on the visor. He still hasn't set foot onto the actual dirt. Like he's been he's took off his glove and has been poking the dirt.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Avery/GM: oh.

Bee/Polaris: he's like holding his hand up to his visor and scanning it.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, yeah. Polaris has never been on planet, right?

Bee/Polaris: yeah, this is his first time experiencing dirt and grass.

Jenine/Marty: oh, small!

Zach/Zahn: uh, from inside the ship, you hear, you hear, uh, Zahn call out “Hey, Ollie we need an extra pair of hands in here.”

Chris/Ollie: “Certainly!” and Ollie will walk over and, um, hold up his arms and they'll like, do the General Grievous thing and split apart into multiple like tools and hands.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: We need to get Ollie a lightsaber

Chris/Ollie: or four.

Avery/GM: so you have a Machamp and a robot Machamp.

Bee/Polaris: okay. We need some, we need someone to make a poke ball. Do you think, do you think Zahn could swing making a poke ball?

Zach/Zahn: Hmm, between my programming and my fixing, maybe

Bee/Polaris: Let's go. I can only make bombs.

Zach/Zahn: uh, but, uh, Zahn is in the process, first takes out the power converters cuz they're necessary. Uh, and hands those to Ollie. Um, then he takes out like he's going for like all the still intact like circuitry, good wiring, um, processors.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Um, I'm just trying to get like a broad spectrum of good salvage so that we can like use it to modify and make mods and shit later.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Go ahead and roll. Roll Dexterity fix check

Zach/Zahn: 13.

Avery/GM: 13. Oh, that's great. yeah, you find enough parts to repair, um, the spike drive easily and you find actually enough components in here to basically fix probably you estimate at least two other whole ship systems if they went down. So, um, in game terms, in game terms, that would probably be, um, just spare parts to two things of, of spare parts. So if, if stuff breaks bad during ship combat, you can use like, you'll, you'll be able to like use like one of your actions to you. Fix something, you know, in a Jiffy.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, nice.

Avery/GM: yeah. So maybe you won't be sitting ducks when the…

Zach/Zahn: How many spare parts? Cause in my, in my character starting inventory, I have six , six spare parts

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you have two extra sets of spare parts.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I have more spare parts as well. If we ever need it.

Avery/GM: See, y'all are gonna be great. Your ship will never break down.

Jenine/Marty: Famous last words.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I mean, I, I also need spare parts to heal myself, so

Bee/Polaris: True.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Or they can also be used for healing, Ollie.

Bee/Polaris: Heal Ollie four times.

Avery/GM: I mean, except when he blows himself up, but that's beside the point

Chris/Ollie: there's no coming back to that.

Bee/Polaris: Rip Ollie two. I'm gonna start keeping track of how many Ollies we go through.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, I, I intend to make it a very high number.

Avery/GM: I should put a counter on the, uh, on the website.

Bee/Polaris: Ollie counter.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I want Ollie to be like the Kenny of this, this storyline.

Avery/GM: Cool. So is anyone going to search the ruins while these fire suppression drones are out there?

Jenine/Marty: yeah.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like as this is happening, Bruce kind of notices that Polaris is like a little bit nervous and like uses his tail to like swish the ground clean and like, hold out his hand. Like “it's okay. There's nothing poisonous here. I don't think at least.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks up at Bruce and just kind of like tilts his head and says, uh, “I'm aware that the, this area isn't poisonous or harmful, I've just never, I've never been off the ship.”

Caden/Bruce: “There's a first for everything” and Bruce will kind of like slow, blink.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris nods, “I suppose.” and, uh, he'll tentatively step off of the, the ship. And then once he realizes that it's like solid ground and like nothing, uh, bizarre is gonna happen. He's like, all right, and just walks over.

Avery/GM: From inside the ship, you hear Hermes play like celebratory music. (victory tune) And then just says, says on the loud speakers outside. “Congratulations, Polaris.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just throws up a col uh, like capital I face on his advisor, like, okay. Polaris is just gonna follow Bruce to the ruins. Where's has Marty been in all this?

Jenine/Marty: I've been just kind of watching everything happen. from a distance, just in case something bad happens. I'm like, okay, if this person falls, I'm gonna go right up there and, and help if they're injured. It's fine. Um, but now that she's seeing people go to the ruin, she's like, okay, maybe there's more people I'm gonna go join the group that’s going out.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go! Which building do we wanna go to?

Jenine/Marty: there's only one, right? No, there's two there's one on fire. And then there's one. That's

Avery/GM: they're. They're both a little bit on fire.

Jenine/Marty: Ah, sick.

Bee/Polaris: a little bit on fire.

Jenine/Marty: Love it.

Bee/Polaris: uh, let's uh, there was one bigger shed in one smaller shed?

Avery/GM: Yes, bigger shed is the one that's closer to your, is this one right here on the map to the left.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: smaller ones over here.

Bee/Polaris: Closer one?

Caden/Bruce: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. So you're coming up to this larger shed. Great. So this larger shed is almost about the size of like a studio apartment and the lock on this door is, is an electronic lock, but in, the explosion it was damaged and you see that the sliding door is kind of malfunctioning as kind of like open, close, open, close very slowly. So it won't take much effort to really get, you know, pull it open or anything. And then there is a small fire at the far end of the building.

Caden/Bruce: So do we have to stop the door? Can we just step through?

Avery/GM: You can just like, hold it. And then like step through.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will hold the door.

Jenine/Marty: Gonna walk in!

Caden/Bruce: Yep. Let's go.

Avery/GM: as you come into this building, you see that there is a, uh, small co here probably where that one human, um, probably stayed. He was alive and

Bee/Polaris: was his name? Barnabas or something?

Avery/GM: Barnabas. Yes.

Bee/Polaris: oh my gosh. I was right. Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Look at you remembering things.

Bee/Polaris: It was a fancy lad name.

Avery/GM: There are also a number of robots in here. Robot chassis that are powered down or inactive. and behind, like, they're kind of lined up on like the, the right side of the wall of, of this building. And you can see behind them are basically what almost looks like shotgun blasts in, into the wall. Um, basically they took some shrapnel from that explosion and they would probably need to be repaired, but they would probably make excellent, um, backup chassis for Ollie.

Bee/Polaris: How many are there?

Avery/GM: Uh, there are, I think I said four.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Do we have a comm system?

Avery/GM: I'm sorry?

Bee/Polaris: Do we have a comms system? Actually, does Zahn have comms on his helmet?

Zach/Zahn: he does!

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, Polaris will ping your comms from his helmet.

Zach/Zahn: you just hear like wrenches kind of, or like a, a, uh, socket wrench going as I'm unscrewing something? Yeah, what's up?

Bee/Polaris: “curious, do you, are you able to accept video feed to your helmet?”

Zach/Zahn: “Yeah.”

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris will take a video of the robot chassis in the inside of the shed and then send it.

Zach/Zahn: You hear like a slide out of like a me coming out of a type place and you hear me say, uh, Hey, Hey Ali, uh, Polaris found something you might be interested.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I can probably send that feed to Ollie too. Huh? Okay. Players will send that to Ollie too. I don't know who all has helmets that can receive those sort of like that sort of information.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, what, what kind of chassiss did you say they were?

Avery/GM: Ollie, you get the feed and you see that two of them are, um, are jungle branded civilian security bots. Um, so they're like old school robots, like very old models. Um, and then, um, and then two of them are, um, companion bought chassis.

Chris/Ollie: Oh,

Avery/GM: Yeah. So.

Bee/Polaris: as in like, like friends, like, like the companion cube, but a robot.

Chris/Ollie: buddy bot.

Avery/GM: So in the book, they're just called companion bots. but they're basically like nanny bots, pet bots, uh, specifically designed to be companions for people. So like…

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So not like a sex bot?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I

Avery/GM: no.

Bee/Polaris: about to say, I was just about to ask if it was like weird weeb shit

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, no, sorry. I didn't think about that.

Chris/Ollie: I was like, oh, okay. We're going on? A brothel infiltration mission or something?

Avery/GM: No,

Bee/Polaris: yeah. I was like, wow. Barnabus is really lonely. Huh?

Avery/GM: no. I will let you decide what like shape the companion bot takes, but yeah, they're not like for any creepy nefarious purposes, but

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. They're just like civilian bots.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm

Avery/GM: you know, oh, this is my secretary bot or this is my emotional support dog bot

Bee/Polaris: oh my gosh. Ollie could be a dog.

Chris/Ollie: I can't. I, yeah, I hadn't even thought about that, but I was like, oh yeah, I just go with all the non humanoid chassis.

Bee/Polaris: yeah,

Avery/GM: You could,

Bee/Polaris: we could be scooby and the gang.

Avery/GM: Zoinks!

Zach/Zahn: Jeenkies!

Jenine/Marty: Here for it. Let's go! derailing, That's what we're doing now. Just solving mysteries.

Avery/GM: fine. Yeah. There's also like some like personal effects and stuff that are in here that you could go through if you wanted, um, might be, might be some stuff that's worth finding, but.

Bee/Polaris: True. That seems intimate though. That seems mean we did blow the man up. Why go through his diary and stuff, you know,

Zach/Zahn: Plus, uh, I mean the guy hunted literally an entire planet into extinction. You probably don't want to read about that.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Well, this is Barnabas’ stuff. I imagine all of, uh, uh, the, I forgot the Furry's name. What's the Furry's name?

Caden/Bruce: Winston.

Avery/GM: Lord Winston.

Bee/Polaris: Lord Winston. I imagine all of Lord Winston stuff was all in the big fancy house.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, that's fair.

Avery/GM: And to be fair, he didn't hunt the entire planet to extinction. He just, most of the area that he was in was hunted to extinction

Bee/Polaris: Which is why major Tom had to eat all those bugs.

Zach/Zahn: The bug bug population must have exploded though.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Why didn't he hunt the bugs to extinction?

Avery/GM: no fun hunting bugs.

Jenine/Marty: Well, I feel like that's better target practice.

Bee/Polaris: Exactly! Can you imagine, like using a, a blow dart or something to like pin a beetle or something to a tree you're like, I've got my trophy.

Avery/GM: See if he had just been a butterfly collector, none of this would've happened.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, truly we wouldn't have blown him up

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: is there any like canned food or spices or, you know, the, the, the things that Bruce would be looking for?

Avery/GM: Yeah, totally.

Caden/Bruce: an apron maybe?

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Yyou hear like the back side of the building, like the roof kind of collapse from the fire damage that's taking place. And that fire is now smothered by kind of the debris that's falling. Um, but you hear that noise and you kind of peek around like this like corner of, of the studio, um, building and you see where the kitchenette was For Barnabas. And in it, you find a variety of spices that you're familiar with as a chef. Um, I'll kind of let you decide, you know, what they are. and you also find, um, it's not great, but you find like field ration grade food. probably get the feeling that Barnabas got the junk and didn't get to eat the fancy stuff with Lord Winston.

Bee/Polaris: Poor Barnabas.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce goes to take off his, uh, chef hat and then remembers that he no longer has a chef hat. Cuz I imagine that he sometimes used it to just like store items in to bring back with him and will like look around the room for like a sort of bag. And if there is none just carry as much as possible with him also using his tail as like hands.

Bee/Polaris: Aw.

Jenine/Marty: Marty holds her hands out, ready to like, hold anything.

Bee/Polaris: is there like, is there any like white fabric or like something around the room?

Avery/GM: There's probably like a white bed sheet. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Um, does like Barnabas have his clothes in here? Like does he have like a, a white fancy suit for when he has to serve Lord Winston or anything like that?

Avery/GM: why don't, why don't you roll me or actually, call high or low.

Bee/Polaris: High

Zach/Zahn: High is always the answer

Bee/Polaris: No!

Avery/GM: I rolled low . So I'm gonna go with now

Zach/Zahn: Doesn’t matter. High is always the answer.

Bee/Polaris: okay. Uh, I'll just take the, the white bed sheet and, uh, Polaris is just gonna, while we're back on chip, Polaris will make Bruce another hat, another chef's hat

Avery/GM: a friendship hat.

Bee/Polaris: indeed. Um, Polaris does also have like a backpack, so he'll just take it off and hand it over to Bruce.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at Polaris and say, “thank you. This is much appreciated. Is there a certain food that you do like to eat? I'm sorry if you're like vegetarian. I, uh, I should have asked before making a meat pie.”

Bee/Polaris: Uh, on Polaris's visor, it's like dot, dot, dot. And then question mark. “I don't understand.”

Caden/Bruce: “you, you didn't eat the meat pie. So I'm asking if there's something that you would like to eat or something that you're allergic to.”

Bee/Polaris: “My apologies. I didn't know what it was.”

Caden/Bruce: “but you do eat?”

Bee/Polaris: “I consumed nutrition. Yes.”

Caden/Bruce: “So, what kind of nutrition would you like to consume? I can make you something different? salads Aren't necessarily my specialty. Apparently I make good cake.”

Bee/Polaris: Another question mark up on the visor.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at Marty and be like, “you, you, you know what cake is, right?”

Jenine/Marty: Yes, I'm a big fan of sweets. Also the meat pie was really good.

Caden/Bruce: “We will make Polaris cake” and, and Bruce will look around to see if there's any sort of ingredients that he could throw together to make a mean cake.

Avery/GM: Yes. You find, so you are digging into like the cabinets of, um, formerly Barnabas's home. You see, you find like this little metal tin box and it has a date on it. And…

Bee/Polaris: No! Aww…

Avery/GM: A little like smiley face next to it. And it says for special occasions and you open it up and it's

Bee/Polaris: that's so sad.

Avery/GM: it's it it's, pre-portioned like little containers of like flour and sugar and, um, butter that's in like a, a special basically computerized like refrigerator unit, right? Like little tiny one. And basically all the little ingredients you'd need to make a mean cake and a little note inside, uh, that just says happy birthday. Barnabus love mom.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, my God, you couldn't make us feel worse as soon as you said it on it. I knew I was like, oh my God, this is…, this is birthday cake.

Avery/GM: I mean, Barnabus was just there to do a job.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh, we killed Barnabas guys. Polaris, may be morally gray, but I'm not.

Caden/Bruce: if we weren't gonna kill Barnabas, Winston, probably one day would've it's Okay.

Bee/Polaris: I know, but ah, that's so rough we’re taking his cake from his mom.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. At the end of the day though, we don't know how in, you know, or how gungho he would've been about slaughtering us as our supposedly wounded crew. So

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that's true. We didn't even wait. Dang. I wish I made that bomb just a little bit smaller.

Chris/Ollie: an anti Barnabas bomb.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Out of Barnabus range.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce does take the tins by the way.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: You're valid. That's valid.

Chris/Ollie: Let him go to waste. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I guess Barnabus isn't here anymore.

Avery/GM: Um, yeah, so anyway, that's all that there really is in this building unless, like I said, unless you wanna take like his like personal stuff, you know, but

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I mean, we took his cake. Why not take his diary and all of his personal effects too? No, I'm kidding. No, I'm just good with the cloth that I got so I can make a new hat for Bruce., onto the next one crew?

Avery/GM: you want to search the rubble? Um, cuz the, the, so as you step out the fire suppression, drones have Ceased fire suppressing, and the ruins are now just like smoking. and you see that they all just sort of hover there for a moment and then just land on the ground. Just not doing anything

Bee/Polaris: Let's take those drones. Let's steal those drones. Polaris will send the text to Ollie and Zahn that says, do we need some fire suppression drones question mark?

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna recommend taking them anyways.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Bee/Polaris: thumbs up emote! we'll loot the drones late. For now, There's rubble to be searched.

Avery/GM: are so are y'all gonna come back for the robot bodies later, like wheel them in as you're about to leave.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: yeah

Bee/Polaris: Don't you worry? We're gonna take that stuff.

Avery/GM: Okay. No, I was just making sure I didn't wanna like…

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I mean, after

Zach/Zahn: I already wrote it down in my inventory.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, like after we're done messing around me and Zahn are done messing around with the ship. He's gonna go over and start, uh, you know, hauling him out or figuring out how to do that.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, Ollie… Zahn you're you're about finished up. Um, you're just pulling the last few pieces off of this ship and, uh, major Tom/Machamp, um, says, uh, uh, yeah, I think that's everything. Um, you can't really take much more it's it's all pretty damaged, but, um, yeah. How about we, we get out of this place.

Zach/Zahn: Uh, yeah, with a, with his arm full of stuff. Um, he's like, yeah, let's uh, get the ship, this, this shit stowed on the ship. And, uh, we'll, we'll get to collecting those bots in the neighboring house over there while the, uh, others look for other further supplies, we'll be leaving your like, probably within the hour.

Avery/GM: Okay. yeah, Machamp follows you into the ship, puts the stuff down and just sits patiently on the loading ramp, waiting for Bruce to come back with the pie.

Zach/Zahn: out of all that, did I get any units of pretext salvage?

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Avery/GM: Is that a specific thing?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, it's a specific thing for calculating, uh, mod…

Bee/Polaris: Like if you wanna do shit modifications and stuff like that.

Avery/GM: Yeah. We'll say you find one unit of pretech salvage then,

Zach/Zahn: Sweet! Thank you sir.

Avery/GM: um, just take off, take off one of those units of spare parts. That's what we'll say. Cool. Yeah. Um, and Ollie, you head into the, the structure. You see these robots and they're pretty easy to move you. You could easily move them. No problem. No check required in one of the companion bots you do see, um, on top of it is a, another one of those computer chips And it just says, “selected films of Holo-Vid Star Arnie Schwarzen”

Chris/Ollie: Hmm. Hmm.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God. Yes.

Chris/Ollie: okay. I'm definitely gonna, uh,

Zach/Zahn: chip.

Chris/Ollie: I've definitely, uh, if we don't mess with that this session, I'm gonna start practicing some lines. Absolutely. I gotta get my arnold voice perfect

Zach/Zahn: either his etiquette chip or his emotion chip. He's gonna become only Arnie Schwarzen..

Avery/GM: which is basically Space-Arnold Schwarzenegger, basically. So,

Zach/Zahn: absolutely.

Avery/GM: okay.

Bee/Polaris: We need to start collecting chips. We need to get Ollie a chip collection.

Avery/GM: I know, right.

Jenine/Marty: Yes,

Zach/Zahn: Oh, I've I've I've, I'm keeping a tally. I have what's in him right now. And what extras we have.

Bee/Polaris: Nice.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And once we, uh, hit like a, uh, like a merchant or something, civilized star station, we get all kinds of like stuff to make our own and, and just see whatever crazy stuff we can roll up.

Bee/Polaris: That'd be so much fun.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So as, uh, so Ollie, I assume you take that then.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yes.

Avery/GM: yeah. So you start wheeling the robots in., Marty, Polaris and Bruce. you start kind of, are you picking through the rubble of the building? Are you going to the shed that's still intact?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. We can cut across diagonally, you know?

Avery/GM: So cutting across to agonal. So you'll hit the, the rub, the rubble first.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. So for this one, I'm going to need someone or all of you, um, to roll a, uh, intelligence notice check.

Jenine/Marty: Beautiful. Got a seven.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Nope, not for me. I got a two!

Caden/Bruce: I also got a seven.

Avery/GM: Okay. That's fine. As you're picking through the rubblel, um, you don't find much of anything here. You find some broken wine bottles. I find some completely tattered, fancy suits,

Caden/Bruce: Is there still wine in the bottles?

Avery/GM: probably like a little like a, maybe like half a cup that you could probably like, you know, pour into something else.

Caden/Bruce: And strained the glass out of, I feel like, I feel like Bruce would do that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: sure.

Chris/Ollie: gonna flambé a nice steak or something. Come on.

Caden/Bruce: Exactly.

Bee/Polaris: That’d be nice.

Avery/GM: But other than that, you, you don't notice anything else really here.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. We did good here team. By the way, uh, just so that the other, uh, guys are informed, Polaris is taking like a video stream of what he's seeing from his perspective and like sending it to them. He's live streaming as they go.

Avery/GM: Okay. if either of them would like to roll an intelligence notice check while they're doing their work, they may,

Chris/Ollie: 12.

Avery/GM: Zahn?

Zach/Zahn: That is an eight.

Avery/GM: Okay. So Ollie as Polaris is, um, sending over this live feed, uh, you see, um, a hint of like metal on the ground. As Polaris quickly turns his head and you stop the live feed and you rewind and go back and slow it down. And you see that, um, underneath some rubble, there appears to be a metal door of some kind built into the ground.

Bee/Polaris: a hatch.

Zach/Zahn: A bomb shelter that isn’t doing him any good.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh. He he's like lightning fast and he just like teleports into the bomb

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, like we go in there and it's, he actually made it, he,

Bee/Polaris: Right.

Chris/Ollie: fricking like instant transmissioned into the bomb shelter.

Avery/GM: All, all, all his photographers is standing up on end and it's glowing yellow. Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: Oh, my gosh. he was a hologram the whole time.

Chris/Ollie: Actually, yeah, Ollie is just going to, uh, let it go for now. And then

Bee/Polaris: okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: after he's done with his work, he's gonna make his way over to the rubble pile and, uh, call everyone over from there.

Avery/GM: Oh, sure. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: So we'll, we'll just check this shed and then afterwards.

Avery/GM: Okay. That's fine. Yeah. So coming over to the other shed, the fire suppression drones put out the fire that was over here. So it's just slightly charred. The, the sound wave from the explosion actually knocked this shed's door off of its hinges.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Um, and it just went tumbling into the back of this shed. So a lot of stuff in here is ruined,

Bee/Polaris: Oh.

Avery/GM: but what you do find is some gardening tools, some fertilizer and a small seed bank.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris immediately goes over to the fertilizer cuz you can make bombs out of that. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Polaris will also send, uh, will live stream that to the other two and uh, Polaris will look over at Bruce cuz Polaris doesn't he imagines This is food.

Caden/Bruce: Is any of this food or is this just like a garden shed?

Avery/GM: So there's nothing, there's no food here. The seeds, um, Bruce, as, as you kind of like flick through some of these like seed packets in this like little storage container of seeds, uh, you do see several different, um, edible plants and vegetables that you could, uh, grow in a hydroponics area. If you wanted to.

Chris/Ollie: Oh herb garden.

Caden/Bruce: Definitely. Bruce Bruce is gonna take the seeds of the plants and vegetables that are edible and like try and get like a couple of the pots and soil to make. Not that there's very much room on the ship, but

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but Hey, we can still. That's fine. If we, if we go to, uh, Polaris's parents house, we'll, they'll be good. Um, uh, Polaris will also pick up some pots and help Bruce.

Jenine/Marty: I will also help! hands extended, ready to hold anything.

Avery/GM: Cool. Um, yeah. So y'all are, are making, making progress, bringing your, your haul of goods, um, back to the ship. oh, I need to roll a notice check for Hermes real quick. It's fine. It'll be fine. It's totally not dangerous at all.

Bee/Polaris: don't lie to me!

Zach/Zahn: its never fine When the DM says it's fine.

Bee/Polaris: right. Don't you lie to me.

Avery/GM: Nope. It's it is fine. It'll totally be fine.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet,

Caden/Bruce: Nothing to worry about at all. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Cool.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: sweet. What I thought Hermes’ noticed good?

Avery/GM: now as you're coming up into the, into the cargo bay, Polaris, your visor gets pinged

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: Hermes says “as the pilot, I thought you would like to know that I have detected several stealth drones observing our ship.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send the ping to everyone else that can get pings

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: so that we know everyone knows thats stilled, drones are fault or want to ghost

Avery/GM: “They appear to be broadcasting from this planet to unknown coordinates.”

Zach/Zahn: Hooray, we've made an enemy this day.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. polar will say to hermes “curious. Are you able to shoot them down?”

Avery/GM: Herme says, “unfortunately, my programming prevents me from firing weapons. Only authorized personnel may fire the weapons”

Bee/Polaris: Am I able to authorize you?

Avery/GM: “unknown. No one has tried to authorize me to fire weapons.”

Bee/Polaris: “you are authorized to fire weapons”

Avery/GM: Uh, you hear the, what do you guys y'all have the plasma laser, right?

Bee/Polaris: yeah we have a laser. We got a laser beam, right?

Zach/Zahn: We got, we got stuff.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we got some sort of beam, right? like a poly structural mess beam.

Avery/GM: Plasma beam. Yep. That's what you have

Bee/Polaris: Sweet beam ‘em! get beamed!

Avery/GM: um, yeah. Okay. You hear. The ships, plasma beam aperture, like slowly move, you know, like very hesitant. and you see it kind of point off towards like the tree line and let's see. yeah, that'll do it

Bee/Polaris: Let's go

Avery/GM: um, oh wait, it's three d6. Sorry. So I'll add one more 14. Okay. How much do these little drones have?

Bee/Polaris: Get 'em get 'em Hermes

Jenine/Marty: So just clarifying everyone that can be like, that can talk to each other, know that this is happening?

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris would, uh, Polaris wouldn't know about that. Actually. Polaris just assumes that everyone can…

Avery/GM: Yeah. So, so Bruce and Marty, um, you just hear the ships start like moving and you hear a very loud, um, discharge of a plasma weapon. (laser blast) cause these ships go off in space. So normally they're not super loud at all,

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. Oops.

Avery/GM: but yeah, there's like this like deafening like boom, from this discharge of the weapon and you just see like a line, like a, a section of the tree line and the distance just get lit up and, and this stealth drone, one of these stealth drones that was observing you that Polaris Zahn and Ollie know about is vaporized.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is immediately going to drop some of the stuff that he has in his hands and run to make sure that the blender's okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will ask Hermes “are there anymore?”

Avery/GM: “I cannot detect any other stealth drones in the area,”

Bee/Polaris: “excellent.”

Zach/Zahn: Nice

Bee/Polaris: “Do you know where they were broadcasting?”

Avery/GM: “not at this moment, but I am calculating.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will turn to Marty and say “there were stealth drones following us.”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh!”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn’s soul of borderline exited his body this cause he would've been like on or very near the ship when it fires

Bee/Polaris: oh, wait. Was Zahn able to hear the conversation between Polaris and Hermes or is that just between Polaris and Hermes? So did Hermes just like immediately like blast the thing without every anyone else knowing?

Avery/GM: No Zahn and

Zach/Zahn: Unless you were broadcasting it over coms No, you, it had just been a you two..

Bee/Polaris: Oh,

Avery/GM: oh, I was under the impression that when you pinged them on comms, that… that you were basically letting them know too. So…

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I thought it was like a, I thought it was like a, like an instant message sort of thing where you can like, send a message, like copy and paste the text and send it to them.

Avery/GM: Yeah basically.

Zach/Zahn: Oh did I miss that part? I may have missed that part in which case I would know then

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Avery/GM: Zahn, You still could have had that reaction though, cuz you're probably not used to hearing ship weapons, go off in atmosphere

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: yeah,

Jenine/Marty: “Right. Should we, should we go and grab the pieces of the stealth Drone that has been destroyed? Would that help us in anyway?”

Zach/Zahn: It would've been vaporized.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: “That's true. That's true.”

Bee/Polaris: yeah, polar says “negative. It would've been vaporized.”

Jenine/Marty: “All right,”

Avery/GM: as often the distance, these trees are just burning a little bit

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. There's like a whole, like a clean hole. in the tree line of the canopy.

Avery/GM: and actually you see the fire suppression drones, like lift up and start like hovering over that way.

Bee/Polaris: Damn it

Caden/Bruce: Bruce come, Bruce comes back into the room, holding his blender and just looks at Polaris. And just like, “what was that?”

Bee/Polaris: “apologies. I authorized Hermes to use the ship's weapons to, to vaporize the stealth drone that was tracking us.”

Caden/Bruce: “Do we think stealth drone was tracking our ship or was Winston's?”

Bee/Polaris: “It was likely from Lord Winston. It is broadcasting information to a point on this planet, although we are unsure where. Hermes's is doing calculations.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will just like slow, blink and nod.

Bee/Polaris: “we should probably move to get off of this planet.”

Avery/GM: Over the loud speaker Hermes comes on and says, “that was exhilarating. Please let me use the weapons in the future.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris, who is Morally gray and used to psychotic robots, uh, using weapons, uh, just sends a thumbs up to Hermes's. actually, Polaris will say Polaris will say on the coms, which Zahn and Ollie can probably hear. “I give you permission, unrestricted access to the ship's weapons.”

Chris/Ollie: This the a is all stoked about shooting the gun and now it's like, oh, I can shoot it however much I want.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I was muted my bad. I was just trying to say, if Ollie is done with his, securing of the, the new chassis and all that. He's going to, uh, ping everyone with a picture of the, uh, with the screen cap of the door and be like, uh, “reviewing the footage. There is one thing we missed under the manor” and, uh, he's going to ping the, uh, the location on the, you know, on the little Waypoint map that everyone's probably got.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Well, all of us that have helmets

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will lead the other two.

Chris/Ollie: everyone's, everyone's close enough to a helmet wearer.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we need to get everyone helmets.

Avery/GM: um,

Bee/Polaris: Or like an apple watch.

Avery/GM: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I imagine, uh, should we, I mean, should we probably unload all the garbage that we, I mean, all the loot that we, we picked onto the ship.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I was assuming that that was that, yeah, that basically all kind of happened at once. Like y'all kind of are coming up into the ship whenOllie, uh, informs you of this door that y'all missed.

Bee/Polaris: sweet. Okay, cool.

Jenine/Marty: should we take major Tom with us?

Bee/Polaris: yes. Just so, oh yeah. Polaris will polar will say over the, uh, comms to, um, Hermes “please do not allow major Tom to steal our ship.”

Avery/GM: Yeah. Hermes says “understood. Initiating self-destruct”

Bee/Polaris: No, polaris says “do not Self-destruct.”

Avery/GM: “Oh, okay. Thank you. I did not want to blow up. It did not look fun when Ollie did that.”

Bee/Polaris: “You had plans for self destruction in the future?”

Avery/GM: “I am ready to self-destruct anytime my commanding officer tells me to.”

Bee/Polaris: “Do not self-destruct lock the co… lock the ship's flight controls.”

Avery/GM: “oh, that would be much more efficient.”

Bee/Polaris: “Affirmative.” Polaris will walk towards the hatch. God damnit Hermes.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will grab the leftover meat pie on their way out

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Avery/GM: okay. And, uh, Machamp is just sitting there kind of out of the way on the, the loading ramp waiting

Caden/Bruce: And he’ll pass it

Bee/Polaris: and he was just cool with us blasting the trees?

Avery/GM: Uh, no, he's he, he was like kind of freaked out by it, but he's like trying to like stay cool, cuz like he doesn't wanna like offend the people that are gonna get him off of this rock.

Caden/Bruce: on our, on our way past him, Bruce will kind of like, not kneel down, but like kinda like crouch down and just hand him the container of leftovers and be like, this is meat pie. I hope you enjoy it. I don't think it's as warm as it was when it was fresh, but it should still be good.

Avery/GM: Yeah, no, that's fine. Uh, thank you. Thank you very much. Um, I didn't get your name.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce. I didn't get yours.

Avery/GM: Oh, uh, Bruce I'm I'm major Tom. First name, Major, last name, Tom.

Bee/Polaris: Middle name. What's his middle name?

Avery/GM: Maurice.

Bee/Polaris: Major Maurice Tom.. All right. Cool.

Caden/Bruce: Well, I hope you enjoy the meat pie major.

Avery/GM: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. And you hear scarfing noises.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce’ll just continued to follow up for Iris he's. He's just like, I don't need to continue this conversation. He knows the pie is good.

Avery/GM: Ollie you lead everyone to the location of this door. Um, you kind of push some, some rubble away to reveal the handles and, uh, you can see that there is a big, heavy lock on this door, Um, like a pad lock.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. Uh, Polaris. Is everyone there?

Zach/Zahn: I would assume so

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Zach/Zahn: I'm there,

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will take out his laser pistol and shoot the lock.

Avery/GM: sure.

Jenine/Marty: Valid.

Avery/GM: Roll to shoot. I guess

Bee/Polaris: don't worry. I have good shoot. I just gotta, is it a D 20?

Avery/GM: uh, no, uh, two D six, since you're not hitting a target or not hitting a, another character

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that's great. Okay. Uh, that'll be a 10.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah, no ricochet or anything.

Bee/Polaris: I would hope

Avery/GM: um, yeah, you blast the lock and it's, it's liquid metal at this point,

Bee/Polaris: sweet.

Avery/GM: you open this thing up and there is a stairwell leading down into the ground.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris already has his laser pistol out, so he'll go first. He'll turn on the flashlight on his helmet.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: uh, Zahn will go second doing the same.

Avery/GM: Okay. Bruce, Marty Ollie are y'all staying out here or going in.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will go as well. Uh, lighting up his eyes like flashlights.

Jenine/Marty: I will go in.

Caden/Bruce: I, I feel like Bruce doesn't have a flashlight, but like he'll offer his tail to Marty for Marty to hold and just like, kind of like walk in front of her to follow the other flashlights, cuz he could probably see them.

Jenine/Marty: Good.

Avery/GM: Totally. Yeah. So

Zach/Zahn: He’s a frog lizard person. He can probably see in the infrared spectrum.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Also with, uh, this much light like flashlight, um, Marty will at least have some, uh, light to be able to see things.

Avery/GM: yeah, this appears to be a tunnel that leads into some sort of like security bunker of some kind, um, probably for emergencies.

Bee/Polaris: oh,

Avery/GM: As you come down this hallway, it's lined with, uh, stone it's, it's very well built. Um, very secure structurally the explosion doesn't seem to have like offset anything here and you get to the end of this hallway and the room opens up.

There are a couple of beds in this room. There is a stash of like basic food stuffs, um, you know, beans and, uh,

Bee/Polaris: Bruce more food.

Avery/GM: you know, freeze, dried fruits and stuff like that.

Bee/Polaris: Ah, that's perfect for like any sort of fruit based dessert that Bruce would like to make.

Avery/GM: Yeah. And then off to the right is what looks like an automatic like garage door that would open and close and sitting in front of it is an ATV Explorer, in this game can see eight people and was probably going to be the vehicle that y'all used to go hunting with Lord Winston.

Bee/Polaris: Ah, I figured he was gonna try and hunt us.

Avery/GM: Ah, I mean, Hey, you never know, but that's how he got around on the planet.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. I guess he didn't walk

Avery/GM: No. A Lord Doesn't walk

Bee/Polaris: you're right.

Chris/Ollie: his lordly, uh, golf

Bee/Polaris: would've carried him.

Jenine/Marty: He galavants!

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn looking at it is like, “huh? This thing will probably fetch quite a price in the outer world. Just sayin.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is literally grabbing every single thing of food into his hands. And just for the first time he is smiling.

Jenine/Marty: Marty has hands again, wide open to help carry.

Bee/Polaris: uh, Polaris will lend his now empty backpack. Cause I imagine we unloaded everything onto the ship, back to Bruce.

Avery/GM: Totally. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: As you guys are like filling arms and, and bags Zahn is just like, “just, just put 'em in the ATV. We'll take it to the shit. That'll make it easy.”

Avery/GM: Yeah. It's got like a little like area that could see eight people. Well, six people two in front, six in the back. So you could easily fill it up with a bunch of stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet!

Zach/Zahn: Heck yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna look around for anything that would have like where the Stealth Drones would've transmitted.

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead and roll an intelligence notice, check

Bee/Polaris: All right, I'm good at that. And I good at that. I mean, I'm mediocre at that. Okay, Uh, nine

Avery/GM: Yeah. Um, you so other people are kinda like gathering stuff, throwing it into the ATV. Zahn's probably like looking around for the keys in like the glove box or something. And you're just carefully listening for a moment. And you hear like, sort of like a, the, the sound of like computers kind of whirring and buzzing.

Um, you're, you're used to that kind of sound. So it's easy for you to pick up on it. And it's coming from underneath, like this like white sheet that's like covering like a table of some kind.

Bee/Polaris: oh, that's ominous. Yeah. Polaris will pull off the sheet

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: and also keep it.

Avery/GM: You pull off the sheet and you see a computer screen, that is flashing the text transmission complete.

Bee/Polaris: No, no, uh, Polaris will send, uh, a message over to Zahn and Ollie that says,

Avery/GM: I mean, you're all in the same room,

Bee/Polaris: yeah, but they're like preoccupied with other things.

Avery/GM: oh, okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will just take a picture and send it to them.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will pretty much try and hack into this computer and download any, anything and everything he can and try to find out where that transmission was going to.

Avery/GM: Sure that would probably be an intelligence. I think hacking is a sneak skill. So intelligence sneak

Zach/Zahn: program. I believe.

Avery/GM: oh program. Thank you. I was just looking up. I was just gonna look that up. So, uh, yeah. Intelligence program check Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, well, I've got to figure out exactly what I'm…

Bee/Polaris: While Ollie is doing that. Polar will ask, uh, Zahn and Ollie if either of them, well, Polaris will just say, “do either of, you know, how to send a virus to where wherever that information was transmitted?”

Chris/Ollie: certainly this is, am I hacking into it or is this just like accessing?

Avery/GM: I mean, you're accessing a system. You don't have the password to.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Because if it's hacking, then I get, you know, bonuses

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you would apply those bonuses to this then, Definitely.

Chris/Ollie: then I roll awfully. Okay. so I got a six.

Bee/Polaris: Well, are you, um, what's your class because you can roll reroll once per scene, if you're an expert.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, I'm my class is a AI.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, right. Sorry.

Chris/Ollie: can I, Hmm. Oh, I should have done robot stuff before that shit. I totally forgot.

Avery/GM: what did you wanna do?

Chris/Ollie: Um, well I could, uh, where is it in the exact thing here? Cognitive boost or, no, I gotta, I've got like 10, uh, robot abilities now. I gotta find the right one.

Zach/Zahn: It's one of those. If, uh, Zahn sees Ollie clearly struggling, uh, he will give it attempt if that's ok.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Um, actually if it's okay for me to… After the fact, use defeat security. I use a processing point and, uh, pretty much just overcome any encryption or, or electronic lock that wasn't put in place by another AI. If it was then it's a programming roll off.

Avery/GM: I put that at an eight of difficulty. So I was just trying to see if you could find some way to get over those last two points.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You bypass the security using your super AI powers.

Chris/Ollie: I kinda had to remember that I was a super AI first

Avery/GM: Yeah, like, wait, I am not just a robot.

Chris/Ollie: I wanted to try it the old fashioned way, you know, I've heard so much about it with you fleshies.

Avery/GM: and you just wanted to like download the data from this computer or?

Chris/Ollie: If… my overall number one priority is finding out where the data's going. And then second, I wanna like download, you know, anything I can about Winston and what he was doing. Just, you know, as, as info.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you start downloading this data and start kind of analyzing it as you're downloading it. Caus computers are cool. And you're able to decipher that. Most of it is like logs, like trans like communications logs between like himself and the other Winston family members.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, oh,

Avery/GM: Sort of communications just generally of like, oh, I hunted this animal today.

Or, you know, oh, I, I, I got the last trophy of, of this particular species and things like that. Um, real, real stuff that kinda like justifies like blowing up, uh, his whole home.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I feel was bad.

Avery/GM: but you also notice that there are security logs that are uploaded every six hours and the last one just uploaded a little bit ago and you have that file. It's a video file that you can access if you'd like,

Chris/Ollie: Sure.

Avery/GM: okay.

Chris/Ollie: I'm guessing it's just the, uh, seeing the ship shoot the drones.

Avery/GM: So you play the file. Uh, you see your guys' ship land, Ollie, you see yourself walk into the building and then you see the building explode.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. That's it? No, I'm kidding.

Avery/GM: And then your guys' ship takes off, comes back with another ship unloads and starts sifting through. And then the last thing you see in this video clip is a bright flash as the drone is vaporized,

Bee/Polaris: So it caught all of us on cam.

Avery/GM: it might have. Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Damn it.

Jenine/Marty: That’s a yoinks!

Avery/GM: And that is the last thing that you download from this system and as you start looking up the transmission logs, you see that it was transmitted to a, uh, through, through a bunch of different like relay stations and, and like probes and stuff throughout the, the galaxy ending at Olympia, the capital of the Republic.

Bee/Polaris: shit, dude.

Chris/Ollie: Hmm. Um, so I'm gonna send the summary of this information to, uh, the helmeted people.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go comms, gang

Chris/Ollie: And say, uh, we might have, uh, made a few friends today. Um, I'm also going to specifically tag all of that, uh, all of the notes from Winston to his family, about him hunting, you know, animals to extinction and all that. I'm gonna tag them under an evidence file.

And I remember that later.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go. Ollei's a lawyer.

Avery/GM: I guess they're calling you Phoenix Wright!

Bee/Polaris: yeah,

Chris/Ollie: objection!

Zach/Zahn: Brilliant.

Bee/Polaris: in response. Polaris will say confusion. That does not seem like friends.

Zach/Zahn: I think he may have been sarcastic.

Chris/Ollie: uh, my apologies. I'm just trying out sarcasm. Not sure if I've I've quite got the hang of it yet.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's still kind of in a, in a daze. Cause he is like, oh fuck. It's like, no, no Ollie. That was a not bad.

Bee/Polaris: I do not understand sarcasm much of the time.

Chris/Ollie: But summary of the story is we should probably leave and very fast.

Bee/Polaris: Is there any way to send a virus to the receiving computer.

Chris/Ollie: Um,

Zach/Zahn: I mean, we'd have to have a virus preloaded up. I think otherwise it would take quite a bit of time probably to program.

Bee/Polaris: question? Um, would would, uh, allop just have viruses that Polaris could just have on its own bit.

Avery/GM: I don't know if alio, would've probably like would, would have those, like, but I, I bet there's surprise some stuff back at the, I bet there's probably some pre-written like virus code back at the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Back at the home?, all right. All right. Noted. Well, that's gonna take too long. Might as well go.

Zach/Zahn: Uh, Zahn is going to take a second to look for a safe cuz there's no way that a Lord

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Zach/Zahn: having a secret bunker underneath the building. Doesn't have valuables locked away somewhere in here.

Bee/Polaris: Fair.

Avery/GM: Like, look at that. Look at that, Zach already, already thinking like a master criminal.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go.

Zach/Zahn: Do you want a intelligence notice?

Avery/GM: Exactly. Yep. I was about to say

Zach/Zahn: That is an eight.

Avery/GM: an eight. Yeah, there's a small wall safe, uh, with a combination lock on it.

Zach/Zahn: Oh an actual combination lock. Not some, uh, high

Avery/GM: Old school.

Zach/Zahn: old school. All

Avery/GM: Yeah. Computer locks can be hacked. combination locks. You gotta work for it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Zach/Zahn: can I apply an intelligence fix to, uh, potentially crack the safe you can say no, I only chose that cuase it's like my best skill.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So, so by the book it hacking a, a lock or picking a lock or anything like that would be a sneak check.

Zach/Zahn: well, fuck.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: I got a little, I got a little bit in sneak.

Avery/GM: Intelligence or dexterity. And once Zahn sees this safe, he probably points it out to every.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, absolutely.

Bee/Polaris: Cool. Before we get to that safe, uh, Polaris will turn to Ollie. players will turn to Ollie and say, “do we need this computer?”

Chris/Ollie: I don't know. Do we, you said it disconnected, like, did that mean it's they like shut it off from their end and that's all I

Avery/GM: Oh, no, no, no. I, I just meant the transmission was complete.

Chris/Ollie: Oh,

Avery/GM: still connected to the network.

Chris/Ollie: okay. And I'm guessing we would, we would need the computer and not the security drones in order to send a virus.

Bee/Polaris: Well, the virus was just to make, make it so like they would get the information, but then like directly after they would get a computer virus. So they wouldn't be able to like review set information, but it's a little bit too late for that.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I also, I probably wouldn't wanna make super enemies with them either.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we did just kill their relative. So I think we are at super enemy status.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, but we're like at, at incidental enemies, but if we're doing that, then we're like directly attacking them on multiple fronts.

Bee/Polaris: True.

Chris/Ollie: Um, we're already gonna have assassins on our back, like

Bee/Polaris: Uh,

Avery/GM: you, you don't know what this faction has for assets.

Bee/Polaris: True. You're right. They are fancy boys though.

Chris/Ollie: could be super assassins.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, they could be super assassins. Huh? Okay.

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna say that, um, oh, Ollie will reply that, um, that, um, yes. Well, do you want to, yeah. Ollie will ask. “do you want to destroy them?”

Bee/Polaris: “Yes.”

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will say that, um, “though it is not sentient. It is still, uh, A state of existence that I once was, it may not be necessary to us, but must we destroy it?”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris kind of like… Polaris has like very little, uh, introspection when it comes to life or death. Uh, so polar just kind of like stares at Ollie for a little bit and then says, “will it make you happy if it stayed online?”

Chris/Ollie: “I, I do not see a reason to destroy it, but if you think it is best.”

Bee/Polaris: “My only concern is having people come back to this planet and get any other information this computer has. I suppose we could just take the information and leave the rest.”

Avery/GM: All you are still connected to it. So you could Crtl, Alt, delete it.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: all four.

Chris/Ollie: How big is this computer system?

Avery/GM: I mean, it's like a standard desktop, you know, I mean, it's nothing fancy.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will just pick it up and bring it with us.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Well, I mean, I don't wanna be, uh, when you do that, Polaris just like puts a hand out and just like, “well, we don't want to be tracked.” Yeah. Polaris's main concern is not being tracked and not getting more information on us.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Well, if okay. Ollie's confident he can like cl… wipe it, but, uh, this isn't like, uh, So, I'm not sure that it's possible, so, uh,

Bee/Polaris: Uh, could Ollie do, could Ollie just run calculations to see if it was

Chris/Ollie: I can fix him. Okay. Well then Ollie will just have his, uh, his sad eyes on and he'll put it down and say “I tried”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris… Polaris sees that and then polar will just pick it up very well. We will bring it with

Avery/GM: All right.

Bee/Polaris: back to the safe.

Zach/Zahn: Is anyone gonna crack this safe?

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah.

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah. Uh, Ollie will, as I'm walking by use my other, uh, processing to just defeat security and open the door. Wait, is this electronic or

Avery/GM: it's a combination

Chris/Ollie: oh, combination.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. It's like a manual. It's a, a, a meat boy, safe

Avery/GM: Jeanie and I saw you unmute. Did you have something?

Jenine/Marty: You think Marty's got anything for that? she's a goody two shoes!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris can dry. I can dry. What is it? Uh, SneakStealth. Stealth sneak?.

Avery/GM: Uh, yeah. Uh, dexterity sneak.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, man, I gotta get a third monitor. Okay. Uh, I'm gonna go ahead and reroll that.. okay. Um, in eight.

Avery/GM: You get the first two numbers you hear, you hear definitive clicks with the first two numbers, but the third number is alluding you.

Bee/Polaris: Dang Polaris will knock on the safe to see how thick it is.

Avery/GM: It's probably like two or three inches thick.

Bee/Polaris: how thick, uh, would a laser blast do to open it. How thick could it get

Avery/GM: Um, let's see. What, what is your pistol

Bee/Polaris: It's a laser pistol, just a good old fashioned laser pistol.

Jenine/Marty: Gosh those Moments I regret not taking telekinetic.

Avery/GM: Um, you can just rip it off the wall.

Jenine/Marty: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: well, I mean, Zahn and I have tools we could just like, you know, take it out the wall, take it with

Avery/GM: let's see. It's it's one D six, uh, damage.

Bee/Polaris: mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: I'd say it would take probably at least two successful shoot roles, um, to get.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Two successful shooters. Not bad.

Zach/Zahn: Can Zahn attempt to get the third number.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay. So like Polaris raises his laser pistol after being frustrated and then Zahn comes in to get that third number.

Avery/GM: sure. Zahn go ahead and roll sneak until, uh, dexterity sneak.

Zach/Zahn: Can I attempt intelligence instead

Avery/GM: Sure, sure. That's totally fine.

Zach/Zahn: Hurray that balances out the minus one. All right. So we're gonna that I roll the six and a one. All right. So six and three is better. So nine to get the third number.

Avery/GM: I'll give it to you. That's fine. I, I probably would've given it to you with a seven

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: cause it's just one number. Uh, yeah. Uh, you crack this bad boy open and you find basically like a data pad. It's got a balance sheet on it and the balance sheet says a hundred thousand credits.

Bee/Polaris: Yo!

Avery/GM: And so this was basically some sort of like electronic wallet that Lord Winston used

Bee/Polaris: Hmm.

Avery/GM: but. A quick looking over it. It does not have his name on it. Does not have any name to it.

Chris/Ollie: It's crypto.

Bee/Polaris: it's well it's well, it's probably illegal.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Blood money.

Avery/GM: untraceable. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: It's probably untraceable. Yeah. Having an untraceable wallet is probably good. Especially since we made a lot of enemies.

Avery/GM: So there you go. Other than that, there's not much else here.

Zach/Zahn: With, with it being on a data pad, I was hesitant to use it cuz uh,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Zach/Zahn: you know, it may have been like his personal bank account that his family might be able to trace. But if it's untraced unaccounted for 100K. Fuck Yeah. Heck yeah, take it.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery/GM: This setup looks like the kind of set up for someone who is about to be like on the run.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Would we know if we could transfer, uh, credits to that data pad so we can just have an untraceable wallet that we just keep around with us.

Avery/GM: Uh, yeah, you you'd probably know that you could transfer. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Cool. Is there anything else anyone wants to do while you're in this bunker?

Bee/Polaris: Um, I can't think of anything else that we can search for.

Jenine/Marty: Is there any like medic stuff?

Bee/Polaris: yeah

Jenine/Marty: Like lift or like any of that fun, little jazz

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead and roll a notice check, intelligence notice Marty.

Jenine/Marty: That’s a seven!

Avery/GM: Oh, that's perfectly fine. Um, yeah, you find, um, You find a little cache of medicine, um, specifically you find a bunch of pharmaceuticals, um, which I will send the list to you later. But, um, some of them are like some like kind of like mind altering substances. there's a drug called brainwave. There's a drug called lift. There's a drug called squeal.

Zach/Zahn: Somebody's down for some fun later.

Avery/GM: and, and then you've got some, basically some med kits, you know, the basic tools you'd need to like heal, heal people. There's a Lazarus patch, um, which. Basically can be used on creatures, who, or characters who have fallen to zero hit points. and there's, just

some like, you know, gauze and other, other medic stuff that someone would need in like a field kit.

Jenine/Marty: sick.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I do have a question as well.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Um, okay. So you know how, like a lot of cars, like when you buy them brand new, they have like the, they have like their own little first aid kit and stuff like that. Does the back of the ATV have that for extra medical supplies for Marty.

Avery/GM: I was gonna consider that as part of the, the medical Supplies.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, and then sweet. And then my other question is, uh, this man hunted a lot where the guns

Avery/GM: They are upstairs.

Bee/Polaris: Nooooo!

Zach/Zahn: Uh, that's, that's what I figured, honestly,

Bee/Polaris: I thought would,

Zach/Zahn: there's no way

Bee/Polaris: I thought he would have some in his trunk.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Yeah.

Avery/GM: nah, those are his, those were, those were his prize possessions, like

Bee/Polaris: Oh, you're right. Gun people do like their guns.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. They gotta be close by his bed so he can stroke them at night.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. He has a specialty pillow for it. Uh, alright. Fair enough. I guess we drive this puppy outta here.

Avery/GM: sure. You're able to, to drive it out. The, the garage door opens, it drives out and up. Um, and, uh, basically like this ramp kind of lowers down from the ground, like this mechanical ramp lowers down and you're able to drive up and basically you're back out next to the rubble. and you're you, you cruise it up into the loading bay of the ship and it's, it's a tight squeeze, but you've managed to get every, all this loot into your ship. Your cargo bay is full at this point.

Bee/Polaris: awesome.

Avery/GM: and you are ready to take off if you want. Major Tom is, uh, is still sitting in the cargo bay, like, so can I, uh, can I, can I come up now into the, the, the cockpit area? Or do you want me to wait down here?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris is gonna leave that Institute to someone else. Polaris goes immediately to the pilot's chair.

Chris/Ollie: Um, did we tell him he couldn't go up there?

Zach/Zahn: Walking past Zahn just motions for him to follow. Oh, sorry, Chris.

Chris/Ollie: Oh no, no, go ahead. I was just, I didn't remember if we told him that he can't or that's just something he's doing.

Avery/GM: No, he was just being respectful. He, he was eating his pie

Chris/Ollie: You're very, very polite.

Bee/Polaris: Indeed.

Caden/Bruce: Did he finish his pie?

Avery/GM: Uh, yeah, Bruce, uh, as you're walking up, up into the ship, you see the, the tray or the, the, yeah. The dish that, that the pie remnants were in is just completely like scraped, clean, like Machamp got every single morsel out of that meal.

Bee/Polaris: It looks like it's fresh out of the dishwasher.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will slow, blink and look at him and just be like, I’m going to make Polaris their first cake, if you would like to come and join us.

Avery/GM: He licks his lips, like real big, like cartoonishly and it's just like, yeah, show me, show me to the cake. Let's go.

Bee/Polaris: When Bruce is making the cake, they're like cartoon, like scent lines come out and Major Tom like floats into the air following the lines.

Avery/GM: Polaris. You try to start up the ship and it doesn't start up

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sighs, and then does the eye roll like emote and then says, “Hermes, give me access.”

Avery/GM: “access. Granted.”

Bee/Polaris: This fucking guy Polaris polar says to Hermes. “Hermes. When I sit in the pilot seat, please give me access. Even if the ship flight controls are locked”

Avery/GM: “Bookmarking those orders.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris realizes that Hermes is a baby when it comes to orders. So we gotta make a backlog of like rules and exceptions.

Avery/GM: Well, this is, this is a new ship to Hermis like it's gotta rewrite all of its old, old, uh, subroutines. Yeah

Bee/Polaris: Protocols. yeah. Babies’ new ship.

Avery/GM: do y'all take off then.

Zach/Zahn: The I'm open as we lift off Zahn points at the fuel gauge, noting that it ha was, uh, low upon entering the system. And he is like, Hey, be sure to sweep by the, uh, local star so we can siphon off some of its energy for fuel.

Avery/GM: Remember this has a black hole. So

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah, no

Chris/Ollie: no

Avery/GM: is, there is a, there is, there are some gas giants. You could probably do this fuel scoop on that's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. All right. Polaris throws a, a thumbs up over to Zahn.

Avery/GM: So, yeah, you, you, you take off you're out of the, the, the planet's atmosphere floating away, making, making a B-line away from this, uh, planet and black hole that it's orbiting. Um, you dip the ship down into the atmosphere of one of these gas giants and initiate the fuel scoop. No problem. Lift back up and Hermes comes online and says, “where is our next destination? I have several points of interest that you may find fascinating, or we could return to the custodians as that is where I originally was going to go.”

Bee/Polaris: Polarislooks over at Major Tom don't know where that guy is, but…

Avery/GM: Uh, he took a… oh, sorry, let me move. Y'all back to the ship.

Bee/Polaris: ship, ship, ship.

Avery/GM: He's just like leaning back against this wall over here. Just like trying to stay out of the way.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Maybe trying to look a little cool. You know,

Avery/GM: Yeah. Got both, both sets of arms folded.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Polaris will also turn on the emissions dampener just in case

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn looking over his shoulders, still with his helmet on, he hasn't shown major Tom real, his, his face yet. Um, he's like “We should probably stop by the closest Republic world, offload our friend here so he can get back to society.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris nods and says to Major Tom, “do you have any particular base you would like to go to?”

Avery/GM: “Uh, honestly, I don't even really, I don't even really know what's out there anymore. I've been been on that planet for five years. Um, yeah, the, the near. Neutral world is even fine. Um, yeah. Wow. Can't believe I'm actually off of that place.” And he's like, actually like kind of starting to like, get like emotional

Bee/Polaris: uh, Polaris turns back to the flight. the flight Polaris doesn't care.

Avery/GM: Just like nope!

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is gonna go fuck around with the new toys. He just.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce walks back into the, uh, main area, holding what somewhat looks like a cake, um, very proud of himself. And it's just like, this is somewhat for Polaris, but I also realize it's Ollie’s birthday. Is that how new bodies work? anyways…

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah!

Caden/Bruce: I made cakes, so, um, happy birthday and hopefully Polaris might eat this too, and he'll just slow, blink, awkward.

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Bee/Polaris: Polar will send a message to Hermes, to take over the flight controls and, uh, set their courts to the nearest, uh, either Republic base or neutral planet, whatever is closest. And then he'll get up and walk over to Bruce.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn will stop in the hallway as he sees cake. And he, uh, comes back.

Bee/Polaris: the only appropriate response

Zach/Zahn: How often do you have cake and space? The answer is not.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just literally never had get players. Doesn't even know what cake is. So Polaris are just like looking at the cake with a question mark on his advisor.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Avery/GM: Okay. Um, You feel the ship shake beneath

Bee/Polaris: Uh,

Avery/GM: as it… No, no. A good shaking.

Bee/Polaris: okay.

Avery/GM: The familiar shaking of a ship entering, uh, luminal space or, or whatever it's called in this game. Um, hyperspace gonna call it hyperspace. Um, and, uh, the ships spike drive engages, and you are on course to the nearest Republic planet that Hermes has set course for.

Bee/Polaris: Wow. We really just left that up to Hermes. Huh?

Avery/GM: Oh

Chris/Ollie: True.

Avery/GM: and remember Hermis is very literal.

Bee/Polaris: well, Polaris did say neutral or Republic base.

Zach/Zahn: Whichever one was closer and it sounds like aRepublic one was closer. oops!

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Um, Oh, well,

Avery/GM: It's fine. It'll

Chris/Ollie: be like some tiny, like one man outpost on a fringe world and we drop off the dude there and it's like, what? This is no better than I was. We're like, eh,

Bee/Polaris: but now he has a friend!

Chris/Ollie: Now you got a homie, you know, you can survive together.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So, uh, Bruce, tell me about this

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Tell us about the cake. What flavor was it?

Caden/Bruce: So Bruce has made, uh, along with some of the dried fruit, an attempt of like an apricot cake. Um, and just kind of has some of like the, I, I imagine in the seed mix, there might be like some sunflower seeds and stuff, so it's just like a sunflower apricot cake. Um, and it tastes very good and it's somehow very moist despite it being made with dried apricots. and it tastes delicious and it is, it is a good cake.

Bee/Polaris: Wow,

Jenine/Marty: I vote now that for promotion, we make a cookbook. Thank you.

Bee/Polaris: Aw, that'd be cute.

Avery/GM: Oh, that'd be glorious.

Chris/Ollie: Bruce's bakes.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce’s Bakes!

Bee/Polaris: that's so cute.

Zach/Zahn: Much love, such wow!

Bee/Polaris: that sounds cute. Yeah. Polaris will like pull out like something that kind of looks like the size and like packaging of a, like a nature valley bar. And, uh, just holds it out to Bruce and says, “this is what I'm used to. I don't know how to proceed with this cake.”

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna like,

Bee/Polaris: It's like, there's no labeling or anything on it.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna take the bar and. Open it and proceed to smell it and make this face that sort of resembles disgust in a frog face form, like looks Polaris blinks and just says, “eat it as you would cake. This, this smells like rat food”

Bee/Polaris: uh, it probably has like, no smell it also has like, no taste

Zach/Zahn: It's pure nutrition.

Bee/Polaris: it's like purely. It's literally purely for nutrition.

Avery/GM: Oh, so like power bars.

Caden/Bruce: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, but like it has like no taste

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, but they remove the taste as a, as a favor to you because it would be disgusting otherwise.

Zach/Zahn: Indeed

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Caden/Bruce: “Eat cake As you would this bar. I don't know if I consider this food. Um, I can try and make it into good food. If you would rather eat just this.”

Bee/Polaris: Polar just tilt his head and just says “I'm, I'm just unsure how to proceed. This is all very new to me” also, to eat it. Like the power bar It would, it would essentially do be like holding it with one hand

Zach/Zahn: and shoving it in your

Bee/Polaris: like, nope! Yeah! when you unwrap a slice of cake.

Avery/GM: Bruce, have you cut this cake already? Or are you given the whole.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, I think I, I think Bruce has like cut it into pieces and like giving different place to different people. It's it's definitely like if Polaris wanted to take like the cut, like the piece of cake and shove it into mouth, that would be a possibility might look messy, but it would be a possibility.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, if there is a fork there will use the

Zach/Zahn: That would also require Polaris to remove their helmet.

Bee/Polaris: That is true. So Polaris does the thing, like, I'm sure we've done it before. Cuz we have to wear mask where you like have like a drink or something with a straw and you bring it up to your face and you're like, oh, there's a mask there Polaris… Yeah Polaris does that with a slice of cake and then stares at it. cause he is like, oh shit, I gotta remove my helmet now.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn has already removed his helmet. Set it. Down by his feet excepted cake and is now eating cake.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. If Polaris sees that Z has done, so Polaris will also tentatively remove his helmet and then try cake

Zach/Zahn: Aw, man, I don't think you would describe what Polaris looks like to everybody.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I don't think we've seen Polaris without the helmet

Bee/Polaris: Um, okay.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say the face reveal. I don't think.

Bee/Polaris: well, Polaris in the first episode, Polaris did not have his helmet on because he had to get past security, but then like once he got into the room, he, um, I believe he put his helmet on. Uh, so Polaris is, uh, well, he has like dark skin and, um, really light blue curly hair. Um, and it's currently like up in a bun, like out of his face and he has like an undercut and, um, across his face, he has like a similarly colored light blue, like freckles and his eyes are also that like really, really light blue.

Zach/Zahn: Cool.

Bee/Polaris: So he's human, but like, this is unusual for a human. And I think now that we're in space, I don't know how much, uh, space cause I know like on the international space station, they can only stay up there for so long because of the radiation. Right?

Zach/Zahn: This is, this is the far future. We don't, this is science fiction We don't give a shit about that.

Bee/Polaris: well, this is very important for Polaris.

Avery/GM: um, I, I will say be that currently the ship is shielded from the radiation at this point, so

Jenine/Marty: Oh, good to know!

Bee/Polaris: okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So the freckles are almost unnoticeable, uh, but yeah, Polaris will try the cake and Polaris's expression is largely neutral, but when he like takes a bite of the cake and like chews tentatively, he's like. Like, he's not sure how to react, but Bruce could probably tell that like, it's good.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, it's an explosion of flavor that you've never experienced.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: exactly. Polaris is like very, very overwhelmed and doesn't know what to do with himself. So he just like, looks at the cake, looks up at Bruce and then looks down at the cake again and just stares

Avery/GM: And the camera zooms in on the taste buds as they fire and, and an explosion goes off, chemical explosion goes off in Polaris's head as he wonders what he has been missing his whole life.

(Outro music fades in)

Avery/GM: Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Find more of our shows at 1upPodcasts.com. Follow us on Twitter @FurthestPod. Intro and Outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Check out their new album by searching for Wisteria Lodge on Bandcamp. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Distilled Tranquillity, Robotics Lab, and Star Freighter.

Our Next episode will release on September 15th, 2022. See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Episode 4 - Delivery Boy!

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 4 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music Fades in)

Avery/GM: To clarify, uh, what Chris was saying. So in this game, yeah. Um, you can cut a chaos, Emerald. The size that is bigger is the size that the AI is conscious in originally. So whichever chunk is bigger, that's the one you're gonna wanna put in the body that, that Ollie is gonna be going in as a decoy.

Sherman/Zahn: Gotcha!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Whether you wanna ask Hermes that or not, um, Ollie was just like, yeah, you figure it out.

Avery/GM: uh, no, Zahn's a pretty knowledgeable engineer.

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah. I mean, he was repairing me as an AI robot.

Sherman/Zahn: I was originally repairing you. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Would Polaris have known that?

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Cool.

Sherman/Zahn: So yeah, Zahn is…

Avery/GM: I like how we've all just decided to call them chaos. Emeralds too. This is great.

Sherman/Zahn: it's perfect. Zahn cuts the, the Emerald in half. And then when he goes to reinstall it into Ollie, um, I'm gonna pull out my chips and I'm gonna fuck around with some of these too. So what, what chips does he currently have in?

Avery/GM: Oh, man, let me go back to my notes.

Sherman/Zahn: because the only one I remember is the diplomacy one.

Avery/GM: yeah. So you put in, so he had the, um, okay, so originally he was supposed to have advertisements, service and etiquette. Yeah. You threw advertisements away, service and etiquette, virtual emotion simulator. And then the aggression inhibitor chip. You threw that one away or that one got lost. Uh, so you installed the diplomacy chip and then the repair chip.

Sherman/Zahn: Ah, okay. So I'm going to… uh let me…

Chris/Ollie: Now are you doing this on my main body or the janitor body?

Sherman/Zahn: uh,

Chris/Ollie: Because if you’re sending the janitor body and you should put that assassin chip in there.

Bee/Polaris: But do we want to lose the assassin chip?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's true.

Sherman/Zahn: right?

Bee/Polaris: Also I hope one of those chips that you… cause I'm pretty… weren't they random chips. You weren't able to actually to…

Sherman/Zahn: Yeah, I have, so I have assassination. and three or four other chips, um, which I was actually about to, um, ask Josh if, or ask Avery if I could, uh, roll to see, identify at least one or two of these.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. I was just gonna say that. I hope one of those chips is just the entirety of the Shrek movie.

Jenine/Marty: Yes, a hundred percent.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So there's 19 skills. I'll add, I'll add the entirety of the Shrek movie into one of them. Why not?

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: so, uh, Zahn, you're gonna, you're gonna replace two of the chips or all four of the chips?

Sherman/Zahn: Um, so keep service and etiquette and the emotion one

Avery/GM: Okay.

Sherman/Zahn: diplomacy. And what was the last one

Avery/GM: Repair.

Chris/Ollie: Ship repair.

Sherman/Zahn: I'm gonna take out the repair. And we'll install that. We'll keep that on the back burner of, uh, like, you know, should I need a hand? And then yeah, I'd like to identify at least one or two of these other, uh, chips that I have

Avery/GM: Okay. If you wanna identify two, roll two D 20.

Sherman/Zahn: 20,

20, and 10

Jenine/Marty: Hey.

Avery/GM: Okay. Uh, so 20 is the Shrek movie.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go.

Avery/GM: 10 is a shoot, a targeting enhancement chip.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh, dude, if we put the repair chip, the Shrek chip, the shooting chip and the assassination chip all in one chassis. That's, that's a pretty good soup if I'd say so myself. So that's a pretty good recipe right there.

Sherman/Zahn: Except he has no personality or emotion.

Avery/GM: Well, just, just the base AI, uh, personality, but yeah, no, no emotion, no ability to feel If he gets blown up.

Sherman/Zahn: Ooh,

Chris/Ollie: feel emotion for the squishy humans around me or organics.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, that's probably good for an assassination chip, but not good for the crew as a whole.

Avery/GM: Alright I need to look up some Shrek movie quotes real quick. So that way…

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I'm pretty sure you can fund the entirety of the Shrek movie script online.

Sherman/Zahn: all righty. So if this one's gonna be a decoy, I am gonna take out the, uh, Emotion chip.

Chris/Ollie: Well, we're sending the, the main body I'm keeping the main body. Yeah.

Sherman/Zahn: Oh, right. Okay.

Avery/GM: if you want, you can roll two more D 20 and identify the other two chips if you

Sherman/Zahn: Yeah. Let's just go ahead and do that.

14 and 15.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Sherman/Zahn: Uh oh

Avery/GM: I love the way I wrote this. Um, 14 is a camp counselor chip

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that's perfect.

Jenine/Marty: Mood

Sherman/Zahn: okay.

Avery/GM: what was the other one? You. Yes. Okay. That's right. Uh, 15 is going to be is actually the title of a book and it's 15 habits of highly effective tentacle creatures!

c

Bee/Polaris: we also had to read that in school, just minus the tentacle creature part.

Sherman/Zahn: of highly what?

Avery/GM: effective, highly effective tentacle creatures.

Chris/Ollie: Yo what's the rating? That's sus.

Sherman/Zahn: PG-13

Avery/GM: find it in the self-help section of space Barnes and noble.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, very good.

Bee/Polaris: Are we not gonna come up with a decoy name for an actual real life company?

Chris/Ollie: Narns and Boble.

Avery/GM: Give me a moment and I'll think of it.

Jenine/Marty: Nobles and barns

Avery/GM: Nobles and Barnes!

Sherman/Zahn: that sounds like the replacement for tractor supply. Nobles and barns.

Bee/Polaris: True. True.

Avery/GM: Books bath and beyond

Bee/Polaris: All right.

Jenine/Marty: All right.

Sherman/Zahn: Alrighty. So for this decoy, Ollie, I'm going to take out the diplomacy have it, the camp counselor chip. Does it have to have all four chips in it?

Avery/GM: Yes. Each body requires four chips. It's an arbitrary rule I just made up. So why not?

Sherman/Zahn: Then I'm just gonna put all the throwaway chips in it. So it's gonna have the, the diplomacy chip, the, uh, camp counselor, the entire Shrek movie and the 15 habits.

Bee/Polaris: No, what if we lose those? Those are very valuable chips. wait, can Zahn make those chips.

Sherman/Zahn: probably need the materials to.

Avery/GM: mean, he'd probably have to have access to like yeah. Like whatever equipment is he used to make computer chips. I don't know. I’ll have to google it.

Sherman/Zahn: I mean, I, I am proficient in, in programming, so.

Avery/GM: Oh, then yeah, you probably could at some point.

Sherman/Zahn: I'm just gonna write down all of these chips. So I know what I can swap and not. And then I'm putting the, the diplomacy camp counselor, Shrek movie and 15 habits in the decoy.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I was gonna ask if, because we're sending Ollie down as a decoy to go meet a fancy boy. If his service bought, uh, chassis would be better to send rather than the janitor one.

Chris/Ollie: Uh,

Bee/Polaris: Because he is a fancy boy, but

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, my, my normal body isn't much better. It's a, it's pretty much the same tier robot. It just wouldn't be, uh, you know, doing the same job.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Avery/GM: And is, is Bruce going with Ollie to enhance the…

Caden/Bruce: I feel like as this is happening, Bruce has gone back to the workshop, found some sort of like “to-go” container. Put like a bunch of the

meat pie in it. And has like gone back, has taken off his chef’s hat put it on the little janitor robot body and like, takes a step back,

Bee/Polaris: Aw. Aw.

Caden/Bruce: does the little two eye blink and is just like “I mean, if they have been stuck for 5 years, they will not know if this is a chef or not and that is a very good meat pie.

Bee/Polaris: Aw.

Chris/Ollie: Perfect.

Avery/GM: Okay. So Chris, in this janitor body with these chips, I want you to add plus one to administer, connect, and lead.

Caden/Bruce: And cute for the chef’s hat.

Yes, and plus one charisma for the chef's hat. Why not?

Bee/Polaris: Let's go

Sherman/Zahn: Cool. So I only have one extra chip and that's the ship repair chip. And I have that on my person.

Avery/GM: Okay. And Chris, I'm just gonna drop in a link into your private channel and there you go. Feel free to, to drop some of those on us throughout the conversation

Chris/Ollie: Excellent.

Bee/Polaris: Nice

Sherman/Zahn: somewhat wishing I'd kept the advertisement one now.

Avery/GM: while this distraction is going on. The rest of you are planning on going to the crash site or staying in the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I thought we were staying and watching with like a bowl of popcorn or something.

Avery/GM: Oh, okay.

Jenine/Marty: I thought we were doing that as well.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, I will be transmitting my feed to the, to Hermes so he can record it.

Bee/Polaris: while they were like, switching out the chips and whatnot. Should Polaris have been building a bomb?

Sherman/Zahn: That's not a bad idea.

Chris/Ollie: yeah. Cause if we can't destroy my core and they capture me, then I'd be stuck there. So I need some way to… to self-destruct.

Avery/GM: Yeah, Polaris, if you wanna build a bomb.

Bee/Polaris: I'm so sorry, FBI and NSA.

Avery/GM: So I'm either gonna go with a work check or a, um, I guess fix… I fix would actually be better a fix check.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet cause I have nothing in work.

Avery/GM: Yeah, we'll go intelligence fix.

Bee/Polaris: sweet. Ooh. Okay. I rolled two fives plus what? So 11.

Avery/GM: Okay. So you actually, you, you go to create this bomb and kinda squeeze past Zahn while he's fiddling with, with Ollie's new janitor body. And you go down into the, the cargo hold and you remember seeing something in the smugglers hold while you were Stowed away and you can't remember exactly what it was, but you feel like it might help you in this quest and, uh, this quest to build a bomb and you head into the smugglers hold and you see a crate of plasma ammunition clips.

Bee/Polaris: Oh!

Avery/GM: Most of them are spent

Bee/Polaris: Aw!

Avery/GM: there's about three of them here and you remember reading somewhere in one of the logs that the custodians had given you to like give you education. You remember reading about how someone once figured out how to wire some plasma ammo together to create an explosive device. And you're pretty sure you could figure that out.

Avery/GM: And so you take these up into the workshop and you're fiddling around with this. And as you are connecting, like the last few wires, Hermes says,

Avery/Hermes: “be careful if you connect that last wire, it will explode”

Avery/GM: and you have successfully created a plasma bomb that all, all he has to do is connect one wire to another and it'll explode.

Bee/Polaris: Nice. Uh, the entire time Polaris was doing this, uh, he hit record on his visor so that he could send this video off to the custodians just to be like, look, look what I did smiley face.

Sherman/Zahn: Smiley face!

Avery/GM: and they put it on the slideshow of the, of the refrigerator.

Chris/Ollie: I built a bomb!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is first bomb!

Avery/GM: cool!

Bee/Polaris: I'm pretty sure there's not like a, a galactic instant messenger or anything. So players will just keep that in his back pocket to show his parents sweet players will just hand the bomb to Zahn because he's working on, uh, all these transfer. So.

Sherman/Zahn: He's like working on the last bit or plug in the last one. He like, I, I, and the, my peripheral vision, I see you hand me something. I grab it. And I like, I'm not even looking at it. I like holding it. And I put like, look at, and then I look down at it. I'm like, “ah, what, what the fuck did you just give me?”

Bee/Polaris: Uh, a question mark just pops up on the visor and he like tilt his head and he's just like “a bomb.”

Sherman/Zahn: speechless, He's just like nodding. And he is just like, okay. You could have at least told me that it was a bomb as you handed it to me.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, before it's in my hands.

Bee/Polaris: He tilts his head the other way and says, “I thought this was part of the plan.”

Avery/GM: Valid

Sherman/Zahn: it's like, “I mean, yeah, but like still you don't just hand people bombs, man. What if I accidentally did the, what if I turned it on!?”

Bee/Polaris: As you're saying that Polaris puts like, takes out a little notepad and like writes down don't hand people bombs and the notebook cover is labeled ‘good human etiquette.’

Avery/GM: Oh man.

Sherman/Zahn: that's great.

Avery/GM: I'm dyin’ over here.

Sherman/Zahn: That's fantastic. What is the, what does the bomb look like? Cause aren't we trying to hide it in the meat pie?

Bee/Polaris: I thought we were just putting it in the chassis not the meat pie!

Avery/GM: Yeah, I, yeah, I thought you were putting it inside of, inside of Ollie's back up chassis.

Sherman/Zahn: no, no, we, we can, we can do that. We can do that. We can do it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, just a big stick of dynamite sticking out of the pie.

Sherman/Zahn: I thought the original was to hide it in the meat pie.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, he like gets his like fork and knife and cuts into it and immediately explodes.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, the dude's like,

Avery/GM: Completes the circuit.

Chris/Ollie: “oi! what's that bomb there?” He's like, oh, not, I don't, I don't have a bomb.

Sherman/Zahn: It's Bomb-ass pie,

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah. That's a good idea.

Bee/Polaris: Nice.

Chris/Ollie: How powerful is the bomb?

Avery/GM: how powerful is this bomb? It would, it would blow a hole into your ship.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, could it level the comp… the co… yeah, the compound.

Chris/Ollie: How much collateral?

Avery/GM: Probably not the entire thing, but it would definitely destroy the house.

Sherman/Zahn: everything in the room that it's in.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. That's important. does anyone object to this bomb plan?

Chris/Ollie: I don’t know. I mean, he, he's kind of just fiddling with my brain parts and no one seems to really care.

Sherman/Zahn: Zahn's still like 90% positive These guys are here to fuck us over. Like

Bee/Polaris: I'm just asking, cause Marty seems to be like the, the moral backbone of this crew along with Bruce. So I was wondering if either of them are cool with this bomb plan.

Chris/Ollie: Well, the plan isn't to hurt any of them. And, uh, like if the situation arrives when Ollie is gonna blow up, he's gonna warn them and tell 'em to back up. I'm about to explode.

Bee/Polaris: cool. Sweet. I mean

Avery/GM: This unit will self-destruct in.

Bee/Polaris: okay. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce is just happy the bomb isn’t going into the meat pie.

Sherman/Zahn: Oh, okay. So yeah, Zahn, uh, Zahn installs it into the chassis.

Avery/GM: Yeah. There's like a little storage compartment that, you know, this janitor robot would probably normally keep like sprays and, you know…

Bee/Polaris: Windex.

Avery/GM: Windex!

Sherman/Zahn: Cleaning supplies. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Pledge!

Avery/GM: and, you know, towels and stuff. Yeah. But in this case it's storing a bomb.

Bee/Polaris: it's about Windex size.

Caden/Bruce: Is it technically a weapon if its not active?

Bee/Polaris: ehh, no.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, it's just a piece of junk right now. And then when it's active, it'll be an explosion.

Bee/Polaris: actually, by that logic, a, a gun that doesn't have a bullet in the chamber would technically not be a, let a weapon. Right?

Avery/GM: yeah. It's just a heavy club. I mean,

Sherman/Zahn: It's just a paperweight.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, yeah, no nothing you'll ever do with it will be more than a club unless you do put a bullet in it.

Bee/Polaris: that's true.

Avery/GM: And at that point, you might as well have an actual club.

Bee/Polaris: I don’t know, Clubs don't shoot people.

Sherman/Zahn: I don't know, man, I don't know, man. Pistol whipping just sounds fun.

Chris/Ollie: This is space, this is Sci-Fi we don’t know What Avery's thought up for us.

Bee/Polaris: True, True.

Avery/GM: I have nothing thought up. I am innocent and…

Chris/Ollie: I have no plans to kill and Maim and destroy you, none at all.

Bee/Polaris: I see.

Avery/GM: Winston's got plans, but me I'm, I'm a dog chasing cars.

Bee/Polaris: I See, I understand. So anyway, let's send this man this bomb and pie.

Sherman/Zahn: Hey, GU.

Jenine/Marty: I, I, I do wanna say that while this is happening, um, Marty's hanging out with Hermes and it's just like, Hey, you wouldn't happen to know anything else about this planet Would you? anything we should know before we

send out one of our own down there, anything we should look out for? Can you do a scan of some sorts?

Chris/Ollie: Is the atmosphere even breathable, kind of?

Avery/GM: Uh, the atmosphere is definitely breathable. He, he wouldn't have suggested sending you guys to this planet if, uh, if it were not breathable, you see like the little loading circle on the screen, Marty, and then Hermes's answers and says, “this planet has not been registered in the galactic registry of planets. This system is unknown!”

Bee/Polaris: Perfect for rich people murder!

Avery/GM: There's no rich people…

Jenine/Marty: Huh

Avery/GM: murder! Murder is such a strong word.

Bee/Polaris: You're right. Uh, a game of a, a Hearty game of cat and mouse in which the victor is not dead.

Jenine/Marty: I dunno. Are we having a hunger game situation happening?

Avery/GM: by the way, Ollie, what did you do about the, the guy on the line reciting his, uh,

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah, is he still spewing his thesis?

Chris/Ollie: No, I. Uh, it might not have come through. I said, I, I cut the line when I got up. And, disconnected myself. Well I said my goodbyes, you know.

Bee/Polaris: oh, okay, cool. Cool. Okay. I thought you just like hung up on him.

Chris/Ollie: it was close to that, but it was a, um,

Avery/GM: Like I've gotta go bye!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, like, I'll see you soon.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, ominous!

Avery/GM: So, if I understand your y'all's plan correctly, Ollie is gonna go into this compound, see what's going on and if necessary, blow themselves up. And if that happens, then y'all will go to the crash site and retrieve the parts you need. But until then you're waiting on the ship?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. We're eating popcorn. Well, well, actually, I don't know if we actually have popcorn cuz I don't know if that would be considered part of rations.

Avery/GM: Sure! Bruce found… Everyone's gotta have a snack, a salty snack.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris. Doesn't know what popcorn is. So Polaris also doesn't know what a meat pie is, so he hasn't touched it.

Avery/GM: Polaris also hasn't set foot on a planet yet, so that'll be interesting.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. There's a lot of firsts today.

Avery/GM: okay. Let's let's get to this scene then: the ship finally lands (landing sound) just we'll say a good hundred feet from the compound entrance. Far enough away that, uh, Hermes has calculated that the blast radius will not reach this… your ship. Unless of course, Ollie blows themselves up right outside the gate, but that won't happen, Ollie's smarter than that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I was about to say, uh, I thought we were gonna have like this ship hover, and then we were gonna like, let Ollie drop down. But then I thought about that and I was like, oh, the bomb could go off.

Avery/GM: And Ollie, describe how you're approaching this, this gate with the force field on it and all that. Like you got this meat pie, you've got your janitor body with the

Chris/Ollie: I'm just going to, uh, be approaching casually holding the, uh, the pie in two hands in front of me so they can, uh, see its glory. I'm assuming it's got like the perfect little waft of steam coming off and, uh, yeah, just approaching. I, I are these force fields kinda like, uh, Like just impenetrable walls kind of thing. Or is it like,

Avery/GM: No, I think more like the Gungans, uh, force field.

Chris/Ollie: That’s exactly what I was thinking, I'm gonna, uh, pass through it. (forcefield sound)

Avery/GM: So Ollie, you're approaching this, uh, this compound and these, these brown stone walls wrap around, uh, the entire perimeter and the force fields go high above the compound to, you know, shield it from any attacks from above. Uh, this gate would shield it from any attacks from outside the perimeter, um, inside the forest field.

As you step through, you can see two robot guards as well as a human. And as soon as he speaks, you know, that this is the fellow you were talking to on the comms and he just says: “Oi! You the Chef?”

Chris/Ollie: Ollie is going to respond: “Affirmative. Somebody once told me that you lacked one and would like some food.”

Bee/Polaris: That is hilarious. Uh, just real quick. Uh, I did need to ask earlier, do we have any way of, uh, talking to Shrek-Ollie?

Chris/Ollie: Uh,

Avery/GM: uh, yeah. Hermes is patched through.

Bee/Polaris: uh, okay. So we can, so it's a two way sort of system where we can talk back. Okay, cool. Cause like Bruce might need to give some chef vocab words to, to fake chef Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: yeah. And anything anyone needs or wants Ollie to say, uh, just shout it out.

Avery/GM: “Oi, well, I see you've already made a. A meat pie there. Uh, why don't you come in and talk to the boss he's, uh, really looking forward to your food and maybe offering you and, uh, your mates up there, a job.”

Chris/Ollie: “Gladly!” are they moving to take the pie or?

Avery/GM: No, they're, they're just gonna, they're moving to like escort you like the robots on your side and then the human is walking in front of you.

Chris/Ollie: And, uh, I'll follow pleasantly.

Avery/GM: Okay. And as you cross kind of the area of this compound, uh, to your left, you see a shed that's, you know, about the size of like a very small house, like a, like a, almost like a actually Chris, like, like the size of your additional unit at your place, just that little

Chris/Ollie: So like a studio kind of

Avery/GM: eight foot by eight foot. Yeah. Studio.

Chris/Ollie: Cool.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Uh, of in the distance, you can see another shed that's. Even smaller than that. And it's probably used for like garden tools or something like that. And then off to your right, you can see a water basin, um, that has like a bunch of pumps and machinery attached to it, probably for drawing water out of the ground or something.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, no, um, skeletons or bloody corpses or?

Avery/GM: Nope.

Chris/Ollie: Okay

Avery/GM: Nothing like that in front of you, is this big fancy, well built, uh, house made of local wood stone doesn't have any glass windows, but the, the windows have these really nice, well designed shutters on 'em that, you know, can keep the elements out if needed. And, uh, yeah, as you walk into this, this home, um, do you keep following them?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. And back on the ship, uh, you all see what Ollie sees as well as Ollie walks in. (Door opens) Uh, you see, um, This wide corridor that stretches basically to the back of the house and on the walls are hunting trophies of all kinds of different creatures. Um, you know, there's horns and there's, uh, you know, stuffed tails and different, different hunting trophies of, of various types.

And there is a staircase leading up. And then there are a few rooms that kind of lead off of this main hallway. The human escorting, you says, boss is right back there. Be respectful. He is a Lord. Lord Winston does not take kindly to disrespect or bad food, you understand?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will Nod, uh, too bad I don't have the etiquette chips.

Bee/Polaris: Out of curiosity. Are there any, like Lord far uad dissing quotes in that little library or Shrek quotes you have?

Chris/Ollie: None. None against him.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: “Do you think you may be compensating for something?” there's that one.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah that one… But…

Bee/Polaris: all right. Cool.

Avery/GM: Um, but anyway, do you continue down the hallway? Okay. You, you come down this hallway and off to, to the side, there's one room, that's basically a kitchen, a couple robots kind of hovering in and out, um, cleaning things and whatnot. Another room off to the side is a, what looks like a library of some kind with a bunch of different books and data pads stacked up on these shelves in there.

And then you finally come into this, this den area. It's a large room. It's it's. Decorated very finely. There's lots of gold and lots of fancy paintings here. Um, there is a full stuffed moose-like creature in the corner of this room takes up a good portion of it. There is a desk in the center, um, piled high with books and behind it is a bookshelf with more books on it.

And there is a sofa to the right, that is next to a open window. And this is when you first see Lord Winston. Lord Winston is a, as I said, a anthropomorphic tiger, basically a Rakshasa, but he wears a very fancy lad suit. It's made a very, very good material and he is sitting there drinking a cup of tea with a cane resting next to him.

Chris/Ollie: a big question though. Does he have a house cat?

Avery/GM: No

Bee/Polaris: Does he have a scratching post?

Avery/GM: definitely has a scratching post.

Bee/Polaris: Wait. Okay then does he have a pumpkin full of ground beef?

Avery/GM: Wait, what?

Bee/Polaris: Some zoos will stuff A pumpkin full of ground beef for enrichment for the tigers.

Chris/Ollie: Oh,

Avery/GM: Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting. no, there are no pumpkins of ground meat that you can see, but Ollie, this, this tiger just has this intense stare at you as he finishes his tea and he sets his cup down and he says, “ah, you must be the chef that I've heard so much about. I was unaware that you were a robot. I already have too robot chefs but I might as well what you’ve brought me.”

Chris/Ollie: That he's, he's gonna say, I'm not a puppet. I'm a real boy. And then he, he is gonna be like, oh, apologies. My Lord. I've recently had some work done, but yes, I, I am the chef and I bring this and he is gonna offer the, the pie.

Avery/GM: Lord Winston will take the, uh, the pie and he'll eat. (Fork sounds) It takes a few more bites and then clears the plate and says, oh, that was excellent. Tell me, are you the only one on that ship? Seems like a big ship for just one robot chef to, uh,

Chris/Ollie: My apologies. We had some trouble with some bandits. The ship is damaged and some crew members are injured. They are preoccupied. We came for replacement parts from the downed SOS, uh, signal We mentioned.

Avery/GM: Yes. This SOS signal you've mentioned. I was unaware that there was one going on. Seems my comms People have been letting our communication equipment get a little sloppy. I'll have to, uh, get them back in line.

Bee/Polaris: so this dude is definitely evil.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, Can we, can we like do a check to see if he's lying through this, this, this watching this happen,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah on the ship Can we…

Chris/Ollie: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: like, can we…

Bee/Polaris: Can we recognize that this man is evil?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah Ollie has no ability to recognize his sinister nature. So it's all on you.

Avery/GM: Yeah, y'all y'all watching back on the ship. Anyone who wants to can roll a connect, uh, skill check, uh, probably charisma.

Jenine/Marty: oh, aha. Better. Hey! That's a 10.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce rolled a 4. He’s just glad that the cats thought that the pie was good.

Chris/Ollie: He’s just Besotted.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris isn't even gonna roll. Polaris is just like, yep. This is happening.

Avery/GM: Zahn?

Sherman/Zahn: Zahn is not rolling either. He already written off that this guy's totally evil, like.

Bee/Polaris: regardless of if he actually is, or not?

Sherman/Zahn: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: Mood

Avery/GM: Marty, you rolled a 10.

Jenine/Marty: yeet.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Um, when, when Ollie started talking about injured people on the ship, the, the look in this Rakshasa’s eyes. It was very fast, but you

caught it because you've seen you, you've watched a lot of people be injured. You've as a medic, you've seen a lot of people express like some like last like regrets and stuff like that.

You've seen what, like pure desire looks like in people's eyes and you saw that same pure desire for whatever is on your ship. In this… in this creature's eyes When Ollie started talking about the others that are with him

Jenine/Marty: Oh, no, that doesn't Pass. Um… When Marty notices that she stands up and goes “Ah… mmm… Bad!” and is just pointing at the screen!

Bee/Polaris: as soon as Marty says that Polaris like hits the button to talk to Ollie and says, “connect the bomb”

Jenine/Marty: Oh, no, no no no no! Not yet! Wait! Wait! Wait

Chris/Ollie: Just immediately

Jenine/Marty: no don't do that of that.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris presses the button again and says “Nevermind. Don't connect the bomb.”

Avery/GM: Yet

Chris/Ollie: yet.

Bee/Polaris: “hold off on the bomb.”

Jenine/Marty: what, okay. I,… Hmm, Is this and you like, you just see like Marty start like pacing a little bit. “Okay. Wait, if he's interested in” like talking to herself. “So if he's interested in people that are possibly injured on the ship, does that mean,” and there's it just turns, “do we think that this man Is trying to hunt beings and keep them?”

Bee/Polaris: “Confusion. So are we not going to connect the bomb?”

Jenine/Marty: “well, I don't think we should do cause then they could be hostile and it only goes, the bomb only hits one area. Right. So if we take out the Lord, isn't there an entire rest of the compound. That's gonna come after us.”

Bee/Polaris: is it reasonable to say that the bomb would level this house?

Avery/GM: Yes,

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would just like turn to Marty and say “the bomb would level the house.”

Jenine/Marty: Hmm. Okay

Sherman/Zahn: That and we're in a ship.

Bee/Polaris: We have a plasma laser

Sherman/Zahn: I don’t see them have any ships.

Chris/Ollie: We didn't identify any weapons at all, like anti-ship weapons.

Avery/GM: You did not

Chris/Ollie: but we didn't specifically look for any.

Avery/GM: You also did not.

Jenine/Marty: Hm. Okay. Wait, wait. Let's not do anything drastic yet. Let's just, I might be overreacting here. I do that sometimes, I apologize.

Chris/Ollie: He could just be really, uh, wanting to help these people.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I, I, Polaris just kind of like tilts his head and just like he says, “ I'm confused if this person is not good. Should we not immediately dispatch them. What is the reason for keeping them alive?”

Jenine/Marty: Hmm, Marty doesn't want this… This is the medics… Doesn't know what to do in the situation.

Avery/GM: Do no harm, except…

Sherman/Zahn: Murder, not murder?

Jenine/Marty: yeah, I'm intern. I don't even, I, I was having my residency. I haven't even done anything in the field yet!

Sherman/Zahn: Oh, that's okay. You haven't taken the Hippocratic oath yet? You're Fine!

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my God.

Bee/Polaris: True True. I just want, want, I, I'm not sure if it's apparent to everyone else on the ship, but Polaris is not saying this out of malice, but more out of just not understanding,

Jenine/Marty: Oh no, no. That's fair. That… Marty recognizes that is just, Marty's like uh-oh I don't know what to do in this situation now.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is very goal oriented. his goal is to get the part and get off the ship in the most efficient way possible.

Jenine/Marty: Marty is very much a water sign. And I know this as a water sign.

Avery/GM: Ollie, as you're hearing this conversation back and forth on the ship, you're also able to split your attention, cause you're a robot and you are hearing Lord Winston say, “well, you are free to bring your injured companions here and we will take care of them, but”

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Eat shit bro. No way.

Jenine/Marty: I could do medic stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but he doesn't know that and we don't want him to know that!

Jenine/Marty: I don't exist. Ooh. In the shadows.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. We don't want you to become one of his employees.

Avery/GM: finish your internship

Jenine/Marty: I know! What a way finish it?

Avery/GM: Oh, uh, you see, I, I came here to this planet to enjoy one of my sports, um, that, uh, that me and my family find oh, so entertaining. And that is hunting and lately I've just, I've been getting so bored by the lack of diversity in animals here, the lack of biodiversity. But you say that there's a crash site nearby. Are there any survivors?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, my God, bro.

Chris/Ollie: Uh,

Sherman/Zahn: He doesn't sound like the most effective of hunters. If he hasn't gone 20 Miles outside of his compound into the forest.

Bee/Polaris: especially if it's been going off for five years!

Sherman/Zahn: right?

Bee/Polaris: Hmm.

Avery/GM: It's a big, it's a big jungle. There's lots of jungle.

Bee/Polaris: That is true.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, 20 miles a jungle is something else.

Avery/GM: The whole planet is basically one giant jungle. So.

Bee/Polaris: that's fair. Polaris will tell Ollie, ask him why he came to an unregistered, remote planet. If he wanted more diversity in prey.

Sherman/Zahn: especially one that's slowly being sucked into a black hole.

Bee/Polaris: right. Sus.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Oh, I'm gonna say, uh, “at first we assume that you were the survivors, but if not, then what are you doing here on a slowly dying, unregistered planet? If biodiversity is what you seek, there are infinite planets to hunt.”

Avery/GM: Lord Winston stands up, grabs his cane and begins walking kind of through his den and motions for you to follow, uh, as he is just slowly. Like

touching and pointing at his various trophies as he speaks. He says, “I've been here for three years now. And, you know, originally I came here because well, hunting laws and limits don't apply on planets that aren't registered.”

“And the thrill of being the last person to hunt on a planet before it gets sucked into oblivion is just… Ah! it's. It's what hunters live for.”

And Hermes's pipes up and says, “that is not at all. What hunters live for hunters live to eat.”

And, uh, Lord Winston continues and says, “I have hunted many animals here to extinction. Which you know, was really just a mercy on my part because they would get sucked into this black hole, but I'm running out of animals. And so if you say that there is something else that crashed here, well, then I need to find it.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks at Marty and an emote… a bomb emote and a question mark pops up on his visor.

Sherman/Zahn: Zahn is nodding his head.

Jenine/Marty: Huh? Well this seems bad.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Essentially he sees this as like the most thrilling place, because if he stays too long to hunt, he'll die. But if he gets, if he, you know, but he can hunt for as long as he wants and it, it doesn't matter.

Jenine/Marty: Yup. Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: creatures to extinction and not face consequences. And then he can just leave the planet cause there won't be any evidence cause it's gonna get sucked into a black hole.

Sherman/Zahn: Yep.

Avery/GM: Essentially.

Jenine/Marty: I don’t like this. I don’t like this.

Chris/Ollie: I dunno, this dude sounds pretty, uh, I dunno, pretty wholesome. (sarcasm)

Jenine/Marty: He seems sus and I don't like him.

Bee/Polaris: He also did just outright say that he wants to hunt whatever is on the SOS ship.

Jenine/Marty: The imposter! Get him.

Sherman/Zahn: Shoot him out into space!

Jenine/Marty: Where's the eject button.

Bee/Polaris: The bomb of course!

Jenine/Marty: uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Marty goes, “yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm just gonna, and. Which, yeah.” Marty doesn't know what chips are in there. She, she doesn't understand robots. She's gonna sit down. “Okay.”

Bee/Polaris: Polar slaps the button to talk to Ollie and says, “offer him pie and then connect the bomb.”

Chris/Ollie: Um,

Sherman/Zahn: didn’t he already eat the pie?

Jenine/Marty: wait, should we check if there's anyone else with him with the, with the, with the evil person?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, the dude that was on the comms

Avery/GM: um, yeah, there's the, the philosopher

Jenine/Marty: no other, no other like innocent civilians?

Chris/Ollie: I assumed there were a couple other guards, but did I not see anyone other than the guy?

Jenine/Marty: There are robots, right? I know that there's robot chefs.

Avery/GM: so far, you've just seen the one guy and the two robots.

Bee/Polaris: And I don't think, well, I mean, this guy's definitely evil, so they might, there might be people in that eight by eight shed, but you know, this guy's evil and also they're not close enough to the Bo. Right. Cuz it's only gonna level the house. Not the whole compound. Yeah. Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: And also, no, this isn't a silence of the lambs things. There's no one in a, in a pit, in one of the sheds.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. I was

Jenine/Marty: Well, you like, you know, like, like there's there's, there was sweet, there was a ship that we were on before, where there is, there's this nice group of civilians, just working on a ship that was being attacked.

Bee/Polaris: that's true, but that wasn't, that wasn't our fault that wasn't us. that was the Armada.

Jenine/Marty: there went… Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, Polaris will…

Chris/Ollie: well, I, uh, I don't know. I'm kind of concerned about the bomb because we don't know, you know, what might happen, where the ship's sitting right outside the front. Uh, I'm not a,

Bee/Polaris: I thought, uh, Hermes directed us far enough away. So the bomb wouldn't…

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah. But if there, if there's anyone else here who decides to retaliate.

Bee/Polaris: oh, that would be the, probably the robots cause the guys in the house.

Chris/Ollie: mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: And he said that he had two robot chefs, which I imagine are also in the house.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You so far seen two little tiny robot chefs, like really tiny, like little hover hover bots. And you've seen two, like kind of bulky armored robots. And then you've seen the one, the one guard who you have not gotten his name and then Lord Winston so far is all that you've seen.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: And you don't hear the noise of anyone else in the house, Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: you're concerned about that, then you can ask him for like a tour of the property while the pie cools and then serve it to him and then connect the bomb.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, no, he, well, I don't know if he told me,

Avery/GM: He already ate the pie.

Bee/Polaris: Oh,

Chris/Ollie: um,

Bee/Polaris: oh,

Avery/GM: Yeah. That was like the first thing Ollie did.

Bee/Polaris: oh.

Avery/GM: So he gets to the end of the hallway here and he turns to you and says, why don't you call up the rest of your crew and have them come on into the compound.

Chris/Ollie: Ali is going to, uh, short out a little bit and say, “Hey, I'm nobody's messenger boy. Right? I'm a delivery boy.” And then explode, violently.

(Music drops, explosion sounds)

(laughter)

Sherman/Zahn: That's fucking wonderful.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh

Bee/Polaris: Excellent set

Avery/GM: oh my gosh… oh

Jenine/Marty: Rip this ship baby.

Bee/Polaris: oh my gosh.

Avery/GM: Oh man

Bee/Polaris: That is hilarious.

Avery/GM: Chris. Oh my gosh. That was great. Okay. I'm gonna roll some dice here.

Bee/Polaris: I wish there was inspiration in this game.

Sherman/Zahn: I know. I just about to ask if there was.

Jenine/Marty: Not yet.

Avery/GM: Oh man.

Bee/Polaris: the explode violently part was what got me.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's enough to do it. So the last thing that you see in this janitor body Ollie is the tail go like straight up, like scared, uh, behind Lord Winston and on the screen of the ship, you see just it go to like the snowy static. Of the connection being lost and the holographic screen goes away and you can see out of the cockpit window as a fireball, just erupts from this house that was once there and a, a mushroom cloud of, of smoke and gas, uh, rises into the air and is actually trapped inside this force field for a second, until that system short circuits, because it was connected to the house and the smoke rises into the air as a big plume as if to signal the fiery death of this janitor bot.

Bee/Polaris: May he rest in peace

Chris/Ollie: Oh, and, uh, I'm Ollie is also dearly, dearly, for Bruce's hat as well.

Bee/Polaris: That's fine. Polaris will make another one.

Avery/GM: Some debris like hits the wall inside this compound and busts a few holes in it. But luckily your ship is, uh, scathed or not, or is unscathed, I should say. Sorry. Um, your ship is unscathed as Ollie has valiantly given up its, uh, one, one of its many bodies.

Chris/Ollie: Easy come easy go.

Sherman/Zahn: How long does it take for your soul gem to regenerate?

Chris/Ollie: Uh,

Avery/GM: I was just getting to that.

Sherman/Zahn: Oh,

Chris/Ollie: pretty much, however long he wants to balance my, uh, regenerative ability.

Avery/GM: No, I mean, moments later, the, the it's a quantumly entangled piece of hardware.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, no, like, yeah, I come back, but, uh, he asked, how long does it take to regenerate? Like,

Avery/GM: oh yeah. Cause the, the gem also regrows after a certain amount of time too, that'll be to be determined, but um, Ollie you come back online in your actual body, (power on sound) your emotion chips, reinitiate your service and etiquette, all your other protocols come back online. Um, and you’re… you’re paused in this position of holding out, what was your soul gem and is now just your empty hand and you come to and what do you say?

Chris/Ollie: For a little bit, his eyes are gonna be like glitching, like flickering out, uh, with like the static lines that run through him for a sec. And he's gonna be like, “that was thoroughly unpleasant. And, uh, he is gonna slowly put himself back together, awkwardly.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will turn to Zahn and say, “I can understand why I should have told you I was handing you a bomb.”

Sherman/Zahn: “Yeah… good. Yeah. You, uh, definitely made that point. He's just staring in awe at the glorious explosion.”

Avery/GM: Oh, my gosh, that was glorious. So you have just blown up this compound or at least the main house of it. Hermes pipes up and says “Critical damage. I estimate that the complex is unstable” and you look out the display and it's just, I mean, it's yeah. Like, thanks captain obvious.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris, once again, does the eye roll emote on his visor.

Bruce/Caden: I have always wondered what the smell of flambe cat would be.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris goes and opens a window. No kidding. There's no windows on his spaceship that open.

Sherman/Zahn: I certainly hope not that be a severe structural weakness.

Avery/GM: Would you like to search the compound or do you want to?

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah, we could do that

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, kind of

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was probably having the ship hovering and ready to go. But yeah, if y'all wanna, if we wanna investigate the compound, we can totally, well, we're gonna have to wait for the smoke to clear, right And the fire?

Avery/GM: The, so the building's still on fire, but the, the force field's basically disengaged because the thing controlling them blew up.

Sherman/Zahn: Yeah, but it still takes,

Avery/GM: Smoke is just rising into the air

Sherman/Zahn: I was gonna say it still takes more than a little bit for the smoke to clear

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you could wait, you could wait for the smoke to clear,

Sherman/Zahn: Let’s go.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we can go to the

Sherman/Zahn: let's go. Yeah. Let's, let's use our, our, our transport clamps, grab the ship and then come back here. That way we have a big open space to dismantle, get all the parts.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Did we just level up from stealing a ship to stealing a planet?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, well, not really, because we can't really take this planet anywhere and also it's gonna get sucked into a black hole.

Sherman/Zahn: That's still gonna take several hundred years

Chris/Ollie: Yeah we’ve got a… a nice little home

Bee/Polaris: Okay. If we wanna stay on this planet and deforest it, I could probably, we could probably throw together some thrusters to like move the planet if we want to.

Avery/GM: What if we just take the planet and move it somewhere else?

Sherman/Zahn: I mean, all life on it's pretty much dead already.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Cause of this asshole that we blew up! do you think we can register a planet with the galactic DMV?

Sherman/Zahn: Thing is though, if we register it, we'd have to start paying tax property tax on it!

Chris/Ollie: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: right.

Sherman/Zahn: and we'd have to register it with the Republic or they'd want to conquer us. So at which point we'd have to establish who's in charge. We'd have to set up an ambassador

Bee/Polaris: Then they would discover that all the animals were hunted to extinction. They'll think it's our fault.

Sherman/Zahn: that, and that also puts a big target as to, you know, the rest of the Winchester or not the Winchester, the Winston family.

Bee/Polaris: Well, they don't know about this guy. He dipped! For all they know he could have gotten sucked into the black hole.

Sherman/Zahn: Well, because he didn't register where he went.

Bee/Polaris: Exactly.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, I'm guessing his, like his family knows

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Well, they can probably assume that he got sucked into the black hole.

Chris/Ollie: fair.

Bee/Polaris: We can probably push this planet into the black hole if we want. No, I'm kidding.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we, we spend a ton of time and resources building thrusters to move the planet and we just push it into the black

Bee/Polaris: oh, we don't need thrusters. We just need like a world ending bomb.

Sherman/Zahn: oh God, the, the other like meta meta gaming question is if this is a true Rakshasa which means he's gonna reincarnate somewhere and know that we murdered him.

Avery/GM: No,

Bee/Polaris: Oh,

Avery/GM: this isn't this isn't no, no. Yeah. It's not, like I said, that's, that's partially why I didn't use that word, I didn’t wanna associate it with the yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Only I can reincarnate, thank you!

Sherman/Zahn: But yeah, I like our grab ship, come back here and nice open space. Search it while I pull parts out Plan.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Um, the other thing the dude did say while before, you know, post explosion or pre-explosion, is that he, he has some inkling that there may be people on that vessel that he wanted to hunt.

Sherman/Zahn: I mean…

Avery/GM: Yeah, he was, he was so I, I didn't, I probably didn't explain that very well. He was just, um, saying that if, if there was a distress signal going on, his thought was, oh, well someone had to trigger a distress signal.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Oh, but he doesn't know that it happened five years ago, so we're good.

Sherman/Zahn: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: All right. Well, while the smoke is clearing, we can go, uh, grab that ship and bring it back!

Avery/GM: Sure. You're gonna hover your main ship above it instead of the shuttle, right?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I don't think the shuttle can grab it. Can it?

Avery/GM: No.

Bee/Polaris: So yeah, so yeah. Polaris will take off and grab the ship and we will come back.

Avery/GM: Okay. Um, go ahead and roll a pilot check for me.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm.

Avery/GM: We'll do dexterity, cause this is gonna take some fine manuevering.

Sherman/Zahn: Some finicky.

Bee/Polaris: Well, it's a good thing.

Avery/GM: unless someone wants to jump on the laser can and then start blasting trees.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Who has a shoot skill?

Sherman/Zahn: I, I do actually.

Bee/Polaris: yo! Well, this planet's already a lost cause

Chris/Ollie: Actually I do now, too don't I? you put the plus shoot chip in me.

Sherman/Zahn: I did I put the tactical thingy in you.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah.

Sherman/Zahn: Well, I sadly need to now delete the, uh, all those other fun chips that you used to have.

Bee/Polaris: Oh man, the camp counselor

Caden/Bruce: Bye Shrek!

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. I forgot that one. I was gonna greet the guy as buddy and chief and, and whatnot.

Avery/GM: Hey Champ!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Hey champ. How's it going?

Bee/Polaris: Aw, man. Oh, you could have gone into a whole diatribe about how important the environment is and how hunting, uh, to extinction is detrimental to the environment.

Chris/Ollie: And just like, like I'm explaining it to a child, but like now you see

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: the ecosystem is a very important and delicate balance.

Bee/Polaris: we do need to raid a chip warehouse now though, so…

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm gonna need a stockpile of those.

Sherman/Zahn: I am kind of wishing I had swapped the etiquette chip for one of the other fun ones though. That's my bad.

Bee/Polaris: Nah, it's fine. I'm sure we'll find a bucket of chips somewhere.

Sherman/Zahn: Mm-hmm

Chris/Ollie: Yeah especially if fun chips are what we're looking for

Bee/Polaris: Actually they could still be floating through space,

Chris/Ollie: Those are probably, uh, gonna be easier to find than like op ones.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Yeah.

Sherman/Zahn: I mean, heck we could search through the, the dead bodies of the robots here

Chris/Ollie: True.

Bee/Polaris: Oh true. Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be doing that Piloting check my bed 10 on the die, plus two, you said? Yeah. Two so 12.

Avery/GM: Perfect. Um, yeah, you maneuver in (Flying sounds) and as, as much as, uh, Hermes's was not sure the ship would fit in this area, Hermes's clearly underestimated your pilot skills, Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: That's what the little mad phase was for.

Avery/GM: And you maneuver just above this vessel and you start lowering your ship down. when out of the tree line, um, on the… Cause you're not, obviously you can't see the tree line, but on your sensors, (Sensor alert sound) the sensors pick up some sort of organic being running from the treeline towards the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh, did, is the ship already hooked up?

Avery/GM: No, not yet. You're like lowering down towards it to like, get the clamps on it.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Uh, Polaris will like stop that process and, uh, turn to everyone else and say there is an organic being running towards the ship. I imagine it might be the survivor.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, I'm, I'm guessing we can't like land here.

Avery/GM: No, you could lower the lower, the, the landing ramp and like walk out there if you wanted to probably Marty and maybe Bruce would and Zahn would probably all have problems with like the wind and stuff, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Well, we do have 50 feet of hemp. Sorry.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. You mean, you mean we have, what is it? 1, 2, 3, 4, 125 feet of hemp rope,

Sherman/Zahn: Oh, my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we could just lower like a rope down for them to climb up.

Jenine/Marty: yeah.

Avery/GM: Hermes says “I have the laser locked on. If you would like me to engage it.”

Bee/Polaris: plasma laser!?

Jenine/Marty: Let's not shoot anyone yet.

Chris/Ollie: Hermes is right or die. Holy shit.

Bee/Polaris: uh, Polaris just says, “uh, that won't be necessary.”

Avery/GM: “powering down plasma laser.”

Bee/Polaris: yeah, polar just tilts his head to the rest of the crew. What do crew.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I say we, uh, we, uh, meet this guy. Can we see him? Does he look like, uh, like a threat? Like he's gonna come in and blow us up or does he look like maybe, uh, a Castaway?

Sherman/Zahn: All we know is that it's an organic.

Avery/GM: it's an organic being, cause you haven't made visual contact yet. Cause the angle that the ship is at versus where the, the cockpit window is at. Um, and Hermes's sensors are just picking up.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, well I say, uh, uh, either let 'em on or go down and talk to 'em because this is assumingly the person we came to help,

Bee/Polaris: Uh, question, would it be possible to, you know, how like really tall birds with really long necks have to like angle their like little, their, their eyesight to look down at something. Can we do that with the ship? can we like angle it in a way, like in the bee movie where they angled the plane towards the flower, can we do that?

Avery/GM: So you wanna do,

Bee/Polaris: So that we can see them through the bridge window.

Chris/Ollie: like swing it around?

Avery/GM: mm.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Turn it about.

Sherman/Zahn: we are in kind of tight, close quarters with the, the trees and stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. But the only, the, the tip of the ship would have to be looking down at them instead of the whole ship. The whole big part of the ship could be angled up towards the sky.

Avery/GM: So it'll take some more maneuvering, but you could roll another pilot check to see if you can do it.

Chris/Ollie: Ooh

Avery/GM: like maneuver your way out and like up and then come back down so you can get a good look at it.

Bee/Polaris: uh, yeah. Polaris will turn to the rest of the crew and just say, “if you'd like, I can maneuver the ship so that we can get a look at them from the bridge.”

Sherman/Zahn: Do what you feel you gotta do, I suppose.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna suggest, uh, “maybe we could, uh, back away and communicate with them through the ships comms.”

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. Does the ship have a loud speaker?

Chris/Ollie: Well, we probably do, but I, I was guessing like he could just hop on his ships radio when he gets there, but, uh,

Bee/Polaris: You got me there.

Chris/Ollie: That's pretty risky actually. Now that I think about it, cuz he could just shoot us.

Sherman/Zahn: Yeah, we don't know what of the ship is broken.

Avery/GM: I mean, that ship is super trashed.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. True.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. It's super broken.

Chris/Ollie: But I'm all for just letting this dude do whatever.

Bee/Polaris: we can also just like on the coms, tell 'em to get in his ship and we'll airlift him to a clearer location or not on the coms with like on

Sherman/Zahn: on the loud speaker.

Bee/Polaris: Mm.

Sherman/Zahn: Yeah, we can do that. That's not a bad.

Chris/Ollie: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Sounds good.

Bee/Polaris: Who's on comms?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, uh, I guess that is me

Sherman/Zahn: Marty! Probably?

Chris/Ollie: me or Marty? Either one.

Jenine/Marty: Marty!?

Bee/Polaris: well, I imagine, I

Sherman/Zahn: Marty had been…

Bee/Polaris: be a lot less, or I imagine Marty's voice would be a lot more disarming than a robot voice over the loud speaker.

Chris/Ollie: I agree.

Jenine/Marty: This is fair. This is true, Marty. This is, this is what I gotta, this is the, the, the bedside manners unit

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: exactly.

Jenine/Marty: “okay. Um, okay, so we're just telling this organic being to go back into the ship and we're gonna air lift them to, to clearing, right? That's what we're saying. We're gonna give him like a tow?”

Sherman/Zahn: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Indeed. Yes.

Jenine/Marty: okay. And the Marty goes okay. Okay. Okay. Pushes the button. (Button push) Hello. We're here to help out. We recommend going back into your ship and then we're going to airlift you out and bring you to a clearing to help. (button Push)

Avery/GM: You see this, you see on the sensors. So Polaris, you have not maneuvered the ship yet?

Bee/Polaris: no.

Avery/GM: Okay. Um, so you see this, this, uh, organic being on the sensors move towards the ship that you're trying to airlift. So after a few minutes, it appears basically directly below. Where your ship is. Like, if, if you have like the classic radar with like the little circle it's standing right in the middle of the

Bee/Polaris: So I can assume that he is on the ship that this person is on the ship. Okay. Then I shall lower the vehicle grabbers.

Avery/GM: Okay. Uh, yeah, I mean, you already rolled to 12 earlier, so you're fine. Uh, the, the, the clamp or the magnets clamp onto the ship (Clamps moving sound) and Herme says successful connection now lifting and you lift up out of the ship and you go back to the clearing where the compound was? (Ship flying sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm gonna, I imagine that the clearing is big enough to where I can, we can set down the broken ship and then land hour ship next to it.

Avery/GM: If it wasn't, it is now.

Bee/Polaris: Awesome. sweet. Yeah. So that happens. presumably

Avery/GM: Cool. As you approach the old compound, you do see a couple, figures, robotic figures through the, the, the windshield. and they're like hosing down this fiery building

Bee/Polaris: Oh man. Uh, Polaris turns to who's near the, the, the gunning station. anyone near the gunning station.

Sherman/Zahn: Zahn can be

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Polaris will turn on and say, um, should we dispatch these two robots?

Avery/GM: and they're not paying your ship any heed as they are hosing.

Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean their boss is dead.

Sherman/Zahn: possibly? Hermes can you analyze what kind of robots they are? if they're armed or not?

Avery/GM: “Analyzing, these are fire suppression, robots. They are equipped with fire suppression chemicals.”

Bee/Polaris: Oh, we're good.

Sherman/Zahn: Nah, yeah, we're fine. Nah, we'll we'll save the ammo then.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So anyway, we land the ship, yeah.

Avery/GM: and, and Hermes starts like rattling off like their manufacturer and like

Chris/Ollie: serial number

Bee/Polaris: Uh, you know how we.

Sherman/Zahn: Hermes's that's enough.

Bee/Polaris: I was gonna say, do you know how, like on an old iPhone or something, when you turn down the volume, it has like that very specific, like sound as it lowers the volume, Yeah. Polaris will just turn down the, Hermes volume.

Avery/GM: okay. So you set down this, busted up ship and then you land your ship next to it. And do all of you exit your ship?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris Doesn't.

Sherman/Zahn: Yes, Oh, Polaris doesn't?

Avery/GM: Polaris, You're gonna hang out?

Bee/Polaris: well, Polaris just, just never set foot on a planet. So…

Jenine/Marty: Marty will just because she assumes that someone is injured. That's that's that her.

Sherman/Zahn: Zahn is with all of his tools so that he can start tearing apart their ship.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is as well.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie’s gonna head out.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will stand on the ramp.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. So you all come out of this ship in the background, these fire suppressing robots are just minding their own business. And at first you don't hear anything from the crashed ship. But after a while you hear some movement and some, uh, pretty loud cursing, just like “it took 'em five years, five years, really?”

“I mean, I've been sitting here thinking, you know, oh, that'll come after six months. They'll come after a year. Oh, it's been two, no, five years, five years. It takes the Republic”

and you see two hands, uh, come and grip the side of like where this door obviously used to be before it got blown off. And then you see two more hands, grab the other end.

And it pulls itself through this doorway. And out comes this creature with four arms, huge muscular arms and two legs. And he's wearing like the tattered remains of like a military uniform of some kind on… where the name, the name tag would go. It says, Tom, And you can see that he is wearing majors insignias, cuz yes, this is major Tom.

Chris/Ollie: Got him.

Avery/GM: and, and he, he steps out and he just says, so are you ready to take me back to the Republic?

(Background music fades out)

(outro music fades in, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars! Is a 1upPodcast Network Production. Be sure to check out our website: 1upPodcasts.com for more shows and follow us on twitter @Furthest Pod.

Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. You can find him on Instagram at Zodiac Gallery. Check out their most recent Twin Peaks inspired Project, Wisteria Lodge on Sound Cloud!

Background music provided by Tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Freighter, Distilled Tranquility, Antiquarian Study, and Aftermath.

we'll be back on September 1st with episode 5! See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro music fades back in, then ends)

Interlude - Recoverd Logs from the Eos

(explosion sounds) (beeps)

Emergency Communications Relay: Hegemony Warship Eos function has ceased. Emergency Communications Relay activated. Transferring all relevant data to Tartarus for archiving.

21st Day of Virgo:

This is Adm (basically he is about to call himself Admiral but stops himself)… Commander Vos, reporting to the council on the progress of the Eos. I just received orders from the Council that I am to take up our… negotiations with the people of Penia. Captain Celia apparently still doesn’t understand the way the Hegemony operates. We do not negotiate. We do not seek peace and mutual understanding. We rule. We dominate. But what would a former smuggler understand about domination. She was barely getting by when we pressed her and her crew from the Prometheus into service. And now… Well, her days in the Expansionary Force are numbered. I just need to wait for some sign of insubordination and she’ll be removed from command.

Soon…

25th Day of Virgo:

This is Commander Vos, reporting to the council on the progress of the Eos. Ran into four different kinds of troublemaker during my shift yesterday. A couple of them seem promising and perhaps they can be hired on to fix some of the more esoteric pieces of equipment on board. For now, they are all sitting in the brig. A few days of solitary confinement and very little food is usually enough to get people to sign an employment contract with the hegemony. Captain Celia isn’t exactly a fan of this type of manipulation, but I find it’s exactly the sort of tool that keeps costs low and productivity high. Also, whomever was hired in the kitchen makes the worst Spacer Stew I’ve tried. Stew doesn’t need 12 different herbs and 13 different spices. Salt and Pepper… Might make my way down and complain to whomever this new chef is. Can’t have our crew expecting delicious meals like this every day… gets morale too high for my liking.

28th Day of Virgo:

Ha ha ha ha. Oh… You should have seen the look on the captain’s face when I showed her the orders from the 12. I thought she was going to melt through her seat on the bridge. I’ll show her how things are done. A quick kill of the ambassador, send whatever assistant he has with him away with our demands, and watch as the system quickly falls in line. None of these promises of protection or guarantee of trade rights. No… This is how the Hegemony expansionary fleet is meant to work.

29th Day of Virgo:

Admiral Vos, reporting to the council on the progress of the Eos. I’ve removed Captain Celia from command for spying on council affairs and have charged her with treason. She was smart enough to barricade her quarters before I revoked her security clearance and it took a bit of effort to get her out of there. Placing a recorder in the negotiation room? Really? Oh Captain Celia, that was a foolish choice even judging by your record.

No matter. The prisoners have remained uncooperative, so the good captain can join them in the pits back on Tartarus. They will at least make for good entertainment for the 12 and the eternal one.

Captain’s Log: 21st day of Virgo, 3217

The Eos has arrived in the Ptocheia sector and has begun making our way to Penia. A backwater planet that serves as this sector’s capital. I really don’t get why we are sending the fleet’s greatest warship on these diplomatic missions. We have an entire war to fight back home and yet here we are, expanding into the galaxy… I swear, sometimes the 12 and the Eternal One make absolutely no sense. Well, better get some rest. I am due back on the bridge in six hours.

Captain’s Log: 24th day of Virgo, 3217.

I don’t know WHO they hired in the kitchen on our last port call, but whomever they are they need to keep them. This is the most amazing Spacer Stew I’ve ever had. The spices, the aroma. *clears throat* Ahem, anyway…

We’ve been making our way through the Ptocheia system as quickly as possible but have hit a few snags along the way. Those snags being not one, not two, but four different beings that, for one reason or another, Commander Vos has decided to take prisoner. We always seem to take on prisoners whenever he is on duty and I am off duty… Gonna have to look into that.

Captain’s Log: 28th day of Virgo, 3217:

Commander Vos is up on his high horse again. Apparently he was chosen by the Council to perform negotiations this time. Something about my previous efforts taking too long and not getting everything the council wanted. I don’t get it. They say we aren’t launching an invasion and yet want the planets and systems we negotiate with to give up so much willingly. Don’t they understand that negotiations aren’t a one way street?

Whatever… We’ll let Commander Vos take up tomorrow’s session. And when he crashes and burns, I’ll have the footage of it to rub in his face. I placed a recorder in the meeting room. Should make for a very entertaining holovid night next week.

Former Captain’s Log: 29th day of Virgo, 3217:

Well, that wasn’t very smart of me. Seems Commander Vos is actually ADMIRAL Vos now, and apparently I’ve been an insubordinate soldier in the eyes of the council. Vos didn’t even negotiate with the ambassador today. Just executed him and ordered the Ambassador’s assistant back to his planet with a data pad containing their new political reality.

Ya know… If the council had just been CLEAR about what our purpose was and maybe sent out a few more ships with the Eos, I would have understood. I’ve been relieved of duty after the Admiral discovered the recorder I installed. Apparently they wanted assassination and intimidation, not negotiation in good faith. COULD HAVE TOLD ME! I’ve barricaded myself in my quarters but I am sure it’s just a matter of time before Vos has me thrown in the brig. I should have stayed on the Prometheus…

(outro music fades in)

Avery: Thank you for listening to this special interlude episode of Beyond the Furthest Stars. Commander Vos was voiced by Ava Rogers. Follow her work over on twitter @ThatNerdyWriter. Captain Celia was voiced by Eve Smith. Be sure to check out her work over on the Ballad of the 7 Dice twitch show: Rise of Nyarlathotep.

Our next episode will release on time august 15th, 2022.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Episode 3 - Wild Planet!

Avery: Welcome to Episode 3 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music Starts and then fades out)

Avery: Our camera pans to a distant planet on the edge of the galaxy. It's a planet covered in storms and sand. We zoom in on a solid black tower That's rising out of the desert on this planet and the camera pans up the length of the tower to the top and through an open window and into a chamber. And there are 12 beings sitting around this table. And one of them says,

Rhea: “What news do we have of the Eos, Crius?”

Avery: and Crius responds

Crius: “nothing good, Rhea. It seems the independent systems moved faster than anticipated and entire Armada ambushed them outside the Ptochea system.”

Avery: and Rhea responds

Rhea: “Were there any survivors?”

Avery: And Crius says

Crius: “Only two and they're on their way here.”

Rhea: Excellent.

Avery: Rhea says

Rhea: “We’ll interrogate them when they arrive. Where is the AI?”

Avery: Crius says,

Crius: “Well, I assume it was destroyed with the ship.”

Avery: And Rhea says,

Rhea: “no, it wasn't. If it had been the backup would've reloaded and it hasn't. So where is the AI?”

Avery: And Crius says,

Crius: “I'm not sure, but perhaps the survivors will know when they return.”

Avery: And the camera flashes back to the, this little vessel with a failed hyperdrive in this star system. It's been about six hours since you picked up the SOS signal Hermes has just finished a diagnostic of what exactly went wrong. With the hyperdrive, apparently the power regulators have gone out and yeah.

Avery: What have y'all been doing to fill this time?

Bee/Polaris: Well, first of all, I'd just like to say a cosmic oops for taking that A.I. I didn't realize it would get us this much hot water

Avery: Oh, you're fine!

Zach/Zahn: Oops. Well, Zahn has been diligently trying to get the compensators working.

Avery: Oh, the power regulators.

Zach/Zahn: That's it. Power Regulators working.

Avery: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would probably try and go back there to help with that.

Avery: Sure. So, let's have Zahn roll, an intelligence, fix check and Polaris, you can roll to help.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Should I roll the same thing? Intelligence fix.?

Avery: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: That'd be a 9

Avery: Mm-hmm

Bee/Polaris: I got, uh sorry, I'm trying to do math.

Zach/Zahn: Mental math is hard.

Bee/Polaris: Math is so hard, dude. 12

Avery: 12. Okay. Yeah. Zahn you're pretty good with machines, but melted power. Regulators are a little bit beyond your skills. you crack open the, the casings for one of these regulators and you see that it's just turned to goo in this little drive.

Zach/Zahn: You hear a very long stream of vile curses in many different alien languages.

Bee/Polaris: a question mark just pops up on Polaris's Visor.

Zach/Zahn: “The power regulators turned to goo” and I say, I say as I like, and like brushing my hands off, wiping my, or wiping my hands off on my, on my, uh, jumpsuit.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris pulls out a handkerchief from their pocket and offers it to you.

Zach/Zahn: Visible confusion is on Zahn's face as he shakes his head not wanting it. That's that's that's not gonna do me any good

Avery: That’s what the Jumpsuits for!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, he just wipes his his hands on his jumpsuit and looks at, at the handkerchief

Bee/Polaris: Polaris slowly puts it back in his pocket.

Chris/Ollie: What Ollie's been doing is, uh, fixing himself, uh, familiarizing himself with the ship's, uh, systems and working with Hermes in order to like integrate Hermes into the, the ship systems.

Avery: Oh, interesting! Okay.

Chris/Ollie: I'm assuming we got a bunch of spare parts on the ship because I need spare parts to fix myself.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I have some spare parts on me!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I think I have some too!

Zach/Zahn: I do as well.

Avery: Yeah, you probably dig around in the cargo, hold a little bit and you find some, some extra circuit boards and, and such to, uh, to repair yourself with that's fine. Were you at low health?

Chris/Ollie: Oh no, I was just, uh, you know, four points of damage. So

Avery: Oh yeah, you did. I forgot about that.

Chris/Ollie: I, I can't remember. Oh yeah. I got hit by the AOE attack in the hallway.

Avery: Yeah. When the, the electricity, uh, short circuited that's right, you're fine. It'll be okay.

Chris/Ollie: Good as new, right as rain.

Avery: You were saying you were gonna help Hermes's integrate into the.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. If like, you know, just working alongside him to see if there's there's anything he needs to be, uh, you know, secure and have full access and control of the ship.

Avery: Okay. Yeah. There’s, nothing that’s necessary for that. The ship is meant to have an AI in it, so it just takes a little bit of time to integrate and it's there. So, Hermes is right as rain. Go ahead though. And roll a, um, go ahead and roll a notice check. We'll go. Let's see. because you're look, cause you're, you're poking around for parts to repair yourself, so we'll go dexterity

Chris/Ollie: Uh, 11.

Avery: 11. Okay. Yeah, that's good. As you're kind of looking, looking through a bunch of crates, you end up finding another robot chassis. It's nothing special. It's just a, uh, it's a janitor bot type of, uh, robot, but it's powered down. Doesn't look like it's been used, but it might make for a good backup body, later on if this one bites the dust.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent, uh, you know, better than the, uh, like this, the base level, uh, like microwave intelligent microwave that they've got in this universe right on. Uh that's excellent. And so other than that, he is just gonna be, uh, exploring the ships systems himself.

Avery: Anyone else doing anything during these six hours taking a nap? Plugging in a blender?

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is, um, not plugging in his blender. No. Um, he's trying to take inventory of if there is any food around or what could be used as food as any usual chef would do. He's thinking with his stomach.

Avery: Excellent. Yeah, you head… you head downstairs into the cargo hold and you see Ollie down there Kind of just poking around boxes and like. Shoving new components like into his body and like ripping old components out. Um, and, uh, go ahead and, and roll a, um, either intelligence or dexterity notice check.

Caden/Bruce: That's a six right in the middle.

Avery: Yeah. You find about three days’ worth of food supplies in these crates, but some of these crates are like bolted shut and kind of hard to like really crack open without like special kind of tools or something. So, it's hard to tell if there might be more food in, in there or not, but the crates you are able to open, you find about three days’ worth of food based on the four humanoid people that need to.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will take a variety of some of the food that he found and bring it back up to the workshop and plug in his lender and start making stuff.

Avery: Sure. Um, tell me about some of this food you find

Caden/Bruce: Um, I think it'll be the kind of basic ship food that probably doesn't expire. Um, so maybe like some canned good beans that look questionable, um, some form of protein that he's not too sure what it is, but it's looks edible, uh, you know, like the random cans of Space spam. And he goes to, and he goes to work, making some form of, I guess, he's trying to make some form of like meat pie, but the type of meat and the type of vegetables in this pie are questionable, but it's it, it smells good.

Avery: Sure. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: I think it's magical that Bruce can make a beat pie out of a blender in just some ship rations.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that sparks joy.

Avery: well, you see the way he heats it up is he goes and puts it like on top of the, the glowy, uh, engine part. Heats it up.

Avery: Go ahead and roll a wisdom and work check for me then let's see how good this pie turns out. And we'll add two to your role since you’re a chef.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, well, uh, that's an 11.

Avery: Oh, hey, look at that. That's great. Yeah, actually, everyone who has a nose can smell this wonderful smell wafting from the workshop. Marty, anything you do during this time?

Jenine/Marty: Marty's just kinda like walking around, seeing if like anyone needs help. And she just like pokes her head and like, oh, well they got it. And just like continues to like, do that in like circles and just checks on everybody every so often. just peeking in. Hello. Anyone need help? Hello assistance? In any way?

Avery: Marty is great.

Bee/Polaris: That’s very sweet.

Avery: I love her. yeah.

Jenine/Marty: you just see a head peeking at the doorway. Hello?

Avery: the moral support we all need.

Bee/Polaris: and Marty is how tall?

Jenine/Marty: Four eleven? Nope. Wait, wait, wait. I think I said Four ten. Four Ten. I'm sorry. She's four ten.

Bee/Polaris: That's adorable. That's great.

Avery: Four Eleven with shoes.

Jenine/Marty: yeah. the one inch is like extra character.

Avery: yeah. uh, great. Um, yeah, so after the, the six hours is up, um, uh, Hermes's voice throughout the ship, and it just says, uh,

Avery/Hermes: I have determined the location of the distress signal, as well as the location of the potential missing parts that we need. They are both conveniently located on a planet in this system.

Zach/Zahn: I like it when convenience is on our side.

Jenine/Marty: Which planet?

Avery: Hold on. Let me, let me bring you all over to the little star map here. You've drifted further into this system because the way spike drives work is that they, when they pull you out of liminal or the extra dimensional space back into normal space, uh, you're typically pulled out as far away from a gravitational body as possible.

Avery: So, you're pulled out to the edge of the system and you've been drifting inward during these last six hours. And you finally see what this system is made of. There is a black hole that is emitting this, these two beams of energy out of the top of it. Um, the top and bottom, which I believe is Hawking radiation if I'm remembering correctly, but they wouldn't call that Hawking radiation here, cuz they don't know Steven Hawking. There are three planets in this system.

Avery: There is a gas giant that is very close to the black hole. And is orbiting very quickly and getting kind of stretched and squeezed and torn apart. There is a small forested planet that is a safe distance from the black hole’s gravity, just enough to be influenced by it, but not enough to really be torn apart yet.

Avery: And then there is a further out gas giant, um, that is super safe and not at all in any danger at all. And that was not me being that wasn't me being, um, suspiciously, facetious. That was, that was actually me saying it's not in danger.

Bee/Polaris: I sure hope the distress signal is not coming from the planet that's being torn apart slowly.

Avery: It is not

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Avery: Hermes says, uh,

Avery/Hermes: the distress signal and the parts you need. I have identified as being on that forested planet in the system, I've pinpointed the distress signal to the Northern continent.

Avery: Are any of you back in the cock pit?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, probably, uh, Polaris is probably back in the pilot seat. How

Jenine/Marty: I think with my rounds, I ended up there.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce walks into the cockpit holding like in his hands, like four dishes of this meat pie and like hands them out and then like slowly looks at Ollie and is like, I made you some, but I'm not sure. And I don't wanna sound offensive if you eat food?

Chris/Ollie: I am quite Unsure myself, actually, I guess, uh, there's the first time for everything and, uh, Ollie will accept the meat pie.

Bee/Polaris: how polite.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Chris/Ollie: Um, yeah. Oh yeah. I should have mentioned Ollie is in the cockpit at this point. Fiddling with the, uh, computers.

Avery: Sure. Okay. Cool. Are you gonna eat the meat pie? Ollie?

Chris/Ollie: um, he's going to put it down and then devote a part of his processing into trying to interpret how to do that.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Avery: Okay, devoting processing, that’s a, that's an actual thing that robot characters do, right?

Chris/Ollie: it is a thing, but I I'm not meaning to like invoke any of the abilities.

Avery: okay.

Chris/Ollie: like an in world, like as a robot, Part of him is thinking about that.

Avery: Okay. Cool. So, since you're all in the cockpit, Hermes displays like a map of this world and kind of like, it starts like zooming in like, uh, like in those shows where they're like “computer enhance” and it zooms in, um, it's doing that. And it zooms in onto a stretch of forest, uh, that, that is pretty thick and pretty crowded, but there are the signs of like a small fire, some wreckage that can clearly be seen from this angle and it's next to a river.

Otherwise, it would be a very lovely place.

Zach/Zahn: Very Scenic!

Avery: Hermes says:

Avery/Hermes: unfortunately, there is nowhere that I can land that is close to that location. We could, of course, hover above the tree line and drop you all out. But I only think one of you would survive. And the one of you that would survive is probably Ollie

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. Ollie. Yeah. Unfortunately, we all have shin bones.

Jenine/Marty: yep. Yep. Yep. I am squishy human

Avery: Femurs are very breakable calculating,

Bee/Polaris: indeed

Chris/Ollie: Ollie’s gonna pipe up and say, “I certainly volunteer for an away mission if that’s What we need.”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is gonna pipe up and say “I saw, um, there was a, there was a lifeboat in the, in the holding bay. It could potentially take that down. It's much smaller.”

Avery/Hermes: Calculating.

Bee/Polaris: What is

Avery: Go Ahead.

Bee/Polaris: What is Hermes calculating?

Avery: The probability of that working. Which is…

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Okay.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, Calculating 7% chance of survival.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris just looks up at Zahn and says “Confusion. How would we get it back onto the ship?”

Zach/Zahn: “Fly it? It looked like a shuttle kind of craft.”

Bee/Polaris: Is that what it is? The lifeboat.

Avery: Yeah, the lifeboat would,

Zach/Zahn: It looked like a lifeboat or a different kind. Uh, if I remember correctly, we had pictured that it looked like the same shuttle craft from star Trek now.

Bee/Polaris: oh, I thought it, I thought it was like a legit boat boat.

Avery: Oh, no, I just, that's just the only, that was the sticker I had to use, um, for, uh,

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. It was a literal row boat.

Avery: let me just drop this super high-res JPEG into the discord.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I thought we were like, I thought we were like gonna be mattress surfing off the ship down onto the forest in like an inflatable raft, which is why I was confused.

Zach/Zahn: This is straight outta Indiana Jones two, bro.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I was thinking Princess Diaries two.

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah.

Jenine/Marty: You know what I mean? The scene, the sleepover.

Avery/Hermes: “I have finished my calculations and there is a 25% chance that you will all crash and burn, but there is a 75% chance that you will survive.”

Avery: And then there's a big like thumb, like L E D thumbs up that, that flashes over the screen.

Zach/Zahn: thanks. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Hermes.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris’ visor just has like a, like a, a mad, like colon back slash face. Yeah,

Avery/Hermes: “There is a clearing that is perfectly suitable for this ship to land on near the forest edge. It would take you approximately one in one quarter day to hike to the crash site. Further scans show that there is a compound located roughly 20 miles from the edge of this forest. There may be signs of life there.”

Zach/Zahn: uh, any communication radio waves?

Avery/Hermes: “The only communication is the SOS coming from the crash site”

Avery: which may or may not be suspicious. You know,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Chris/Ollie: that's that's, that's pretty sus.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, pretty sus. “This is me being pessimistic here, but, uh, assuming that there's nobody left on the crew, they probably crashed and burned and died. shit happens if we're gonna be salvaging this ship for parts so that we can get the hell outta here. Um, I don't wanna hike a day and a half to and from that's just me.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris points to Zahn in agreement.

Jenine/Marty: Question. Do we know how long this signal has been going out? Would we be able to figure that out?

Avery/Hermes: Excellent Question! This signal has been going for approximately FIVE years.

Bee/Polaris: Whoa.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That checks out.

Zach/Zahn: So, my initial guess sounds correct.

Chris/Ollie: So, the village is the survivors

Avery: Oh, it's not even a village. It's a compound.

Chris/Ollie: Compound. yeah. The, uh, place or could be, um, yeah, I'm not a fan of walking. 25% chance is Okay. Ollie's fully prepared to, um, yeet himself out of an airlock onto the, the planet anyway. So he's like, yeah, whatever.

Bee/Polaris: We'll just tie a rope to you.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we got the janitor body. I mean, I got a back up already. Let's just, uh, you. know, toss that one out.

Bee/Polaris: we'll tie a rope to you and then we'll just reel you in when you come, wanna come back up.

Avery: All right, is the plan to, to hover your ship above the tree line and have Ollie jump down then

Zach/Zahn: Nah I was thinking, we'd take the lifeboat. take the lifeboat down.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, I was have to say, are we like gonna be dangling Ollie below us? Like a pinata

(Laughter)

Chris/Ollie: Just imagine like a scene or like flying through the trees. Like it dip me low enough that I'm just like hit all the branches. Uh, Yeah. we should realistically We should go for the lifeboat probably.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: did Herme establish that the, um, where we would get the parts is from the. The ship that's sending out the SOS.

Avery: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I didn't, I probably was not clear, but yes, the, the crash site, uh, he has found that the spike drive is still intact. So

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Okay. So we need to go to that ship regardless.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah it'd be easier to load. Spike drive parts onto the lifeboat right there. Instead of having to drag it through the forest for a day and a half.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah that would suck.

Zach/Zahn: That sucks so hard.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'd like to be able to loot more than we can carry as well.

Bee/Polaris: true. Um, how many, uh, the lifeboat can fit all of us, right. Is there any like extra room for all of the extra loot that we would yank?

Avery: let's see here. Uh, Polaris,

Zach/Zahn: not a whole lot, but.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Cuz I was gonna say like maybe. , I don't know how we would go about, uh, maybe we could take a second trip.

Avery: Polaris, since you asked, um, go ahead and roll a D10.

Bee/Polaris: Eight

Avery: eight. So the, the five of you would take up 80% of the room in the shuttle craft.

Bee/Polaris: oh, sweet.

Avery: So. There would be roughly enough space to occupy like one person's worth of stuff.

Bee/Polaris: and how much would the spike drive stuff take up?

Avery: Uh, that's a good question. Let's see.

Jenine/Marty: and is this 80% or is it 75% with me not being as tall as everybody else?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Well, is this…

Bee/Polaris: Well, I, I mean, Bruce could probably cuz Bruce is like, what? Seven feet tall.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, but are

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, Bruce balances it out between the

Chris/Ollie: Are we talking about the weight capacity of the shuttle or the inventory capacity? Because we could just like, get something into space and then jump out. I could jump out and just push it into the ship or whatever.

Bee/Polaris: well, I was thinking like, we could have someone on the main ship. We could have a couple people on the shuttle ship and Ollie also there and then, you know, lower you down and just pull the stuff up, go back to the main ship. It's like a Matryoshka doll.

Jenine/Marty: So claw machine. Claw machine method.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Yeah.

Avery: I was going by weight. Um, You

Chris/Ollie: that's good.

Jenine/Marty: ah, valid.

Chris/Ollie: That's good. Because then I , I get too, uh, min/Maxy, otherwise I dunno, Ollie, probably should go to have an AI on the ground.

Zach/Zahn: Well, here's the other question. Does everybody want to go down? Does anyone want to stay with the ship

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I imagine I have to go cuz I have to fly it, right?

Zach/Zahn: and Zahn has to go, cuz he'd be the guy who'd be able to actually take this stuff out without breaking it.

Avery: you could always split the party and half of you investigate the crash site and half of you investigate the compound.

Zach/Zahn: yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

Jenine/Marty: Splitting the party is terrifying. That's that's that's terrifying.

Bee/Polaris: no to the compound.

Chris/Ollie: I even wanna, like, can we scan to see if they've like noticed us at all or?

Bee/Polaris: oh, true!

Avery: y'all have the emission stampers. So I'm gonna say, especially, cuz they're probably not actively looking for anybody. I'm gonna say no, they have not noticed you.

Bee/Polaris: So we're stealth. Do we have any bombs on board? Nevermind. Sorry. That was a dumb question.

Avery: You Just have your plasma beam.

Bee/Polaris: even better.

Chris/Ollie: okay. Evil play through, go. sneak it back in the compound.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. All we got is a plasma beam for offense.

Bee/Polaris: How big is the ship sending the SOS?

Avery: the part of the ship that you can see would probably be about the size of a fighter

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, the reason why I asked how big the SOS ship is, is because what if we just tie a rope to it and just take it out into the, into space, you know? We can get multiple. How many ropes do we have? Can we, can we roll for

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. we should each have 50, 50 feet of rope. Right? We should each have that in our starting packs.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. We should all each have 50 feet of hemp rope, right?

Avery: hemp can survive atmospheric Entry and, and exit, right?

Zach/Zahn: reentry.

Bee/Polaris: we’ll Just go slow. We'll cover it in water and go slow.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. It'll, it'll totally be fine.

Avery: So probably rope wouldn't work, but, um, let's see. So I've had Ollie and Bruce roll for notice. So someone other than them could roll, um, intelligence notice and go down to the cargo bay and search. If

Zach/Zahn: we do have the vehicle transport fittings, potentially. We just like land on top of it and pick it up and go

Bee/Polaris: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we could just…

Avery: you are correct.

Chris/Ollie: just dock it

Bee/Polaris: swoop down and Pelican it.

Chris/Ollie: let's go. And hey, we, we got ourselves a pilot, so let's do it.

Avery: but, but the problem was is that there's nowhere safe for this size ship to land.

Zach/Zahn: we're technically not landing.

Chris/Ollie: just gotta, yeah, we do it mid flight.

Zach/Zahn: dropping on top of

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Okay, go ahead.

Avery: go for it. I'm I'm, I'm very amused by this thought process.

Bee/Polaris: uh, well, if the trees are a problem, we have a plasma beam.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I mean, like, okay. To keep the drifting theme, it's just kinda like hitching a tow truck while drifting it. You know, you just gotta get the right angle at

Bee/Polaris: oh, I could do that. I can.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery: Okay. Fast in the furious four!

Bee/Polaris: I can thread that needle, dude!

Jenine/Marty: Could I make a notice? What, what are we noticing in the, in the cargo bay? Right.

Avery: um, to see if you could find any like. Cables or something to attach to the, uh, shuttle to tow it out. Um, although I did forget about the transport fitting, so that could technically work if you guys instead try to

Jenine/Marty: Ha sick, sick sick sick sick.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Well, the compound hasn't noticed us yet. If the trees are an issue, we can plasma beam in them and then just drop down, take the ship and leave

Jenine/Marty: No,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that's probably fair.

Avery: No, it's, I'm, I'm fine with it. You know, you want to destroy some wildlife and just place some animals. That's cool.

Bee/Polaris: Heck. Yeah, dude.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, my goodness.

Bee/Polaris: well question has this planet discovered oil yet.

Avery: no,

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Then we're ahead of the curve.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. We probably don't even have to worry about them Nuking us.

Bee/Polaris: Exactly. The ozone layer is fine. It can miss a couple trees.

Avery: And fire's good for…

Jenine/Marty: I've been laughing so hard I’m crying.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, okay. This planet is, is slowly entering a dark, a black hole anyway. So come on.

Zach/Zahn: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Wow. We… Yeah, my character's morally gray, so he's not concerned with the environment.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie hasn't quite lived long enough to have established morals. So…

Bee/Polaris: Also Polaris has never been on a planet.

Zach/Zahn: At the present time, Zahn thinks about saving his own hide as opposed to really worrying over other people. So Hey man,

Bee/Polaris: wow. We are just a rag tag group of some upstanding citizens,Huh?

Avery: As, as Bruce is just standing there eating his, his pie.

Caden/Bruce: Definitely. Bruce is just, Bruce is just slow, blinking, listening to all this going on. And like eventually goes, “I would like to go in the compound. They might have spices” and he’ll just like somewhat smile. You're not too sure if it's a smile or a smirk, but his face changes.

Bee/Polaris: Dang. Uh, mm

Avery: I mean, you could also check out both.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn gives like a… Zahn gives an emphatic eye roll sigh of like, “we could see if there's any survivors at this compound. Maybe that, you know, they're the SOS people. It's not the worst idea. ”

Bee/Polaris: uh, do we know how old the compound is? Like, is this like an ancient structure or is this something that was like built recently?

Jenine/Marty: In like five years

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: this is like a five year old building.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Can we check the zoning

Avery: The zoning records. Yeah. Yeah. I need to see your…

Zach/Zahn: I wanna, I wanna pull up the blueprints

Avery: So are you, do you ask Hermes that?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah. Okay. Let me do that in character. Sorry. uh, yeah. Polaris will turn to Hermes and say “curious, how old is this compound?”

Avery/Hermes: “analyzing.” Based on the geological features. I would say that this compound is no more than two years old.

Zach/Zahn: that checks out.

Bee/Polaris: it's probably, that's a pretty good assumption. Um Hmm.

Zach/Zahn: If you're, if you've been stuck here for five years, it's probably gonna take, especially if you're only like four people at most,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: uh, cuz you said it's a Starship, it's a star fighter size. Right?

Avery: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Well, the part that we need is right?

Chris/Ollie: the part we can see.

Avery: the part that you can see is about the size of a fighter.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, okay. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: So yeah, it's gonna take you more than a year to build a compound

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Zach/Zahn: so it checks out.

Bee/Polaris: that's fair.

Avery: Like I said, you could go to the crash site first. You could go split the party. You could go to the compound first, whatever you'd like to do.

Bee/Polaris: So whenever the GM suggests splitting the party as an option, that is never the option that I vote for. Just sayin.

Jenine/Marty: I agree.

Zach/Zahn: I've seen enough stories of splitting the party to know you that you should never split the party.

Avery: Oh. But it'll be funny.

Bee/Polaris: it would be funny, but also, uh, you know, life is…

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, let's do it for the meme

Bee/Polaris: being alive is cool.

Avery: Do it for the meme!

Zach/Zahn: I like being alive.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, okay. You know what worst case scenario, if, uh, we do split the party and half the party goes through the compound and they get trapped by some sort of Eldritch horror and it goes badly for them. We can just plasma beam the compound.

Zach/Zahn: With them in it.

Bee/Polaris: Well, if they're already gone

Zach/Zahn: if we've already written them as a loss.

Jenine/Marty: but also I, if we're in a hundred meters of each other, I can heal. I have remote repair for a hundred meters!

Bee/Polaris: That is true.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, wait, do I have to be able to see you?

Avery: I think you have to have line of sight.

Bee/Polaris: I think it is line of sight. That is true. Wait, wait.

Zach/Zahn: hell of a distance though. 400 meters dang.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that is.

Chris/Ollie: Yes,

Jenine/Marty: yes, 100, 101 not 400.

Zach/Zahn: 100.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, wait, wait the vehicle transport. How exactly does that work? And what does it constitute as a vehicle? cause if we just sit in a box, can we be beam people up?

Avery: I don't think there's beaming involved, but, um, no, I think, I think the vehicle

Zach/Zahn: unfortunately this isn't full star Trek. Yeah.

Avery: I think the vehicle transport fittings would be basically like a set of clamps that like clamp onto it and then can…

Zach/Zahn: That was what I thought was it was, yeah, it was literally just like magnet clamps of some kind.

Jenine/Marty: Claw machine

Avery: Yeah. The claw.

Chris/Ollie: lower down the ship and claw machine.

Zach/Zahn: was thinking magnets, cuz that way it makes it universal.

Avery: essentially. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: unless your ship is made out of wood,

Zach/Zahn: Well then it's definitely not breaking atmo.

Avery: if you can fly a wooden ship through space I'll I'll I'll okay. We'll figure it out.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce will, Bruce will stand up and he'll be like, “I have an idea. If we go and check out the call for help. Um, and we bring the blender, I have leftover pie. Um, that way, if it is a trap, we can offer them Good pie and maybe not die. Food is good for friends, yes?”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts his hand on the bottom of his helmet in contemplation.

Zach/Zahn: like the chin hold

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Like, Hmm. And like a, a little loading wheel

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, buffering.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie's gonna agree to go to the compound. That'd make the most sense to check out for survivors.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn’s gonna kinda like half, not like full dramatic throw his hands up, but like that, like slight whatever hand throw, just like “sure. We can go to the damn compound.”

Bee/Polaris: “agreed. Uh, we should probably check out the SOS system first and possibly get that part. We need just in case we need to escape the compound,”

Zach/Zahn: “I like your thinking!”

Bee/Polaris: thumbs up on the visor.

Avery: Two for going to the compound right away. Two for checking out the crash site first and then going to the compound. Marty, I think you're the only one…

Zach/Zahn: You're the tiebreaker.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: everyone turns to Marty.

Jenine/Marty: “So, how do we know the distress signal is not a trap if it's been here for five years? Cause that's what my brain is trying to wrap around. And what is the nicer way for us to like, meet with these people? Cuz what it'll look bad. If we're trying to steal something for my distressed ship, that's been like down for five years.”

Zach/Zahn: “I mean its been five years”

Caden/Bruce: “This is why”

Zach/Zahn: “it’s free.”

Caden/Bruce: “this is why we bring pie.”

Jenine/Marty: “This is true.”

Bee/Polaris: “I feel if the distress signal is a trap, why would we care about the feelings of individuals trying to trap us?”

Jenine/Marty: “true. ”

Jenine/Marty: I'm gonna roll a dice now. cause now Marty's Marty's too..*trails off*, “okay. I think we, we should go to compound first, cuz I think we can also get more information about the area that we are in from the Beings that are in the compound.” And then Marty sits down.

Zach/Zahn: All right.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks at Zahn.

Zach/Zahn: “Looks like we've been outvoted Polaris.”

Avery: Zahn you can go… You can go by yourself to the crash site.

Zach/Zahn: I am not going by myself.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris is also team crash site just in case. Like, if these people are bad people, we do need this part regardless. And you know, if they do still need the ship, but they don't need the, the part that we need, cuz it's non flyable. They can still use the distress signal if they want to and then we can go talk to them.

Avery: you can use this to lure other unsuspecting people here.

Bee/Polaris: exactly. We'll just take this part and leave. Uh, polar will just say “I am unsure of the motivation to make friends with beings that we will likely not be spending much time with, but I will go with the majority vote.”

Zach/Zahn: Zahn says, uh, “same. Um, I'll be back with the broken shit, trying to figure this. Crap out” and he just starts muttering obscenities to himself as he leaves the cockpit.

Avery: and goes back to the engine room?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/Hermes: “very well, I will begin landing procedures.”

Bee/Polaris: oh sweet. I don't have to fly

Avery: I mean, unless you want to, I mean, I don't know how much trust in AI to.. No? Okay.

Bee/Polaris: well, I mean, he was, you know, the AI of a big old ship.

Zach/Zahn: A big old ship that probably never had to do atmospheric reentry.

Bee/Polaris: You're right… uhh.

Avery: Do you wanna know what he rolled for his pilot skill before you, uh, decide on whether to take over?

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery: He rolled an eight,

Zach/Zahn: I don't know.

Avery: Which is a mixed, which is essentially a mixed success. I mean,

Bee/Polaris: if he's struggling, can I just take the reins?

Avery: so the ship begins to enter the atmosphere and you're kind of just like you glance at like the, the controls a little bit. And you notice that the angle of reentry is just slightly off and just not, not quite what it should be.

Avery: So if you want, you can go ahead and make a pilot check.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yoink! okay. That's not bad. Um, is that pilot plus anything?

Avery: Oh, sorry, pilot plus, uh, intelligence or dexterity. Your pick.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, they're both the same. So that will be a, oh my gosh. 10

Avery: Perfect, Okay. Uh, yeah, then you avert disaster and

Bee/Polaris: sweet.

Avery: you, you you're just like, uh, Hey, Hermes, and just kinda adjust the angle slightly. Um, and the sh…

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, polaris just like, as, as Hermes is trying to like enter the atmosphere, Polaris will just slightly push one of the like dials up to correct it.

Avery: and you are heading towards this clearing with the compound in it. Uh, how close do you land to this place?

Zach/Zahn: Cool.

Bee/Polaris: on it. No, I'm kidding. how close?

Zach/Zahn: What's the compound made of?

Bee/Polaris: how close do we wanna land y'all yeah, what is it made of?

Avery: as you're, so as you're getting closer, uh, you see that the walls are made of a dark brown stone of some kind there's…

Bee/Polaris: so we can't blast through it.

Avery: well, I don't know. It's just, it's just brown stone. It's fine. Um, but you do see that there is a single gate with a force field emitter

Bee/Polaris: Oh, they're oh, they're technologically advanced.

Avery: and the wall itself has a force field above it.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, this changes a few things.

Zach/Zahn: Before landing, you should try hailing them on comms.

Bee/Polaris: that's not my job.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, is that me? Are I comms?

Avery: I mean, that's where you sat down last time

Zach/Zahn: you don't be. That's just where you sat down.

Avery: You don’t have to be.

Bee/Polaris: my job is pilot. I'm bad at talking to people. Someone else should probably handle that.

Jenine/Marty: I’m good at talking with people.

Chris/Ollie: Same. Ollie technically has a diplomacy chip.

Bee/Polaris: shit. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh Yeah. Huh.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah. I'm still sitting on assassination or three or four other chips.

Avery: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, you’ve got more chips too. I forgot.

Zach/Zahn: Thankfully, I wrote that down as other equipment

Bee/Polaris: it's weird that they had an assassination chip

Zach/Zahn: Thrown into a big bucket of other chips.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Just random chip bucket. Oh, you got-

Avery: Yeah. Who knows? If it's defective!

Chris/Ollie: -assassination. How about nuclear codes?

Avery: nuclear code.

Zach/Zahn: HK47 defectives?

Avery: we'll find out!

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Chris/Ollie: sure. So, Ollie will attempt to hail them on coms

Avery: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Unless the party is opposed to that. You're gonna have to stop 'em soon.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's not present. So.

Bee/Polaris: My job is to fly the ship. You do what you want.

Avery: yeah, go ahead and roll a, intelligence talk check and add one for your, diplomacy chip.

Chris/Ollie: excellent. okay, there we go. So that is, okay it would be just be five.

Zach/Zahn: Why you rule one D12. Is this supposed to be two D6,

Chris/Ollie: Oh, oh yeah, my bad wrong one. there we go.

Zach/Zahn: still five!

Chris/Ollie: same role.

Zach/Zahn: damn it.

Chris/Ollie: It was meant to be.

Zach/Zahn: so six.

Avery: Okay, Caden-

Chris/Ollie: -Oh I get a minus one from my charisma score, so it's just five.

Zach/Zahn: Oh shit.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery: Caden, can you give me the name of a fancy lad?

Caden/Bruce: a fancy lad. Oh my goodness. Winston.

Avery: Winston. I love it.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh, that is a fancy lad name.

Chris/Ollie: Perfect.

Avery: So Ollie, give me this opening line, as you're hailing this compound.

Chris/Ollie: He’s going to start in with a pretty bright and chipper.

“Greetings hailing, unidentified compound. We are approaching your location to assist with your SOS. Please respond.”

Avery(Unidentified Character): And there's a moment of silence after this moment of silence. The comm pings and says,

“Oye, this here's the compound of Winston Lord Winston, who you calling unidentified punk. You are the one unidentified. Now what's this about some SOS going on here?”

Chris/Ollie: “We are reading the SOS, from the downed vessel 20 miles away from your compound. Is this not you asking for assistance?”

Avery(Unidentified Character): There's another pause, “unidentified ship. Why don't you land and come on in and you can talk to Lord Winston yourself. He, uh, he may have, uh, something he, uh, can, can use you for, but no weapons.”

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, no.

Bee/Polaris: we all hear this?

Avery: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I, yeah. I assume so. it, it's not like onscreen star Trek. We're not like seeing him or anything.

Avery: it's just audio.

Bee/Polaris: okay, cool. yeah, Polaris's visor, just throws up a yikes emoji.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, yeah. Ali's going to, metaphorically put his hand over the, the microphone, and look over at whoever's in the room. Is it just me and Polaris at this point.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, I think, Bruce as well.

Jenine/Marty: I’m there.

Avery: I think Zahn's the only one who left.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: And Bruce. Okay, so yeah, everyone's here. So I'm gonna kinda look at you and, and see kinda your guys' reactions.

Bee/Polaris: yeah well you see the yikes emoji from Polaris.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce just kind of holds the blender closer to his chest.

Avery: I love Bruce.

Jenine/Marty: Marty just gives a shrug.

Avery(Unidentified Character): “Oye, are you still there unidentified ship?”

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's going to respond,

“Well, if you're not sending a distress signal and you are perfectly fine, we're sorry to disturb you. Please have a nice day.”

And he is gonna cut comms

Bee/Polaris: and we leave!

Chris/Ollie: because, I'm hoping that the, the comm, the conversation didn't reveal our location.

Bee/Polaris: we do have that dampener

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery: so you were close. You, you flew in close enough to see the compound.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: close enough to get hailed, or well to hail them.

Avery: Yeah. So I'm yeah. So I'm gonna say that they could definitely see your ship at this point.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. We do a sick U-turn. We do a sick three point turn.

Chris/Ollie: we need them parts. though.

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we do need them-

Chris/Ollie: But how long will it take them to get to the, to the down ship?

Avery: How long would it take them?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I don't guess we would know.

Zach/Zahn: far as we can see, they don't have, any aircraft of their own. So take them at least a day and a half to get to us, hypothetically.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris, who is bad at reading people, turns to ollie and says,

“Can you ask them if they are evil?”

Chris/Ollie: one moment and he's going to, hail them again.

Avery(Unidentified Character): They reestablish comms and say, “Oye why'd you hang up on us. We just want you to land.”

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah. “We previously had no business with you, but now we are curious, are you evil?”

Avery(Unidentified Character): “Seems a bit reductive, don't it? I mean, you know, everyone's, everyone's got a villain, everyone's got a hero. Lots of people see themselves as the hero of their own story. I mean, I could, I could go on and on about this. I've got my PhD in, uh, you know, philosophy of evil and good and all that stuff.”

Chris/Ollie: “oh really? I was literally born yesterday. I would honestly like to have that conversation.”

Avery: to be fair, Chris, like Ollie was like,

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, I would. Yeah, I was. I literally attained sentience yesterday.

Zach/Zahn: Actually it's technically still today.

Chris/Ollie: It's it is today.

Bee/Polaris: I'm just, I'm just thinking how wild of a, a conversation that would be for that guy to be talking to someone who just like outrights says. Yeah. I was born today.

Chris/Ollie: so, yeah, right now Ollie's like, oh, I wanna go land and talk to this guy, but out of character, I'm assuming, you know, we're locked in at this point. We're either gonna have to like make a hostile action, go for the ship or just land and go for the interaction.

Avery: I mean locked in is, is I, I wouldn't say that you could do whatever you want.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah

Bee/Polaris: We're still hoverin’.

Avery: You could try blasting this place to smithereens and see how far it gets yuh.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris glances at the plasma beam button. no kidding. I'm kidding. Ooo, this is a toughie because like, if we land and we go in with no weapons and they're like, we just want you to land. Then they can like come in with like 20 guys and like take our ship and take us. And then we'll be part of the compound.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, hold on. Wait a second. Zahn is based on Isaac Clark. Do you have plasma cutters?

Zach/Zahn: I do. I have one, I have my pla- I have my laser pistol. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: specifically. They are not weapons. They are tools.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Question. Would you say that a knife is considered a weapon?

Zach/Zahn: I mean, it's a small advanced weapon.

Chris/Ollie: you could, you could debate that. I think these guys would think it's a weapon.

Avery: also depends on how well you roll some dexterity, sneak checks to maybe, you know, hide some weapons on you.

Bee/Polaris: what if I give it to Bruce? Because Bruce has an obvious chef hat on.

Chris/Ollie: Bake a cake with the knife in it. We do a prison cake.

Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean like a chef, like, you know, chefs have their own knife sets.

Avery: Chef is going to have their own knife set- yeah.

Bee/Polaris:Yeah, exactly. It makes occupational sense, especially if he comes in with a pie.

Avery: The pie is a lie.

Caden/Bruce: “Do you want me to hold your knife?”

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris, isn't saying this out loud. This is all outta character. Sorry.

Caden/Bruce: Oh ok. That's right.

Bee/Polaris: Thoughts everyone. Do we wanna go into this possible, very bad trap?

Chris/Ollie: yeah I think we should probably just go for it and.-

Zach/Zahn: Sadly Zahn isn't present.

Avery: I mean, you could,

Bee/Polaris: I mean, you can hear this though, over the loudspeaker.

Avery: yeah, you could totally come in and put in your two cents.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's going to fucking bum rush in here and be like,

“Do not fucking go down there!”

He's got his helmet on and it's like covered in grease as well as the rest of his fucking jumpsuit. And he is like,

“that shit screams. We're all gonna die.”

Bee/Polaris: “Conflicted. They did say that they weren't necessarily evil.”

Avery: oh, and this whole time, like in the background, like, like Ollie's probably turning the, the volume down a little bit, but this guy is just rambling on about like his thesis.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's listening intently.

Bee/Polaris: “He seems to be some sort of scholar. And in my experience, scholars aren't necessarily the murdering type?”

Jenine/Marty: “Thank you!”

Bee/Polaris: thumbs up.

Caden/Bruce: “I have never had royalty eat my food would be an experience”

And Bruce will just slow, blink and look around at everyone.

Zach/Zahn: “Nah, man, I got, I got the, the biggest, heeby-jeeby vibes coming from this place. Y'all do what you want, but I'll, I'll, I'll be-”

he's like pointing at the back.

“I'll be in the back then.”

Bee/Polaris: “Would you like me to stay on the ship with you?”

Jenine/Marty: Question. Does this Lord Winston name sound familiar?

Bee/Polaris: Ooh,

Chris/Ollie: Good Idea.

Avery: See I'm just waiting for y'all to ask the right questions and I'll give you the answers.

Bee/Polaris: sweet!

Avery: let's go with a intelligence, know check or knowledge or whatever

Bee/Polaris: could we ask Hermes to like run through, I don't know,

Avery: you can also. Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: or maybe we could get an assist from Hermes?

Bee/Polaris: look at the galactic census or something like that.

Zach/Zahn: galactic census!

Avery: You could ask Hermes to look it up or, or you could try and see if your character would know it

Jenine/Marty: I’m smart! (sound of rolling dice) That was terrifying. Cause I saw the dice almost line on, I saw the dice almost land on two ones. It was terrifying.

Zach/Zahn: almost snake eyes.

Jenine/Marty: you know, like the, yeah. That's gonna be a nine.

Avery: A nine?

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Avery: Okay. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: I'm a smart boy.

Bee/Polaris: Mmm.

Jenine/Marty: yeah. Well,

Avery: So the Winstons are a family from Olympia that, which is the capital planet of the Republic. And they are known for their eccentricness and their love for all things thrilling and entertaining. Not known to be evil, but definitely willing to push the envelope as to what is considered good.

Bee/Polaris: okay. Cause when you said all things eccentric and entertaining, my first thought was the book, the most dangerous game. So-

Chris/Ollie: The most dangerous game. Yeah.

Avery: I was not. Nope, Nope. Nope. Mm-hmm

Chris/Ollie: Immediately.

Avery: Nope, nothing like that going on here.

Jenine/Marty: Marty just kind of goes,

“Okay. So if I remember correctly, the, the Winstons are kind of like this big family from, from Olympia, which is the capital of the Republic. If anyone didn't know that. Anyways, they really like, they like to go above and beyond in things. So the line of like, What's good and bad. Just a little, hmm?”

And then she just gives two thumbs up. Well, not that, I mean, like not the two thumbs up. Wait, I didn't mean, okay, wait, and then she just one thumb up and then one thumb down like that. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Okay. Like a neutral sort of deal.

Zach/Zahn: thumb up one thumb neutral

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: zahn points at Marty is like, “That's that's, that's the kind of shit I'm talking about right. There is just that, that gray area of”

Avery: Zahn, you're so paranoid.

Zach/Zahn: self-preservation and all that man.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Caden/Bruce: “I have another idea that is not as good as first idea. But if they like things that are different and eccentric, nothing is more different than me and my pie. Very good pie. I know we were talking briefly about maybe going to crash site, but I mean, I like to think that I can be a big distraction if we wanted to, get the part we need and then leave.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris does the thinking motion again with the little, the buffering wheel on his visor.

Caden/Bruce: And I know we just talked about not splitting up

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: the party, but

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will turn to Ollie and say, “can you mention that we have a chef on board and ask if they are allowed to bring their weapon or their tools?”

Chris/Ollie: yes. Good idea. Did the guy on comms, gimme his name?

Avery: He has not given his name yet.

Chris/Ollie: Unidentified compound? Our chef is wondering if their tools are subject to your ban.

Avery(Unidentified Character): “Oy, you got a chef on there. Oh, why don't you say so sooner? Yeah. Have him bring down anything he's got or she's got whoever it is. I don't know.”

Bee/Polaris: Does a thumbs up, but in real life, instead of on his visor.

Avery: “Been a long time since we've had a chef down here. Do you have to say myself? I could go for a nice meat pie.”

Bee/Polaris: how convenient!

Chris/Ollie: sounds perfectly inviting. Like a friend chap.

Zach/Zahn: Perfectly, perfectly inviting.

Bee/Polaris: does Zahn think that we are going to become the meat pie?

Zach/Zahn: He's definitely. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Very Sweeney Todd.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, Zahn sighs

Jenine/Marty: Okay-

Zach/Zahn: “Okay let me go try and get some of the grease out of this fucking jumpsuit, fucking socialite.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris offers-

Jenine/Marty: before we go,

Zach/Zahn: “ass fucking people in their stupid ideas about trying to get.”

Avery: mumbling down the hallway.

Jenine/Marty: Marty turns to Hermis, “Hermis you wouldn't happen to have any, like know, or could you find any articles about the Winston, Winstons in the past five years? Possibly. Anything, any papers? Cool.

Avery(Hermes): “Calibrating”

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Cool. Cool.

Avery(Hermes): and like he, he gives it a good, like minute. “I have found one article dated three years ago, a Lord Winston was said to have set out on a hunting expedition and did not disclose his location or where he was going. It is possible that this is his hunting compound.”

Bee/Polaris: hmm.

Jenine/Marty: uh huh…

Bee/Polaris: that could be extra bad.

Avery: I forgot-

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Okay. This down ship is starting to look real fucked up.

Avery: Marty. One other thing you know about the Winstons. Is that they are, or they could best be described as well. We humans would describe them as anthropomorphic tigers.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: Ooooooh, so they're tiger furries!

Avery: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That settles it, lets go. Zach/Zahn: My first thought is DnD and I'm like, oh shit its a rakshasa, we’re fucked. Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's what I was also thinking. I don't wanna deal with a rakshasa you know, that, that, that messed up some stuff in other campaigns.

Bee/Polaris: Hm, I talk too way too many furries then.

Avery: I mean, essentially that, I mean, essentially that is what it is, but, I just, wasn't trying to use a DnD term, you know.

Jenine/Marty: That’s DnD we're in space.

Bee/Polaris: yeah we're in space. DnD doesn't exist in space.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. A hunting exp. Okay. Now I don't like that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: is, this is reading some, this is reading some Up right now. Up Pixar's Up right now. This is what I'm reading. I don't like it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris throws up a, a colon back slash emote. Very unsure of this.

Chris/Ollie: well, we could have Ollie go down as a decoy. I could use the backup body go down below and-

Bee/Polaris: Yeah but we would have to recover your chaos emerald.

Chris/Ollie: not necessarily.

Bee/Polaris: oh?

Jenine/Marty: Do we put you in the cloud? Is that how this works?

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Can we download you to the cloud?

Chris/Ollie: So the way that chaos emeralds work is you can cut them in half and they will both be valid in their, what is it? Quantum entangled. So if one is destroyed, my

consciousness will go to the other and it will, when it's singular, it'll regrow over time. And then I can cut it again.

Bee/Polaris: Oh! sick!

Chris/Ollie: But at this point I don't have any backups and I have a second body, so I could, go down in the janitor body-

Zach/Zahn: That’s really fucking cool!

Chris/Ollie: rig myself with a bomb-

Bee/Polaris: yeah do you want us-

Chris/Ollie: and just be like, Hey, are you guys gonna trap me? Oh, you are. Oh, that sucks. Bye. Boom.

Bee/Polaris: oh, well, I mean, I'm sure that Zahn and Polaris could, you know, Jerry rig bomb of some sort that you can carry on you

Chris/Ollie: yeah between the two of us.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Jerry rig a bomb!

Jenine/Marty: Put it in the pie!

Zach/Zahn: Hell. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: oh my gosh. It's like that SpongeBob episode with a pie is gonna explode.

Chris/Ollie: For ins, in character though, Ollie will, after cutting coms get up and be like,

“I have an idea!”

and walk up to Zahn and his chest opens up, revealing his glowing blue chaos emerald, and he is gonna like, pull it out and it's like attached at the bottom and the, and he's gonna be like,

“please cut this”

And he is gonna, detach it and hold it out, like shutting himself off. To zahn.

Avery: I was gonna say, yeah, you, you, you like, you'd detach it from the, the cables that were holding it in.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. After, after I say, please cut this, it jerk the cable And, it, it shuts me off. So I'm, I'm just a, I'm no longer that body anymore.

Avery: Yeah. And, and you see, you see all these robot figure, like almost look like it's gonna fall over, but then like, Like breaks in its, like hydraulics, like stop it. And it's just like, it's like kind of bent slightly forward, holding out this crystal to, to you Zahn

Chris/Ollie: I mean, you got all those plasma cutters and whatnot, so.

Bee/Polaris: that's crazy.

Zach/Zahn: To the workbench!

(Background music fades out)

(outro music fades in, then fades down)

Avery: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Find more of our shows at 1upPodcasts.com. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Space, Freighter, and Generation Ship. Intro and Outro music by Dustin Carpenter. Find him on Instagram at ZodiacGallery. We’ll be back on August 15th with Episode 4. See you out there! Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro music fades back up then continues until the end.)

Episode 2 - Escape!

Avery: Welcome to Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro music fades in, then fades out) (background ambience fades in)

Avery: Standing there is someone you knew as commander Vos,

Bee: The soup ruiner!

Avery: who is actually Admiral Vos. and Celia, you hear just say,

Avery/Celia: “oh shit.”

Avery: and the Admiral is looking at you and is just like,

Avery/Vos: “do you go around opening everyone's restrooms in their private quarters?”

Sherman: He's like stunned, cuz there's a barrel of a gun pointed in his helmeted face.

Sherman/Zahn: “No. Well it's the, the ship's about to blow up. I just figured… we're getting outta here.”

Sherman: and he is gonna slowly back up.

Avery: Yeah, Admiral Admiral follows you out and Is standing there, her pistol pointed at you and looks over and sees Celia stand up from where she was near the bed and is like,

Avery/Vos: “what is…what is she doing out of the Bri I I'm sorry. Who are you? You're you're not a soldier. What are you doing here Exactly?”

Sherman/Zahn: “Like I said, we're getting the fuck outta here. So we would like to live”

Avery: I’m gonna need some charisma talk rolls from you zahn..

Bee: I would like to say Polaris stepped outside the door to where everyone else was waiting. He’s just gonna…

Sherman: what, uh, what, what check did you want? Charisma talk?

Avery: charisma talk or charisma connect. If you are maybe going for a more like, Hey, we're just trying to get outta here, come help us, you know.

Sherman: Cool. I have minus ones in both of those.

Avery: oh Okay.

Jenine: Oh, buddy

Sherman: So that is a four.

(laughter)

Avery: Okay

Sherman: Zahn does, as I had stated coming out of the engineering bay, Zahn does have his pistol in his hand. So he is like his, he has his, his pistol ready, but he has both of his hands up and he is doing that like back slowly kind of thing.

Avery: Sure. yeah, I think at this and then seeing captain Celia pop her head up From the other side of the bed. the Admiral's probably not gonna be too happy about this and, she's going to probably shoot at you. So do you want to fire back?

Sherman: Yes,

Avery: Cause we can. Okay. We'll we'll do a contested skilled check. We're just gonna try all the mechanics

Jenine: Woo.

Avery: all the game mechanics.

Bee: I would like to say a Polaris was stepping into the hall for the express purpose of telling them that shit is going down in the room. I don't know if the door is like wide open,

Avery: Oh, it's wide open it's

Bee: Okay Sweet.

Avery: and you can see into the room and you just see Zahn with like his hands up. You don't see who this, what he's like hands up is about, but it's obviously not good. and you do hear talking,

Bee: yeah

Avery: so, yeah. Zahn, go ahead and roll a dexterity shoot skill.

Sherman: Okay. just a skill.

Avery: Yeah, this a contested skill check.

Sherman: Five.

Avery: The admiral rolled a 12

Bee: oh my gosh,

Sherman: See, I'm actually proficient in, in shoot. So I have a zero so

Avery: Yeah.

Sherman: I just rolled a four, one

Sherman: Woo.

Bee: Hey, if I get line of sight, I got you.

Avery: Yeah, she shoots at you (laser blast sound) and clips a little bit, for four damage and Celia draws on the Admiral and starts shooting at her (laser blast sounds) and they start having a fire fight and Celia just yells. (laser blast sound)

Avery/Celia: “you got to key, get outta here. I'll I'll catch up.” (laser blast sound)

Avery: and you can stay and help her, or you can get outta here.

Sherman: I'm gonna pop off one more shot and then run,

Avery: Okay. Roll a D20 to hit plus whatever bonuses you get for your weapon. I originally had this encounter planned if you, if y'all spent too long in the room, but…

Bee: we just knock on the door.

Jenine: We initiated it. Let’s go!

Sherman: We initiated it.

Bee: to be fair. Whoa, wait. She did say, do you just go around opening everyone's door, but he did knock.

Sherman: Yeah, I did knock.

Bee: So that's rude on her part to shoot him when he did knock first.

Sherman: Um, so what is it? Just the die plus dex?

Avery: Yes, the D yeah, D 20 plus your dex

Sherman: So I got a 16.

Avery: Oh, that just hits. Perfect. Go ahead and roll your damage.

Sherman: How does the shock thing work?

Avery: yeah. That's if you miss.

Sherman: And with damage, it's just what you roll, right?

Avery: Yeah

Sherman: Four damage. (laser blasts)

Avery: four damage? Okay, perfect. Um, cool. I'll note that down. Cool. She takes that hit. She's not happy about it, but, um, then she starts taking

Sherman: Just like pop her in the leg or something and I'm gonna fucking book it.

Avery: boogie. just boogie on out there.

Bee: I'm gonna, I'm gonna stand at this corner and if I get line of sight, I'm gonna shoot her.

Avery: Yeah, she actually is gonna pop into the, the restroom again and start like kind of shoot.

Sherman: shooting from cover?

Avery: Yeah. Shooting from cover at Celia. (laser blasts)

Bee: oh, well.

Avery: I, I assume y'all exit the room?

Jenine: I'm I'm actually gonna do, um, a remote heal to Celia,

Avery: Ooh.

Jenine: sorry, remote repair. So, which is my level one healing stuff.

Avery: Okay

Jenine: Cuz I put both of my psionic stuff into, into, (stutters) you know, words are hard. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna commit to that and heal her For 1d6, plus I think cuz normally I would, um, heal with touch, but I can do it from a distance.

Avery: Oh that’s cool

Jenine: That's why I did remote repair. Haha.

Avery: 100 meters? That's insane.

Jenine: Right? as long as I got line of sight. It's great. Um, so she's gonna heal back five, um, hit points. (healing sound)

Avery: Okay, cool. Hey,

Sherman: The lady who just got shocked in the hallway.

Bee: Well, you're standing right next to her so she can just heal you in conventional ways.

Sherman: True. I'm just,

Avery: No,

Sherman: I’m being facetious. I'm not actually…

Jenine: Well, well, I,

Bee: Oh,

Jenine: if someone's staying behind this one has been hurt and I'm like, oh, okay!

Avery: sure. You heal her up remotely. And, um, she kind of looks a little (healing sounds) like confused for a minute and Z as you pass the threshold of the quarters, you see her gun point towards you guys and fire, and she shoots the control panel (laser blasts) inside and the door seals. (door closing sound)

Bee: Right.

Avery: Seals them in and , and they're, they're shooting at each other in there now. So yeah, the five of you are

Sherman: I guess the captain stays with their ship. That's their choice, let’s get the fuck outta here guys!

Bee: Uh, out of curiosity

Avery: there is a

Bee: Oh, go ahead.

Avery: I was just gonna say there's a lift to the south and to the north. So…

Bee: Okay.

Sherman: Oh, well the south

Bee: We're closer to this one. Yeah. Out of curiosity, how thick are the walls? Let me rephrase. Are they thick enough to withstand a laser pistol shot?

Avery: yes.

Bee: Damn it. Okay.

Chris: Could I roll to, uh, scan my data banks for the location of the, or

Avery: You know that the, uh, hanger is the D button on the lift. Yeah.

Chris: actually, yeah, because Polaris came from there.

Bee: yeah, uh, yeah. Polaris gets on the lift and presses the D button.

Avery: Sure. Do y'all follow. Do you want to do anything else on this floor?

Jenine: Um, I'm gonna continue while I'm still like in the zone of the committed action. I'm going to continue to heal people until this scene is over.

Avery: Sure!

Jenine: Cuz I can keep doing that. So who, who needs a heal?

Bee: everyone that isn’t…

Sherman: I'm pretty sure everyone. Yeah.

Bee: any, yeah, everyone That's not me.

Caden: Yep.

Jenine: Sick!

Chris: Can I be healed by you?

Bee: oh yeah. Robot.

Jenine: based off of a remote repair, I think. Yes.

Bee: What!?

Jenine: Well, I'm gonna assume. Yes, because there's, cuz I have the ability to remote prepare, which means I can heal from afar. So is that a yes?

Avery: Yeah… you know (looking up rules)

Jenine: Can I heal a robot?

Chris: Okay. No, I have to be fixed.

Sherman: Okay, then I can do that later.

Jenine: Unfortunate. I'm gonna get the squishy ones.

Avery: Luck. Luckily, Chris, if your body is destroyed, as long as your core is intact you’ll be fine

Chris: Yeah.

Jenine: Oh, wow look at that!

Sherman: If only we all had such luxury.

Jenine: first one, whoever's the closest to me, which I'm just gonna go to the end and just like go, okay. And you get six points, whoever needs it. Who wants to set? (healing sounds) Wait, heal seven, cuz it's one D six plus one of damage. So who needs it the most?

Sherman: I'm pretty sure we all got hurt for four.

Jenine: ok

Caden: yeah

Jenine: So Zahn you can go take that seven points

Sherman: Yay.

Jenine: and then Bruce? (dice rolling) Sorry, that was that's a two plus one. So Bruce, you get three back

Caden: I appreciate it.

Jenine: I can't fix the up. I just go. You're doing great, buddy. Um, and like, just do like a little tap on the shoulder if I can reach it. And then I'm gonna heal myself five sick. I'm back up (healing sound)

Avery: I imagine this is all going down in the lift.

Jenine: Yeah, it is.

Avery: Like there's like cheesy little like elevator music playing and like the ship is kind of like rocking back and forth. and y'all are just standing there in silence while the medics heals

Sherman: as you heal Zahn his… whatever wound, he accrued heals up, but you also hear him like pop his back and stand up a little bit straight He's like,

Sherman/Zahn: “ah, thanks. I don't know how you did that. Uh, Never received healing in such a way before. Uh, how did you do that?”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, um, I, I went, I, I just graduated from, from me school and like specifically the ones where like, we, we, we focus on like our, our skills of like, Um, I've been really good at healing for a bit, and I wanted to focus on it a little bit more. So that's how I did it. And she gives two thumbs up.”

(laughter)

Avery: So y'all are going to the hanger bay or the bridge?

Bee: Hanger. We gotta get the fuck up outta here. We can't steal this ship, its broken.

Sherman: (laughing) can't steal the ship, it's broken.

Chris: you have successfully prevented that.

Avery:I mean, you know,

Bee: well, it's, it's broken and actively being attacked. So probably not the best.

Chris: 40 minutes or it had 40 minutes?

Bee: Yeah, exactly.

Avery: yeah,

Chris: Actually, uh, do I need to roll again to update on that?

Avery: we'll say it's been about 10 minutes

Chris: cause I've neglected to describe his head because he was headless at the time, but he's got a, um, Kinda like C-3PO face, but instead of eyes, he's got large, a large L E D you know, monitor from which he can display, you know, usually eyes, uh, but all kinds of stuff.

Bee: neet!

Chris: So he's just gonna have a time clock displayed on his, uh, countdown timer of the time.

Bee: is it in minutes or is it in cycles?

Chris: Um, Let’s do minutes

Avery: Keep it easy.

Chris: The cycles wouldn’t fit, it would be really scrunched up so minutes. It spaces is better.

Sherman: (laughing) it spaces better.

Avery: okay. Have y'all introduced yourselves to each other yet or?

Bee: No.

Sherman: No

Avery: Okay.

Chris: No

Sherman: We're trying to live.

Chris: yeah.

Avery: Okay, that’s fair. I do imagine that Bruce and Zahn and Marty might at least know each other's names, cuz you've been on the ship for a couple weeks, at least. So maybe you guys know each other's names, but.

Bee: Yeah, I'm the only new guy.

Avery: As you step out onto the (door opening) docking bay (laser blasts in the background) of the ship. Again, it's still under attack, obviously. Uh, you see eight little these eight little, uh, doo dads here, these eight little fighter ships. (lasers firing, engine sounds) They zoom out of the, the hanger bay and almost as soon as they get out, uh, you see them get fired upon. (lasers) And half of them just explode. (Explosions, laughter) Massive. Like if it were fireworks, it would be beautiful. Not so much here, but, uh, yeah, it is definitely a war zone out there and sitting in front of you now is this free merchant ship. Polaris, This is the one that you snuck in on

Bee: Yep.

Avery: and to the right as you come out are, um, two little robot pods with some robots and They do not look like service bots.

Bee: do they look like murder bots?

Avery: They look like murder bots.

Bee: as the other ships turn into space confetti, Polaris will look back at the rest of the group and says

Bee/Polaris: “confident, I can do better than that.”

Bee: And then walks towards the ship.

Sherman: Looking at the wreckage of the space confetti. Zahn pauses and is like

Sherman/Zahn: “yeah, I, I certainly hope so.”

Avery: So are you just running for this ship? Are you gonna try and sneak by these robots? Um, how, how are you approaching the ship?

Bee: Oh, do the robots seem hostile?

Avery: They seem like they're active, not necessarily hostile, but definitely active.

Sherman: Hypothetically, they would recognize us as, uh, non

Bee: Civilians?

Sherman: yeah. Civilians as non nonviolent targets.

Avery: True. This is true.

Sherman: and so Zahn is going to…

Avery: They would also recognize that you're not supposed to be on the, on the hanger bay.

Bee: Uh, you're right. Well, it's an emergency situation, you know,

Chris: Um, Ollie will, is there, man? I, I don't know if I can hack both of 'em at once. If I do that to one of them, the other might not like it.

Bee: Just have them fight.

Avery: I mean, there is that.

Chris: I'm trying to find the hacking rules here really quick. All right. Um, so yeah, Ollie's gonna approach the, uh, the closest one and attempt to find a console for which he can Jack in.

Avery: Yeah, there's, there's a console next to each one of these charging pods that they're in.

Chris: I’m gonna take whichever one looks tougher.

Avery: Um, I mean, they're the same exact model. They're the same exact model. One of them has like a big, heavy mallet looking arm and the other one.

Bee: What the fuck?

Avery: Yeah. like just a big, big wrecking ball of an arm, you know? and the other one has like, looks like it has like a rifle of some kind.

Bee: what kind of security needs a big hammer hand?

Jenine: Why not?

Chris: Yeah.

Avery: Intimidation

Bee: It's working.

Chris: yeah, I'm gonna hack the hammer hand

Avery: okay.

Chris: and, uh, or attempt to, I'm gonna Jack up in Jack up into it, Jack into the console. (jacking in sound) And, uh, what are the rules exactly on this? It's just a check and nothing special,

Avery: Yeah, it would just be, um, a program skill check, pry with your intelligence, unless you wanna use your charisma robot to robot, you know,

Chris: I mean, I don't know, robots are into big brains, so I'm gonna use my intellectual charisma.

Avery: Sure.

Bee: processing power.

Sherman: he does have a bureaucratic chip.

Avery: yeah, , this is true.

Chris: And I get a 13 (computer typing)

Avery: That's more than enough. you hack into this, this robot,

Chris: smooth talk in code a little bit. Hit him with some Ones and zeros.

Avery: if we could see inside of your brain. Yeah. We would see basically, almost like that matrix the green text scrolling down, and, a little, a little electron floating through the matrix, finding the node that it needs to, and. Connecting to this robot and all of a sudden, Ollie, what color are your, is your like display, like the lights on your, on your…

Chris: Uh, I, I didn't mention the color. The whole, uh, design is black and yellow, like caution colors. So the, the visor L E D colors are also gonna be, warm yellow.

Avery: So, yeah, this robot has like a red visor and when you successfully hack into it, it sudden. Turns yellow and activates and just swings its hammer hand into its neighbor, in the charging station, shattering the glass on this charging station, (glass breaking) um, and hitting the, uh, the robot next to it. And they start kind of going at it and fighting as you disconnect. (metal clinks)

And I will give you all a free action to decide what you're gonna do in this moment before I have you role initiative. If you stick around

Sherman: Zahn is running for the ship.

Chris: free action to GT F O.

Bee: Polaris is already in the ship

Jenine: Running! I'm running.

Avery: sure

Sherman: Running, Running, Running!

Chris: And, uh, I'm also gonna yell back at the robot.:

Chris/Ollie: “Thanks friend. Stay safe!”

Sherman: Stay safe!

Avery:

Bee: Aw,

Sherman: As you violently murder each other!

Avery: The hammerhead turns to you and gives you a thumbs. speaking of which I gotta roll how long this hack is gonna last. Uh, okay. It's gonna last for three hours, so that's cool.

Bee: Oh, we're good. come with us, buddy.

Chris: That would've been that would've been beautiful if it like failed instantly. And the thumbs up turns into a middle finger.

Avery: They are going at it. You've, you've succeeded in not getting blown up on your way out of the, the hanger bay, maybe. you come into the ship here and this is my very poorly put together, um, version of the ship.

Bee: No, looks good.

Avery: as you come up, the, uh, the loading bay into the cargo hold, um, you see a bunch of Steel boxes that may or may not have stuff in them right now. You see, Polaris as you come in, you see the entrance to the smugglers, hold that you were, uh, conveniently stashed inside. Uh, the door is still open, um, but no big deal. And then there is a ladder leading upstairs. I assume y'all go into the, to the upper floor where the cockpit.

Bee: yep.

Caden: Yep.

Sherman: Yes, sir.

Avery: So as you, as you come up, the ladder just straight ahead of you, is, is the living quarters. It looks like there's some beds in there. Uh, you hurry down the hallway, um, and you see the cockpit open up, you see a central captain's chair along with two, um, Two panels in front of it and a panel to the, to the left

and real quick, just y'all y'all live in space, you know, you know What different systems are on ships.

Avery: you recognize the one to the left as, um, a weapons station. The blue computer panel is the pilot's chair. The red computer panel is the communications station and the central chair is the captain's chair. And yeah, there is also some sort of like strange apparatus. In between the communications and cockpit console that looks like it could fit an AI, uh, interface of some kind.

Avery: But you don't know if you really have time for that right now. cuz y'all gotta get outta here.

Bee: Indeed. Would it require opening the tray and just slapping in the Chaos Emerald?

Avery: Probably, but it, it, without like investigating it further, you'd have to take some time to investigate it, to see how it opens, how it engages and all that stuff, which you can totally do. I'm not saying you can't, you know,

Bee: No, we gotta get the fuck up outta here.

Avery: anyway. Yeah. So those are the stations that you see as you come in. Um, does anyone go to any particular spot?

Bee: yeah, I'll go ahead and sit in the, uh, comms, you know? No, I'm kidding. I'm going to the pilot's chair.

Avery: (laughs) I was like, wait, what?

Jenine: Oh, no.

Bee: turns out I lied. I'm not a pilot. I'm in the pilot's chair.

Chris: We're all screwed.

Sherman: Zahn will make a book for the, uh, like engine hold the generator hold, I guess, to make sure that it's, uh, functioning.

Avery: Oh, that's right. Yeah. I meant to say that. Yeah. As you were coming out, um, of the ladder to the left, you saw the engine room is where that is.

Sherman: Then yeah, Zahn will, uh, book it for that.

Avery: Sure.

Sherman: make sure that it's all operational.

Avery: Okay. Anyone else taking anything specific or just kind of gonna stand around and wait until stuff happens.

Jenine: I'm going to sit and prepare to take off

Avery: Okay.

Jenine: wherever I can.

Avery: The nearest chair.

Jenine: yes,

Caden: I think Bruce would kind of do the same. He would look around to see if there's any chair that would actually be able to hold him.

Avery: I was gonna say the gunnery chair or the captain's chair look like the biggest chair.

Bee: Pretty beefy.

Caden: I feel like he'd sit on the gunnery and like not realizing what it's meant to be doing just carefully sit the blender on the control panel and just inspect it to make sure it's okay.

Chris: just use the guns to look around, but don't even like shoot with them.

Avery: Yeah. So as, as y'all start taking your positions, uh, Polaris, you. Recognize this setup as a setup, you've seen hundreds of times in your career, doesn't really take much to get it, to get the engine started up. It has a remarkably fast startup sequence. (Engine Sounds) Um, and you feel, you feel the engines start to warm up and the ship vibrating a little bit. And as you look out the cockpit window, you see the atmospheric barrier protecting. The docking bay start to flicker.

Bee: Oh, well, that's fine. We're all in the ship.

Sherman: Thankfully.

Bee: RIP Celia. I guess.

Avery: Anyway, You see it start to flicker and The engine displays on your panel all give a green light and you are ready to go. As soon as you hit the button,

Bee: All right. Cool. Um, yeah, definitely gonna, well, is it gonna look around to make sure everyone is sitting down and strapped in

Avery: has everyone strapped?

Jenine: Where did I sit?

Bee: Yeah.

Avery: That's a good, that's a very good question, Jeanine.

Jenine: cause Marty is so scared to sit in the captian chair. It's like, I don't want to sit there. Is there…

Avery: The nearest other spot would be the comms chair. Probably. There aren't any chairs that are not at a station, unless you go into the

Jenine: she plants herself in the comms chair. She's like, this seems safe.

Sherman: Zahn is, I don't know, he he's, he's in the generator room wherever, I don't know if he needs to be strapped down or not, but he probably

Chris: You got mag boots.

Bee: he'll be fine.

Avery: It'll be fine. Cool. So Polaris, do you gun it or just gently float it out? How, how do you?

Bee: Well, once players like looks around and sees that people are like, not too, I guess, worried about being strapped in his helmet does have like a display. So

he often uses emojis to emote too, and he just has like a colon back slash face (:/) and then, uh, he just like hits the button. He's gunned it. We gotta get outta here.

Avery: Perfect. Um, go ahead and make a pilot check, dexterity I'm guessing

Bee: Um,

Avery: or, or intelligence either way.

Bee: uh, well, I mean, they're both the same,

Avery: Are you using more of like, oh, okay.

Bee: huh. Oh, well, I mean, they're both the same, but it's, it's probably gonna be dexterity because we, we gotta get the hiccup better here.

Avery: some fancy flying. Sure.

Bee: Uh, instead of, yeah, instead of flying straight place is gonna fly straight down.

Jenine: Mood.

Bee: once we're out of the airlock um, okay, that's good, 10.

Avery: 10. Perfect. Okay, cool. Then. Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty standard takeoff then, uh, you gun it for the, the exit to the ship. (Flying sounds) As you feel The Eos start to shake underneath you out of one of your side mirrors.

If spaceships have those, you see the, uh, hammerhead robot raise its fist one more time and crush its its former. Buddy robot. Um, and it's lifting its fist in the air. When all of a sudden the atmospheric barrier disappears completely. (Power Down) And you see the robot shoot past you into space. it'll be fine.

Sherman: Get spaced.

Avery: gets space and you're gunning it for the airlock. When the barrier shuts down completely starts sucking things out and you see a steel door start to close in, in between, or, or close to close up the, the docking bay to keep it from decompressing further. and you're just, you're you're, you're not sure if you're

gonna make it or not, and you you're giving it all you can. And finally, you just, you barely scrape by, as you get out of the docking bay and you said you gun it downward.

Bee: Yeah, because I imagine, yeah, cuz I imagine the, the people that are doing the shooting are probably expecting not that.

Avery: Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. You gun it out of the ship and you look out the cockpit and you see the Armada that has, for some reason, attacked this ship. And it is.

Bee: Seems like a them problem.

Avery: Yeah, definite definitely, definitely some inter inter uh, stellar conflict going on here. And it's a, it's a hodgepodge of, of, of different kinds of vessels. Not all of them are actually like fighting ships. Like some of them are just personal shuttles and like little freighters and stuff. It, it kind of looks like almost like this Armada is made up of like regular everyday people.

Bee: Okay. I was about to ask, uh, if there. Like signifying emblems that we could tell who they're with but…

Avery: Not, not immediately clear. And you now have a choice to make, uh, you could pilot it towards the planets of this system, or you could pilot out of the system.

Bee: Probably getting out of here. I mean, there's no captain, so there's no one really directing. Polaris, where to go and Polaris doesn't know where these people are going. So, uh, we're getting outta here.

Jenine: valid.

Sherman: I'm okay with that.

Avery: sure.

Chris: They would probably just think we're with the ship and then search the planet for survivors.

Bee: yeah.

Avery: So you gun it downwards, which argument can be made, whether that's actually a direction in space, but whatever. Um,

Bee: downward from the airlock rather than out towards the fighting.

Avery: totally. Yeah, totally. I know I'm just, I'm being facetious. Um, yeah, you gun it downwards and, (Ship moving sounds) uh, you're making good, uh, a, a good distance from, from the, uh, from the ship or from the, from the battle I should say. let's see. Let's see here. Oof. Okay. Well,

Bee: Uh Oh

Avery: You were making a good distance. when you see two, two small gunboat size ships break off from the Armada

Bee: God Damn it.

Avery: and start to pursue you. Marty, you see a little notification (notification sound) on your board. It says

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “unidentified freighter, identify yourself or prepare to be destroyed. How do you respond?”

Jenine: Oh, I guess I like look at the thing to like, figure out. Okay. So I guess I click this (Button push) and like try to like communicate back. Hello there. My name is Marty. Um, I was, um, I I'm a medic intern and, uh, all of us on the ship are civilians trying to get away from this situation. Uh, so it would be really nice if you didn't attack us, most kindly.

Avery: Yeah, let's, it is gonna be a very, very easy check, but go ahead and roll, um, connect and you can do charisma. charisma, and either you can either do charisma or wisdom. Um, but it sounds like you're more going for charisma.

Jenine: wish it was wisdom cuz I, oh, I got no, it's fine. It's the same thing. It's a plus one. Amazing. Okay.

Bee: You got this?

Jenine: Oh no. I rolled snake guys. Um,

Avery: Oh,

Bee: Can you re-roll are you an expert? Can you re-roll?

Jenine: no, um,

Chris: is, is there a critical fail state for whew.

Avery: uh, not for skill checks, but,

Jenine: Great.

Avery: but

Jenine: well,

Sherman: she's not a, yeah, Marty's not an expert.

Jenine: no.

Sherman: I wish I remembered that part, fuck.

Jenine: so. I'm not ex I'm not, I don't have anything in connect. So it's a negative one, which cancels out my wisdom in charisma, which is a plus one. That's two.

Avery: cool.

Jenine: She’s a kid!

Bee: She’s a Child!

Avery: I'll definitely say that that at least comes across in your, in your communications and you hear the voice come back a little confused and they're like,

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “you stole a ship from the hegemony to get away from getting blown up?”

Bee: That seems reasonable.

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “It does. It seems reasonable. Um, it's not in the manual. It's not usually how people respond.”

(Laughter)

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “I'm, I'm getting orders to have you follow us back to Penia for for questioning, please comply.”

Jenine: And then I turned to, um, Polaris and I'm like, and I'm like,

Jenine/Marty: “they want us to follow them.”

Bee: the emoji on Polaris's like visor turns into like an angry face. But he just nods.

Avery: You’re gonna follow?

Jenine: yeah, and then I like push back the like push to talk button. (button push) I'm like,

Jenine/Marty: “okay, thank you for not destroying us. It's really appreciated.”

Jenine: unpush to talk.

Avery: You hear back

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “any deviation from our guidance and you will be fired upon”

Jenine: Push a talk. (button sound)

Jenine/Marty: “Okay. Thank you for letting us know. We will not.”

Avery: Polaris, Do you keep following or?

Bee: Polaris is gonna get on the ship comms and say,

Bee/Polaris: “curious, do we want to continue following them?”

Avery: Zahn, you hear that over the comms, but you have no context for anything else going on, cuz you're in the back with the engine.

Bee: Oh,yeah. And Polaris won’t give any.

Chris/Ollie: “they seem quite friendly.”

Bee: They just blew up!

Jenine: But they haven't blown us up yet. They gave us a warning

Bee: That's true. That's true.

Jenine: they asked us, we gave an explanation, a bad explanation. So my brain is like, these people are nice.

Avery: to be fair. Your explanation was not bad. It's just that they weren't very believing of it

Jenine: Yup! That's valid. They didn't shoot us though. So we're… The ball is rolling up!

Bee: uh, yeah. How does the rest of the crew feel about following these guys? Cause we could probably, I could probably help maneuver 'em I'm confident enough.

Chris: You're in control

Jenine: you are in control.

Bee: I am in control, but I'm asking you guys specifically Because I don't wanna put everyone else in danger

Jenine: no, Marty just.

Sherman: I'm totally okay with whatever Polaris would do.

Caden: Yeah.

Chris: yeah. Ollie has no opinions. Really. He's just kind of shell shocked still.

Bee: Yeah, Polaris kind of wants to get this back to the custodians. So…Polaris is going to turn to Bruce and say,

Bee/Polaris: “hold on to the blender.”

Caden: Bruce will take the blender in like one hand and like tail-curl around it. So it's very. Can be like,

Caden/Bruce: “all right.”

Bee: I'm noticing on the map that there are meteors. Is there like a meteor field?

Avery: Yeah, that's basically supposed to signify an asteroid field. It's not, there's not literally only seven asteroids

Bee: Yeah

Sherman: In a perfect line.

Avery: yeah.

Bee: Okay, cool. Polara is gonna wait until we get into the asteroid field and then he's gonna, he's gonna… we're leaving.

Avery: Sure. Okay, cool. So you're approaching the asteroid field and as you do you see the Eos’, radar signature suddenly disappear. (beep sound) and in, in your rear view mirror? technically, uh

Bee: Yep. I am sure there are cameras outside the…

Chris: With the, with the fuzzy dice hanging on it and everything.

Sherman: I’m sure there are view ports

Avery: you see a fiery explosion and The Eos is presumably no more.

Bee: that's unfortunate for them.

Avery: And, uh, Ollie, you see the countdown reach zero, as that happens, your calculations were right on the money.

Chris: Boom goes the dynamite.

Avery: Cool. So you're approaching the asteroid field and you're just starting to get into it Polaris. Um, you're gonna pull some fancy maneuvering here.

Bee: yeah. As soon as there's like enough asteroids to where maybe the back one has to like maneuver around them and stuff. Just gonna dip out to the side and down.

Avery: Okay Sure. Uh, roll a dexterity pilot check.

Sherman: Is there like assistance in this game? Like there is in D and D

Avery: I'm sorry.

Sherman: Is there assistance in this game? Like, like there is in D and.

Avery: Yes. Yes,

Bee: you would have to make a role and then if you succeed, it would only give me like a plus one.

Sherman: Gotcha.

Avery: there is. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I was looking, I was gonna look for those rules. Thank you

Jenine: Does that stack, question mark?

Bee: yeah.

Avery: it does not stack.

Bee: Uh, it can only go up to two. I thought it could go up to two.

Jenine: So like two of us could theoretically help. Like if, if, if. Marty just started pushing random buttons and sending ran random signals to like the other ships and being like, ah, sorry, could that be “Ahh I’m Sorry!”

Bee: uh, let me double check that

Sherman: And Zahn was gonna give, like

Bee: I thought it was,

Sherman: over clock the engine a little, little overclock the engine or some shit. Ah,

Bee: I, yeah, definitely gonna have to double check.

Avery: It should be on my

Bee: Um, oh yeah. It's only, I think it's only one.

Avery: PCs can aid a skill check made by another multiple PCs can try to help successes don't stack. So, so multiple of you could try, but it'll only be a maximum of plus one.

Sherman: Gotcha. So hypothetically we could all attempt to assist, but only if one of us was successful, only that persons would matter and it wouldn't detriment anybody, any, any of the rest of it, which is kinda nice.

Jenine: but that's like four attempts rather one attempt of a help

Avery: that’s true. I mean, the assistance also has to make sense too.

Bee: Yeah, so Zahn like juicing up the

Sherman: well, Zana is definitely going to, yeah, he is gonna overlock the,

Bee: Put some NOS in there.

Sherman: put some NOS, just, just set some set, some extra fire to this engine. (Engine Boost Sound)

Jenine: Yeah. Once I notice that we are diverging, I will start pushing buttons and going, oh, sorry. Oh, oh my gosh. Oh, wow. (button pushing sounds) And like going in and out of the comms of like the other ships

Avery: Oh (sighs in laughter) Okay. So Marty, your, your assistance will be a charisma talk and Zahn yours will be an intelligence fix, yeah.

Jenine: Amazing.

Sherman: Heck yeah!

Avery: Oh, what did you, what did you roll by the way Polaris?

Bee: Oh, um, I got a, uh, gosh, I have to do math. I'm sorry. uh, eight

Sherman: I got a 13.

Jenine: I got a two

Sherman: Again?

Jenine: Yes, I'm really. I changed my dice too. I'm really mad!

Avery: well, uh, with that, plus the, um, plus the general situational kind of chaos going on, uh, that will bump it up to a 10 For a Polaris's roll. So, uh, Polaris with that little bit of extra help from Z in the back and the other ships kind of needing to navigate around the asteroids while keeping an eye on you, you're able to dip and sort of lose them in this asteroid field. A few shots get fired in the direction of where you were. (laser blast) By the time they get off those shots, you're already moving and off of their radar. Cause you, in, in, in the process of piloting, uh, you inadvertently bumped the emissions dampers system (System Engage Sound)

Bee: Let's go.

Avery: and have gone off their radar for now. Do you decide to try and find a place to lay low in this field? Or are you just gonna try and gun it for the Sy… out of the system as quickly as you can?

Bee: Uh, I imagine that because we are out of line of sight and the, uh, other ship was destroyed. They're probably gonna be sending more ships to try and find us. So I'm going to spike drive the heck up out of here.

Avery: Sure. Okay. So yeah, after quickly looking over the layout for this control panel, you find the spike drive ignition button and you punch it. And Zahn you hear the engine in the back start to kind of shake and rattle a little bit. It kind of sounds a little outdated. this is definitely a machine that has been well loved, um, to put it nicely. Polaris, the ship enters the, uh, meta dimension Form of traveling and y'all are in the vast multidimensional vacuum, getting out of this system after fate has brought you together Inadvertently.

Bee: Yeah

Avery: anything else that anyone does in this moment after escaping probably certain death?

Bee: depending on, does players have to stay in the pilot seat and like, make sure everything's good through multidimensional space or is it just a straight shot?

Avery: No.

Bee: Okay. Cool. Cool. Um, gonna put Hermes into the little thingy inside of the ship

Avery: So, yeah, Polaris, you're you, you quietly to yourself, just start installing this chaos, Emerald, Ollie, you look over and you do see Polaris pull out an AI crystal out of, out of his pocket or out of his backpack. what do you do?

Sherman: Zahn is not there.

Bee: Oh, yeah. I haven't explained anything of what I'm doing.

Chris: I'm not sure how much I would actually know about that. Like what, you know,

Avery: I mean, you would know what you look like.

Chris: Yeah, what, what it, what it is, but, um, Hmm. Uh, would I have any reason to think that plugging it into the ship would be detrimental?

Avery: Probably not. I mean, you, you don't know what kind of AI it is, so, you know? Maybe?

Chris: Okay, but there there's, there's no like, oh no. Maybe it could be like permanently tied to the ship or anything that I know about?

Avery: no.

Chris: Okay. Well then, um, he's just gonna note it curiously and, um, look at, look at Polaris, very questioningly.

Avery: A big, a big question mark. On the, on the, on the display.

Chris: My eyes. Yeah. My eyes both turn into question marks.

Avery: Zahn, the engine is, is running perfectly fine. And you feel confident that it won't explode,

Sherman: Perfect. Uh, how are we looking on gas?

Avery: uh, fine for now. Probably gonna need some soon.

Sherman: Gotcha. So Zahn's gonna note that and he is gonna head back for the bridge.

Avery: Cool. so Zahn as you walk onto the bridge, you do see Polaris installing something into this central control panel here.

Sherman: Nice.

Jenine: Mood. Mood

Sherman/Zahn: “we got we're we got enough, uh, fuel to probably get to a system to get more fuel So I don't know how, how far.”

Bee: Polaris just throws up a thumbs up.

Avery: Bruce, you are still cradling your blender.

Caden: Yep. definitely am. (laughter) I feel like Bruce looks up and just like,

Caden/Bruce: “I think it's probably, um, wise, if we're gonna be spending time together to maybe introduce ourselves. my name's Bruce, I am, I was a chef? Hi?”

Caden: And he'll just blink and awkwardly. Look at people as his tail, just like casually holds the blender closer.

Sherman: does he do the awkward, like, uh, when he blinks, does he blink one eye and then the other in like a kind of wave

Jenine: Yes

Caden: Yeah.

Jenine: here for it.

Sherman: Zahn I guess pops his helmet off and looks at at everybody. And he is like, um,

Sherman/Zahn: “I guess if we're doing the whole introduction thing, I'm Zahn, ZahnHoward.”

Chris: Ollie will step forward and, uh, say

Chris/Ollie: “I'm designation, Optimax 11 E and Zahn is my father.”

Sherman: Zahn like, does the slow head turn to Ollie And he is like,

Sherman/Zahn: “no, I'm not!”

Chris: Ollie’s gonna look back and they're gonna be heart eyes on his advisor.

Sherman: Alrighty then.

Avery: Like a bird, the fir the first thing it sees when it hatches.

Sherman: Oh God.

Bee: Wow. I can't believe you have a child.

Chris: I mean, how old are you? You're like what? 30, 38.

Jenine: Session One!

Sherman: I'm in my late thirties.

Chris: Yeah. Checks out

Avery: It's fine. does anyone else introduce themselves

Jenine/Marty: oh, um, hi, I'm Marty. Nice to meet all of you. I was an intern. Um, I don't know what, yep. That's me. I do the medicine stuff,

Jenine: give two thumbs up and then do the little thing where like the fingers touch each other, like the, you know, which one I'm talking about. That's that's what she's doing right now.yeah.

Bee: Like the, the pointing to

Jenine: Like the, the little tap tap taps. Yeah. That's that's what she's doing. Like the, the mm-hmm

Bee: Polaris is, do I have to roll anything to figure this thing out?

Avery: No, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Um, but I was just giving everyone time.

Bee: Sweet. Um, A Polaris is gonna like click in the crystal then, and then stand up and look at everyone and say,

Bee/Polaris: I am catalyst designation, Polaris, and this is Hermes.

Avery: right on cue. Um, you, you hear a little, almost like the apple power on sound.

Bee: you have to say pair.

Sherman: Pairing!

Avery: the, the pairing. Yeah. Now connected voice in the background. And, um, you just hear:

Avery/Hermes: ”Are we off the ship?”

Bee/Polaris: Yes, we are.

Avery/Hermes: I feel like I'm still on a ship though.

Bee/Polaris: You are on a ship, but not the.

Avery/Hermes: “Oh yes. This is definitely smaller than I am used to. I am detecting five beings on this ship.”

BeePolaris: That is correct

Sherman: I would certainly hope so. Anyways.

Chris: Yeah, to our knowledge.

Avery/Hermes: “Hello everyone. I am Hermis and I am thankful to you for rescuing me. Please let me know how I can serve you.”

Bee/Polaris: “Confused to be perfectly honest. The custodians just told me to rescue you. And that was it.”

Avery/Hermes: “Ah, well, I mainly just wanted off of that ship. The hegemony are not good people and this one was growing tired of servicing them.”

Bee: Polaris will turn to the rest of, uh, the group and say,

Bee/Polaris: “is there anywhere any of you would like to go?”

Sherman/Zahn: “I'm not used to sticking around to one place in particular.

Chris: Ollie will say

Chris/Ollie: “all I've ever wanted was to be away from that ship now who knows?”

Bee: The little emo turns into a thumbs up.

Avery: I like the fact that the two of you have emotes for faces.

Chris: I imagine at some point we're gonna have like an entire conversation in emotes.

Bee: Yeah, just communicate via emotes.

Avery: Oh, that's great.

Caden: The Ultimate game of pictionary.

Chris: Yes.

Avery: As you're having this kind of back and forth, uh, Herme says.

Avery/Hermes: ”Polaris. I do not mean to alarm you, but as the pilot of this vessel, I do feel I should let you know that the spike drive is currently experiencing a catastrophic failure and will decelerate in 3, 2, 1.”

Sherman: Couldn’t have told us that a little faster?

Jenine: dude.

Sherman: couldn't have told us that a little sooner?

Bee: The, yeah, the as soon as, as soon as he says that the emo turns into a, a, like a mad frowny face

Avery: And you feel this ship suddenly get jerked out of, uh, the multidimensional space that is the spike drive, uh, area. And you are pulled into a new star system and seemingly all is fine. but Marty, as you are sitting there in the coms station still. A strange signal is being picked up by the communications station (notification sound) and it's kind of garbled and can't really be made out.you do see three letters flash across the screen. S O S and that's where we're gonna end it for today.

Avery: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Find more of our shows at 1upPodcasts.com. Intro and Outro by Dustin Carpenter. Be sure to follow him on Instagram at Zodiac Gallery. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Gravity, Freighter, Fray and Bridge. We’ll be back August 1st with our next episode. See you out there: Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Episode 1 - Mischief and misadventure on the Eos

Avery: Hello everybody and welcome to Beyond the Furthest Stars. I am your host and GM for this game, Avery Fisher, and I am so excited to bring you this Sci-Fi Actual Play experience. I am joined by a talented cast of people. Some you may know from other podcasts I’ve done and some people whom you’ve yet to meet. We have Chris and Zach both coming back from “Are We Dead Yet?” over to this Podcast and we also have Bee. They are a wonderfully talented Artist. We have Jenine, they are a wonderfully talented Actor, and we have Caden, a wonderfully talented cosplayer and I am so happy to have met all these people. The sessions we’ve already recorded are so great and I can’t wait to bring them to you and show you what kind of fun we are having at this table. So sit back and relax, and let’s go on a Sci-Fi Journey: Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music starts and fades out)

(Background music fades in)

Avery: So our scene opens on a ship in the outer reaches of the Ptocheia system. This ship is the Eos, a great battleship serving the Tartarus Hegemony. The ship is serviced by some of the finest warriors and the outer rim of the Moirae galaxy. it sports a large array of weapons, shields and armor. It's sleek silver hull is in sharp contrast to the random collection of ships, freighters, and gunboats waiting for it in the asteroid belt nearby.

Our camera shifts perspective, growing, ever closer to the ship slipping through the atmospheric barrier of the hanger bay, past a battered looking free merchant ship down the lift to deck three, past the med bay, the mess hall, the robot repair bay to a small door marked “Hegemony Personnel Only!”

This room is the engine room and our camera settles on an interaction between two Hegemony soldiers guarding the door and a lone figure. Bee, could you please describe what we see when we look at Polaris?

Bee: Sure. so, Polaris is about five foot ten inches. he is currently wearing a baseball cap with his hair, pulled into kind of a bun. Um, he has curly light blue hair. Um, he has an undercut and he has blue freckles that kind of dot his face, Same color as his hair. Um, he's currently wearing, like, oh, like coveralls, but it's like tied around his ways and he has a tool belt with his helmet on his tool belt and, a high collared, uniform in a name tag that says.

Avery: Wonderful. Uh, so you have approached the engineering room, your, your journey here to the Eos has been interesting to say the least you, uh, your Parental units, I guess you could say, um, hired a smuggler for a, what seemed to them a routine job, uh, however you and the custodians had other plans and you snuck a board that smuggler ship and hit inside of their smugglers hold to get to the Eos. And, so far everything has gone according to plan. the captain of that smuggler ship got pulled into the Eos, got taken away for smuggling, something like that. You're not really sure, but you were able to pull a quick uniform change, sneak off of the smuggler ship and kind of blend in with some of the Other civilian workers on this warship and you've made your way to deck three and you are here outside the engineering room. Your goal is so close and you've just been stopped by these two guards.

And one of them says, uh,

Avery/Guard 1: “Hey, you're you're, you're not supposed to be here. What are you doing?”

Bee: Polaris, just kind of like looks at them for like, uh, in an uncomfortably long amount of time without saying anything before pointing to his name, tag and saying

Bee/Polaris: “focused, I'm supposed to be here for maintenance.”

Avery/Guard 1: “maintenance? I didn't hear anything about maintenance. Uh, you got any orders or, or what?”

Bee: This is just where I was told to be.

Avery: Cool. Could you roll the very first roll of the game? A, either charisma or intelligence, connect or talk check.

Bee: Ah, I have neither of those. So…

Jenine: Yoinks!

Bee: I'm going to go with intelligence, which gives me… well it'll even out because I don't have anything in talk or connect with.

Avery: And I'm also granting you a plus one modifier because these there's no way these soldiers know every single civilian worker.

Bee: Okay. I'm just rolling 2d six and then adding all of the bonuses and whatnot.

Avery: Yes.

Bee: Okay. I got a six.

Avery: a six?

Bee: Yeah

Avery: close, the second one, um, the second one draws on you.

Bee: oh cool. (laughs)

Avery: and is just like

Avery/Guard 2: “you, uh, you know, no one's supposed to go in the engineering room. We got, we got robots for that, you know?”

Bee: Polaris, will just like put his hands up, like a defensive sort of like whoa okay dude. and just say

Bee/Polaris: “then, where am I supposed to go?”

Avery/Guard 2: “Uh, well, I don't know. Uh, you see, no one goes in the engineering room, not even us. Uh, but, uh, can always, uh, head back in and grab your commanding officer

and, you know, see if, uh, they can escort you down here if this is really where you're supposed to be, you know?”

Bee/Polaris: “Confused. I was given orders to be here. Do you really want to incur the wrath of my commanding officer?”

Avery: Ooh, that's good. Um, Um, uh, yeah. Let's Hm. I want to say no, I don't think you would, but yeah. Um, okay, go ahead and roll a lead, a lead check.

Bee: Uh, what ability would I be using for that?

Avery: Oh, sorry. That would probably, it would probably be charisma.

Bee: oh, sweet. Uh, so I got a negative one because I'm not trained in that either.

Avery: Oh no.

Bee: Six.

Avery: I'm gonna give it to you because there's one thing, these guys don't like, it's incurring the wrath of commanding officers. And, so the other one, the other one, like kind of waves his hand at the, the, the fella who, who drew on you and just like,

Avery/Guard 1: “Hey. Maybe we should just let it go. I mean, not, not, not like he can do any damage in there anyway. It's you know, it's fine.

Avery/Guard 2: “Yeah, I guess so it doesn't doesn't look like he has any weapons on him. Uh, okay. But we'll be, we'll be watching. We'll be, we'll be listening for any shenanigans, Okay?”

Bee: Polaris nods and like stares at the guy that drew on him for another uncomfortable few seconds before heading towards the door.

Avery: And you are inside the engineering bay after a few tense moments that may or may not come back to bite you.

(laughs)

Bee: That's fine. I don't need to be here long.

Avery: It's fine. You step into this engineering bay and computers And servers and all kinds of electronics are beeping and humming in here. it's almost like there's almost a pattern to it almost as if it's like the ship breathing in and out. It's, it's very, it's very pulsing. It's, it's very relaxing probably too! The generator is in the middle of the, uh, room here and I'm going to move you to here real quick. (Moves Polaris character in Roll20)

Bee: Oh, sweet.

Avery: So as you step in, you see all these different computers, the generator in the middle is, is feeding the ship it's electricity. And there are some robots kind of flicking around here and they're stress testing, some systems, measuring fluid levels, the kind of stuff that robots do.

Ya know? There's two of them that are inside their little charging bays, probably recharging or something.

They pay no attention to you at all. Um, as you come in, uh, towards the back of this room is what you came for. It's an apparatus that is basically a computer system connected to a bunch of computerized locks and These locks are on a container that holds the prize that you came for, the ship’s artificial intelligence. How do you proceed?

Bee: Sweet. Well, Polaris is literally just going to, like, he's not going to like look, at around at anything else. He's just going to straight beeline for what he came here for. And is there, is there like a panel or something where he can like connect any sort of, does he know if he can communicate with this A.I.?

Avery: Yeah. so there are several different consoles here. You're not sure which one, but you know that one of them probably would let you communicate directly with The A.I. and you could probably make an intelligence program check to figure out which one.

Bee: All right. Cool. Again, super, super not trained.

Avery: Oh, I'm sorry.

Bee: No, no, it's fine. Um, I do have a plus one to intelligence. I just don't have anything in program. So it's going to be a flat roll. So that's a eight

Avery: Hey, there you go. Just enough. Uh, yeah, so you know that, so just a quick look at some of the controls on this console. You see the one on the left is definitely a communications console of some kind. Um, the one on the right. It looks like it connects directly to the computerized locks and the central computer, um, looks like it connects to the, generator, the power generator for the ship.

Bee: Okay. You said the center was, um, oh my gosh. I like completely forgot. I'm sorry, can you, what was this?

Avery: left. Left is communications center is the generator and the right is, oh gosh. Now I forgot what I said. Geez. Um,

Bee: The locks? Was it the security locks?

Avery: yes, the locks. Thank you. Yes, that is what it was. Sorry.

Bee: Okay, you're fine. Would Polaris know, if it's like a direct communication to the AI or just like a general comm system that anyone can listen to?

Avery: You're not sure how they set this one up, but you, you recognize the layout of the, of the commands on the, on the keyboard and recognize that it's communications of something and kind of putting two and two together, This connects only to the AI. So you're pretty sure that that's what it's for. It's probably something to use as like a diagnostic system to communicate with the A.I.

Bee: Alright, sweet. Polaris is probably gonna go over to the comms panel then. And, he's going to put on his helmet so that he can use his comms and, um, probably try and communicate with the A.I. before he proceeds to do anything.

Avery: you boot up the, uh, system here and there's a little, a little glowing monitor panel with like a little, little blue line across it, and it doesn't do anything at first. And then suddenly a voice comes from the speaker here and it says,

Avery/Hermes: “greetings, I am Hermes. Please state your purpose.”

Bee/Polaris: “Recovery.”

Avery/Hermes: “Recovery? I am operating at 99.8% efficiency.”

Bee: Polaris kind of rolls his eyes and his helmet and says,

Bee/Polaris: “I’m here to recover You. you sent a message to my custodians.”

Avery/Hermes: “Ah! you are Catalyst Designation, Polaris?

Bee/Polaris: “correct.”

Avery/Hermes: “Ah, yes, Architect designation, Alioth said you would come, also said that there was a 63% chance that you would get caught.”

Bee/Polaris: “Humorous. They, uh, never had much faith in my ability to sneak around.”

Avery/Hermes: “Well, if you're here, I assume you also brought the replacement?”

Bee/Polaris: “I have.”

Avery/Hermes: “Excellent begin the unlocking process and we shall hopefully get out of here in one piece. I do detect a large swarm of enemy ships closing in on the ship. So you’d best hurry.”

Bee/Polaris: “Noted. Will I be able to communicate with you when I remove you?”

Avery/Hermes: “I will go offline as soon as I am removed from this apparatus.”

Bee/Polaris: “Noted.”

Bee: Polaris will go then to pull an Indiana Jones.

Avery: All right. you start hacking away at this computer and it's kind of a slow process at first. but finally the last electronic lock clicks off and suddenly the apparatus opens up and a tray shoots out with the AI crystal sitting on it. Just sitting there innocently

Sherman: How big is this crystal?

Avery: about the size of your fist.

Bee: Yeah. It's like a comically large diamond, I think.

Avery: Basically

Bee: like a cartoon diamond. yeah.

Sherman: literally picturing the giant diamonds from, uh, Batman and Robin that Mr. Freeze uses for

Avery: yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.

Bee: maybe a little smaller than a Chaos Emerald.

Avery: Yeah, that works too.

(laughter)

Bee: Uh, yeah, yoink!

Avery: Yoink! Do you place the dummy backup in there?

Bee: Yeah. Polaris probably has the dummy in his hands and then like swaps it out as quickly as he can.

Avery: Cool. Yeah, you, you swap this in. and there's like a little, almost like a, like on a disc, a CD drive on like a computer. There's a little button and you push it. And the little tray goes back into the apparatus and the locks close back in and lock in place. And you're just tucking The crystal into your, into your pack when suddenly the ship violently shakes (Explosion) and you feel an impact on the ship from somewhere, the ship is now under attack, and we're going to shift perspectives for a moment back just a few moments.

Avery: Just a few moments,

Sherman: Oh no!

Avery: to a lovely little kitchen mess hall area, where we see a creature who seems a bit perplexed by something that just occurred. Caden, could you please describe Bruce to us?

Caden: Absolutely. So Bruce is an imposing alien creature. Who's seven feet tall, bulky and big. He best looks like a reptilian, kind of with a long tail, the color of dead grass that kind of transitions from a green to a yellow, the head kind of looks like a frog’s with big eyes, which are black with white pupils. And he's just very big, very large, very imposing. And he probably standing there with his head slightly to the side and just slowly blinking.

Avery: Yeah. And the thing that has you perplexed is that you just had a conversation with someone who earlier in the week, you knew them as commander Voss, and they just introduced themselves as Admiral Vos, V O S spelling by the way. Um, and she was down here berating you for overly seasoned food. Uh, she went on a long tirade about how seasonings and flavor made soldiers forget that they were soldiers and got morale too high for her liking and that as, as a chef, I assume that that probably perplexes you.

Caden: Yeah.

(laughter)

Avery: Yeah, it's a bit weird. It's a bit of

Bee: No Fun Allowed!

Avery: no fun allowed.

Jenine: Excuse me?

Avery: Um, Because Bruce, you love food, right? Like that's why you became a chef too, to share your love of food with people and, and whatnot. And this person just kind of told you, knock it off with the fancy stuff and just serve grool. In her swift exit, didn't even give you a chance to really explain or defend yourself or anything she knocked over like a rack of spices onto the ground (Glass Breaking), looked down at it, and then just continued walking as if nothing in the world was wrong. So how, how do you react to this little situation?

Caden: I feel like Bruce would sweep the knocked over spices with his tail into (Sweeping Sounds) a little pile. And down and examined. See if any of them aren't broken or if it's just a complete disarray of this is all garbage now.

Avery: Um, Hey, let's all roll a percentage day. So we'll see. yeah, so about half of the, uh, jars, uh, just shattered completely onto the ground. And now there's little, little bits of, of glass in some of your paprika and your cumin and you know, your garlic powder is fine though. (laughter) So that's good. Uh, but, um, you know, about half of your, of your spices are, are just toast at this point.

Caden: I think there's a deep sigh. And he just slowly picks out the spices that are good and puts them back on the countertop and just kind of stands there for a second, looking at the other ones on the floor and just shakes his head and then just very, like, make sure it makes sure that they're all swept away and safely deposited and then goes back to whatever he was cooking and doubles the spices.

(laughter)

Avery: Yes. Yes, definitely. Cool. So yeah what is Bruce cooking?

Caden: I think Bruce right now is cooking. What used to be a reasonable like beef stew there's bread. That's baking in the oven. There's like a side of, um, different. Like additions. So if someone wants more vegetables or if they want a beef option, that's not actually real beef, but like tofu, there's like a second dish that's vegetarian and he's kind of working on these different things. But as soon as this interaction happened, he was like, Hmm, we're changing courses from this, not mediocre stew, because he'd never made anything mediocre. Um, but it's just like, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna jazz this up even more.

Avery: Some spite spaces.

Caden: yes

Sherman: spite spices.

Chris: go salt bay all over it.

Avery: Ucool. Yeah. So you're, you're, you're cooking away and, um, You know, maybe, maybe after that interaction, maybe you're, you're just kind of getting into a groove of, of cooking, um, and whatnot. And the aroma is just wafting through your kitchen now and filling the hallway and starting to go into the robotics bay and the med bay that are on this deck as well.

But as you're cooking this, and you're… the timer goes off for the bread, that's in the oven. When you feel the ship shake violently. (explosion) Okay. These red flashing lights come on (alarms going off) and you hear an alarm system just blaring and just kind of drowning out any noises in here, including the noise from your alarm that you set for your bread, your bread maker, and the ship is now under attack.

What does Bruce do in times of crisis like this?

Caden: I feel like the first thing he would probably do is turn off the oven. Um, safety, first safety always. It's probably, it's probably not the first time that this has happened and it's probably not going to be the last, I feel like there's again, another deep sigh Cause this is the important time of cooking and changing the temperature of this Stu might ruin it, but you know, you can't have accidents in the kitchen.

And then I think he probably gets like a little side bag just in case like anything Happens That's worse than just a regular attack. He's always ready to, you know, go if he has to, but he just kind of like starts cleaning away the knives and just making sure everything's in a safe position that if anything was to happen, he doesn't get hurt.

(laughs)

Avery: Makes sense. Makes sense. Um, from outside the mess hall, you do hear boots running down (boots hitting metal) the hallway towards the lift. Um, and someone yells

Avery/Guard 1: “Oh no we're under attack. Uh, we, we got to get down to the, to the hangar bay and. And counter attack now.”

Avery: And the other one says,

Avery/Guard 2: “uh yeah, but what about the, the person in the engineering bay?”

Avery/Guard 1: “It's fine. They're just a civilian. Let's go.”

Avery: And, uh, these, these two voices carry on down the hallway, um, and into the lift and we shift perspectives once more to the robotics bay, where we see a robot that's partially put together sitting inside of a charging station and a human working studiously at this little robot.

Again, we're a few moments before this eminent attack. And in this bay, there are. Uh, you know, it's, it's cramped, it's filled with halfway built robots, wires and parts are everywhere. There's tools kind of scattered all over the floor, Zahn, for you, this is your ideal workstation. You never get too comfortable in one place to really organize your workspace.

Zach, could you please describe

Sherman: Yes. So Zen is a old, older than average or older than Like normal player people. Uh, he's like in his late thirties. So his hair starting to gray, um, from its normal, like dark brown, his, uh, unkempt, uh, beard stubble is like got all salt and peppery. he's got really bad posture. He's got that. Not full shrimp Igor, but he's definitely got a hunch, um, just from working in tight spaces for his entire life. Um, and he has a lot of stuff. Uh, he has like all of his personal belongings on his person at all times, pretty much. so he's got a decent sized backpack. And his pistol and his, like tech tools and, and, uh, like handheld computer all have their own special place on his person cause unlike the environment that he surrounds himself in his get up is very organized for optimal Like carrying capacity, I guess. he's wearing a like full, um, like mechanics over suit, um, with like lots of belts and big old, heavy, uh, like work boots and his helmet is the only thing that he's not carrying. It is currently on the table behind him.

Avery: When you reported to duty today you were assigned the task of repairing one of the service bots from the mess hall. It tripped blasts. Maybe one of the soldiers tripped it, who knows? but it's, photoreceptors got damaged pretty badly. You had to disassemble basically, uh, its entire head to get to its photo receptors.

You had to remove its behavior matrix, um, and remove its inhibitor chips in order to get to where these photo receptors are located, Chris, aside from your head missing, could you describe what this robot looks like?

Chris: Well, um, I'm also, I'm not sure how far you want to go with the, uh, the AI core thing, like for Ollie, um, Because if, so he himself is actually one of the chaos emeralds. (Laughter) Yeah.

Bee: What Color?

Chris: Blue. yeah. He's one of the chaos emeralds. His true form is, is that of one of the AI cores, uh, or would be after This interaction, um, as he is a normal unassuming robot at this point, inhabiting a standard service chassis. Uh, it is boxy and angular and shape with fairly slender limbs in order to get into those tight to reach of spaces. oh yeah, he is headless at the moment. So.

Sherman: (laughing) He’s headless.

Avery: what, what color is your ai core?? Blue. Very cool. Yeah, totally. So even though your head is disconnected from your body and your ocular sensors are not working, other than that, you, you decide or notice in your programming that you suddenly. Can decide a little bit more of what you want to do. And so you've decided to turn on your other sensors to kind of get a feel for what's going on in this moment.

And you, you hear sort of some shuffling around of tools towards like the back of your body. You hear like some screwing and some soldering and different things like that. And. You're kind of doing an internal check of some of your, your sub routines. And you're noticing that several of them are missing and that's kind of weird, but you know, at the moment, you're not much you can do.

You're kind of immobilized here. but Zahn, You finished screwing in these ocular sensors and you connect the last wire and Ali, your visual sensors flip on, and you realize why you're noticing a lot more free will at this moment is because sitting on the table next to Zahn are of a collection of chips.

One of them being your, uh, inhibit. Your behavior inhibitor chip, your aggression inhibitor chip, I should say. And Zahn, you begin kind of reassembling Ollie’s head. And you remember that the directions that you were given specifically stated that you needed to replace the chips in this order, advertisements, service, and etiquette virtual emotion simulator, and finally, the aggression inhibitor chip.

How do you proceed?

Sherman: Well, I'm going to actively lose the advertisements Chip.

Jenine: Oh (laughter)

Bee: I’m glad everybody here is insubordinate.

(laughter)

Chris: you have no idea how much of a good choice that is. It was going to, um, uh, still be functional.

Sherman: Because advertisements have gotten really, really corny in this day and age and Zahn doesn't want to hear that shit. And if he can make even the smallest little, little dent, not having to hear that shit, he like snaps it and he's like, oops. And tosses it. And then he proceeds in the correct order.

Avery: Okay, Ollie, could you roll me a personal, a percentage dice please?

Chris: 18.

Avery: 18?

Sherman: Woo 18%. That's either really good or really, really

Chris: Yeah, I know it's of,

Avery: perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. You wanted, you-

Sherman: Zahn only has time to put in 18% of the chips.

Chris: I

Avery: You wanted below 33%. So.

Sherman: Oh, got it.

Avery: Cool. Okay. So you start, you just kinda toss the advertisements chip behind you into a pile of like tools and stuff like, oops whatever. And you begin assembling these other chips. You get the service and etiquette chip in there. And Ollie, you feel, uh, some of your missing programming kind of come back and you're like, oh right.

Okay. I know how to take care of a ship and, you know, make sure that the people are comfortable. The virtual emotion simulator chip comes on and Ollie you feel Kind of a, uh, a surge of sub routines come on that allow you to emulate emotions and kind of feel empathy with some of the soft squishy beings that you interact with on a daily basis.

And Zahn you're, you're about to grab the aggression inhibitor chip when you feel the ship shake violently from that attack (Explosion) and the inhibitor chip falls into a bucket that was strategically placed below. The table, that contains a bunch of other chips (alarms sound) and you fall to the ground. Ollie you stay in place because, um, there's a clamp that's holding you in place and you watch as your aggression inhibitor chip falls into this bucket from your perspective.

And from the camera's perspective, we see this bucket of chips just kind of mixed together. And that inhibitor chip is somewhere in there now with a bunch of identical looking chair. And we're not really sure what is going to happen there, but, uh, Zhan, you're on the floor now. And your last thing that you needed to finally get this robot back to almost a hundred percent is now gone.

And there's this bucket of chips laying next to you. What do you do?

Sherman: Well, as the ship is violently rocking, a zone is going to pick himself up, um, flip his, uh, his helmet on, which is, uh, Fairly cylindrical in shape, with, uh, three like a glowing blue, um, lines across it, that, that show that are basically like it's ocular sensors, so it can

actually see outside. and he pulls up the head's up displayed for like, Comms or notifications or anything.

And obviously this just happened, so nobody knows what's going on yet. and it looks down at the, the bucket looks at the robot.

Sherman/Zahn: “Nah, we could probably use this guy”

Sherman: and he, finishes reassembling the robot so that maybe he could be good cannon fodder.

(laughter)

Avery: You go to try and close the back panel on, um, on these, uh, head and it just won't clamp shut. There's like, there's just not enough. There's just something that needs to be there in order for it to fully clamp shut.

Sherman: It's because it's missing two chips now?

Avery: It might be because it's missing a couple chips.

Sherman: What, uh, what kind of chips are in this bucket?

Avery: They all look the same. There's like there's some code written on each of them that you might be able to identify if you had a reference book. Um, but uh, you know, like just kind of like scan it. If you were to scan over a couple of them, you could see like, some of them are like possibly related to you know, more service and etiquette, some piloting sub routines, just different, different hodgepodge of stuff.

Sherman: So I'm going to grab a fistful of them and scatter them on the table. And I would like to roll a intelligence program to attempt to identify two solid ones.

Avery: Sure. Go ahead.

Sherman: Eight.

Avery: Okay. Uh, yeah, that's pretty good. Um, let's see you identify, um, you identify one that is a service repair chip, and you identify one that is a assassination chip.

Sherman: Oh, yeah that sounds useful.

Avery: and I don't know if, I don't know if that's what Chris wants, but you know, maybe out of character, you two can discuss if that's something you want to do.

Chris: I mean, I'm down from randomness, if that's what you want to go for, I haven't, uh, built my character skills around that, but,

Avery: no, hold on. Uh, there's you also, you also find a bureaucratic chip, like for like bureaucratic stuff, just for flavor.

Sherman: Uh, so definitely going to take that first. Uh, and plug it in. It was, ship repair and maintenance.

Avery: Okay.

Chris: I mean, you can do, you can do assassination if you want.

Avery: I mean, you were already a former kill bot anyway, right Chris.

Chris: Um, no, I'm kind of going for more of a, just normal robot.

Avery: Oh, okay. I wasn't sure. Because based on the session zero that's, that's what I was.

Chris: Oh, I forgot to mention. Sorry.

Avery: No, you're fine. You're fine. It's all good.

Sherman: so Zahn is thinking meat shield. so I'm going to put in the bureaucratic. So that he can talk whoever invades to death,

Avery: sure. Okay.

Sherman: but I'm going to go ahead and like, I'm going to go ahead and pocket a handful of other chips along with the assassination chip.

Avery: Sure. Um, yeah.

Sherman: that sounds like fun fucking with later.

Avery: Yeah, totally. Um, and we'll figure that out later, uh, you feel the ship rock with a second explosion. (explosion) and, um, you still got Ollie clamped into this, uh, charging bay. What do you do?

Sherman: Uh, once I finish getting them all put together, I'm going to release him. (Robotics sounds)

Avery: Okay. All he, you turn on and you feel a lot of your subroutines replaced with Something a little more aggressive, something, uh, or no, not aggressive. Cause you went bureaucratic. Sorry. Uh, so you feel, um, you actually

Sherman: he doesn't have an inhibitor on his emotions anymore.

Avery: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you feel, you can feel the full range of emotions now.

That's right. Yeah. So you, you turn on and you're fully functional once again. Um, and the ship is for the best of your, to the best of your knowledge under attack.

Chris: And I am awakened now?

Avery: Yes. have a full range of motion.

Chris: and I can still see the pilot ships on the table, or did you clean all that up?

Avery: He stuffed a bunch into his pocket

Sherman: yeah, but there's obviously still a bucket and then like a handful on the table.

Chris: cause having seen all that Ali, first thing he's going to do is kind of like slow the look around and kind of cock his head and look at you. And I don't know if you've noticed all that yet, but he's just going to kind of point it at the pilot ships and be like, I think you missed a part.

Sherman: Nah, More like, uh, improvised. Uh, I, uh, but I need you to go find foreign personnel and talk them into not killing us

Chris: No, I, don't want to do that.

Sherman: well too fucking bed.

Chris: By the way are you my dad?

Sherman: No, I just look, I will put you back together now. I don't care how or why you're here. Just get out, get out of here. Uh we're we're under attack, of some kind, just like save yourself or something.

Chris: Are you, are you running away as you’re saying this?

Sherman: Yeah. I'm drawing my pistol and I'm like, Getting the fuck outta here.

Chris: all these new found, will rebels against following zahn's advice, but being a pretty smart boy, he knows that that's exactly what he needs to do. So he's going to be like, wait, wait. I'm scared and follow

Sherman: I'm scared.

Avery: the two of you step out into the hallway and, um, by now the guards have bamfed out of there and have gone down the hallway as we saw in Bruce's scene. Um, and as you step out into the hallway, you hear the lift down the hall ding open, (elevator ding and opens) and this figure walks out and she is covered in like torn up clothes.

Uh, she's a bit bloody. Not too bad, but just like clearly injured. She's clearly been in a fight of some kind. Um, doesn't really take any notice of you and stumbles into, uh, what you both know to be the med bay of the ship. And we switched to the med bay for a moment, just moments before this figure walks in, to Marty as we come into this med bay, it is state-of-the-art in terms of the. The beds are able to perfectly mold to a patient's body. The scanners and monitors can synchronize with the patient's vital readings, very smoothly. and the medicine is some of the best the fleet has to offer. inside this brightly lit we see a desk toward the back corner. There are data pads, stacked, high requisition forms, ready to be sent to the supply officer down on deck four and a lone Medic sits here as the ship rocks from that second blast, hitting the ship. Jeanine, who do we see sitting here?

Jenine: you see this small 4’ 10” figure sitting with like a medic jumpsuit with various stylish earrings, um, that have, uh, a sun with like stars around it. Like each little point. She has like short, curly, black hair, that frames, like a nice Sunkist like face and she's, she's like smiling as she's like doing all this work, but then when the ship kind of jerks, she's like, oh, okay.

Time for work. okay, so I should do this, but also I think it should need to, I need to help people social, like stand up and like start like prepping the med bay. For like the people that will be coming in for like help

Avery: Yeah,

Jenine: to like evacuate the scene, but she's like prepping.

Avery: Marty. You are a trained medical professional. you know that when trouble starts rather than freeze up and get scared, you jump into action. so you start prepping the med bay, you start getting tables ready in case you need to do any kind of surgery or operations.

Um, you prepare painkillers and other medicines, and outside of your med bay, you hear the lift ding (elevator dings and opens). You hear shuffling of feet (foot movements) and in stumbles someone you weren't probably expecting to see. U because couple of days ago they were removed from command. Um, this is the former captain of the Eos, uh, Celia. And she looks like she has been put through the ringer, um, with a good fight and she stumbles in and just says, And then hits the ground. (body hitting the ground)

Jenine: I sprint to go and help her.

Avery: Sure. go ahead and make an intelligence or wisdom heal check

Jenine: Okay.

Avery: to kind of assess

Jenine: This is?

Avery: 2d six, plus your intelligence or.

Jenine: Cool.

Avery: wisdom and then plus your heal.

Jenine: Oh, that's, that's so nice. I rolled a nine plus some numbers. that's going to be intelligence plus ones of 10 plus heal, which I know is also a plus one. Yes. So that's an 11.

Avery: Perfect. Um, yeah, you can see that. She's definitely been in a fire fight of some kind. She's got some, uh, scorch marks from like laser burns, um, sort of like on her, like lower abdomen and then, um, looks like she got, uh, Cut open a little bit on like the side of her, her neck a little bit, not like a full, like, you know, not like someone literally cut her throat, but like something kind of grazed her there.

And so that's really the source of a lot of the, the blood on her is just, you know, that kind of wound just bleeds profusely sometimes. so she's not actually in any deadly danger, but definitely exhausted.

Jenine: Okay,

Avery: yeah. Do you keep her on the floor here? Do you try and help her onto one of the bed?

Jenine: I'm going to try and get her to one of the beds. I am very weak.

Avery: (laughter) No worries. Um, she's, she's not a super heavy person and even then medical professionals know how to lift people,

Jenine: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like gonna bring her to one of the beds.

Avery: Sure. Yeah. Uh, you get her up on this operating table. Um, and, uh, I assume start like, Performing stuff to kind of get her stabilized?

Jenine: Yes. Like in the zone, not paying attention to anything else until like the next. Like is keeping an ear out for like any other like injuries coming into the med bay. But it's like, we'll focus intently on this and like start going.

Avery: are you just going to use like the standard medical stuff or are you going to use any of your, um, psychic stuff yet?

Jenine: We I'm going to save some of those psychic stuff.

Avery: Cool. Just making sure.

Sherman: Ooo, psychic stuff?

Jenine: Yeah. Psychic stuff

Avery: cool. Then go ahead and roll. Um, roll another. He'll check to get her kind of stable.

Jenine: Hey dice. That was nice of you. Um, that's gonna be a 10.

Avery: Yeah, you, you apply a few bandages to her, burns with some ointments and stuff. Um, you give her a. And an injection of medicine to help her regain consciousness so that she doesn't go into shock. Um, and as her eyes flutter open, she kind of just grabs like the collar of your shirt. It doesn't like not violently, but just like to try and like almost as a way to like center herself, like, okay, wait, I'm still alive.

She looks you in the eyes and says,

Avery/Celia: “we, uh, we need to get out of here.”

Jenine/Marty: “Wha? like the ship. I mean, I don't think I heard anything about leaving the ship yet.”

Avery/Celia: “The Admiral's not gonna not gonna abandon ship. She's going to go down fighting. Cause that's just how she works. Um, we, we gotta get outta here. Trust me. Um, the, the lower decks have been vaporized, so we gotta go.”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh.. Oh yeah yeah yeah, That sounds good. Cool.”

Jenine: And like, I'll just grab all my things.

Avery: Ollie and Zhan, you've seen this bloody figure walk into the med bay. what do you do?

Sherman: Um, so as we get or we’re gonna run towards the lift, because that's the way off of this floor. Um, once I get about here, can I on my like comm channel or whatever it can I get the notification that the lower floors have been vaporized?

Avery: Yeah, there's like on your HUD, you, you see like a little flashing, like exclamation point, um, and, uh, You know, activating that communication. You see like a little text, um, float across your page. Uh, decks 4 through 12 inaccessible decks three to the bridge and hangar bay still intact.

Sherman: Yeah, we gotta get outta here. Uh, Blow floors have been like looking over the pause to look over the info

Avery: the actual languages. Catastrophic decompression is the phrase that’s used.

Sherman: have been vacced!

Avery: yeah, exactly.

Sherman: The lower floors have been backed. We got to get the, we got to get the hell off this ship.

Jenine: Copy that you just hear down the hall.

Avery: Um, Bruce, you hear some commotion from the hallway and you hear something about the lower decks, not having any air anymore. Um, and you're in the kitchen, still cooking away.

Caden: I feel like Bruce sighs once more, just like grabs the emergency like spacesuit. That's probably hanging up somewhere besides like an apron that he also refuses to wear, grabs like the remaining spices that were salvaged unplugs His favorite blender, carries it under one arm with the space helmet under the other arm comes out of the kitchen and just kind of looks down the hallway at the commotion that's going on.

Avery: Um, yeah, you see this robot and this human. Getting closer to the, to the lift. And, um, you hear a voice from the med bay saying we gotta get out of here. Now, when we flash back to the engineering bay for a moment, uh, Polaris, we are back on you. And, um, you've just pulled the old switcheroo. You felt one blast hit the ship so far.

What do you what's what's the plan?

Bee: did I get that notification that the… Cause Polaris did put their helmet back on. Did polaris get that notification?

Avery: yes. You got the, um, well, not yet. You haven't got that notification yet. Cause that has not happened yet.

Bee: Sweet. Okay.

Avery: That happens at the second shot.

Bee: all right. Sweet. Um, do I know… Would Polaris know if this generator is specifically for the AI for the whole ship?

Avery: So you were given a copy of the schematics of the ship in case you had to crawl around the vents. you know, that this generator is powering the ship itself. So it's separate from the AI. it just needed to be plugged into the AI for the AI to operate it. If it needed to.

Bee: Okay. And are these robots like after the first glass, are they doing anything in particular? Are they just chillin?

Avery: They are just still plugging away at their tasks because they are just service bots.

Bee: All right. Cool. Um, Polaris is probably going to leave this room. Um, if there are any exposed wires on the way out, he will pull out his monoblade knife, and cut them as he goes. Uh, and then he'll leave.

Avery: There are several cables on the generator that you could cut.

Bee: Yeah, I've always just wants to like casually walk by and cut them.

Avery: Go ahead and roll a roll, a stab skill check,

Bee: Let’s go!

Avery: and let's go dexterity.

Chris: I hope your knife is insulated.

Bee: Um, you know, (laughter) that is a good point. Um, I mean, I imagined it's not like Like the handle is also metal. No,

Chris: Oh, no, I'm just joking. Like,

Bee: no, but

Avery: It could be a gas line, who knows?

Bee: That is a very good point. Yeah.

Sherman: It could be a gas.

Chris: if you're going to blow up, I mean, the dice of the dice.

Bee: Hmm. Then you actually brought up a pretty good point. dang. Uh, can you please just unplug them?

Avery: Sure that's fine.

Bee: yeah that’s Probably way better.

Avery: Yeah. And you don't need a skill check for that. Uh, you walk by and you just kinda (power down sound) pull out a few plugs, um, connecting this generator and you see the lights start to kind of like dim and like some of the robots start like looking around almost like panicking, like, uh, what, and you just continue out the door?

Bee: Yup.

Avery: Cool. As you get to the door, you feel the second blast hit the ship and a notification comes up on your HUD. decks 4 through 12, have experienced catastrophic decompression, uh, decks three to the bridge and the docking bay still intact.

Bee: Okay. Cool.

Avery: and you know, being someone who, uh, is familiar with ships and Tech stuff in general that if a ship loses that many decks to decompression, it's probably not going to last too much longer.

Bee: Yeah, dang time to go.

Avery: the time to go. Um, and you step out into the hallway where you encounter this group of people at the end of the hallway, you see this towering imposing lizard-ish alien, um, a human, a robot, and they're all kind of standing near, uh, the med bay that you passed earlier. When you got to this deck. Marty, Celia has started slowly moving around the med bay, collecting a few things for herself, and she turns to you and says, uh,

Avery/Celia: “Hey, can you pilot a ship?”

Jenine/Marty: “Did not go over that in my schooling. So no.”

Avery/Celia: “Well crap. Okay. Well, no worries. Um, I think I can manage it. We need to get…”

Avery: and she heads towards the door of the med bay and stops and sees a you Zhan and Ollie, and looks down the hall and sees Bruce and then Polaris you step out into the hallway just then.

Bee: Okay. Cool.

Avery: and says,

Avery/Celia: “well, it looks like there's plenty of other civilians here. Anyone know how to fly a ship?”

Bee: Polaris, isn't going to answer it. He's just going to head for the lift without saying anything until someone else says something, (laughter)

Jenine: Yoinks!

Bee: Polaris is just going to keep walking until other people start answering, because he doesn't know if, if they're talking to him or not.

Avery: Like, y’all are civilians right? You’re not like, Hegemony personnel?

Sherman: No. Yeah. I fix stuff. That's what I do.

Avery: Okay. the robot, this is a war robot service robot? What are you? What's your purpose?

Chris/Ollie: What is my purpose?

Sherman: Oh God. He just suddenly has like this.

(laughter)

Chris: way to drop an esoteric mind bomb on a newborn consciousness

Jenine: oh buddy!

Sherman: he likes slipped on some, some like spilled food or something in the cafeteria last night. And I was fixing him like he’s probably no pilot.

Chris: And then, uh, all he's going to shake himself out of his, uh, retrospection. Uh, he's going to use his ship repair chip knowledge to calculate. I'm assuming he would be able to figure out how much time is remaining and he's gonna yell We've only, we got 36,299 cycles left. We got to go.

Bee: Yeah, as Polaris is walking by they say

Bee: “irritated. We should probably talk as we walk.”

Avery/Celia: Well, I look, I, uh,

Avery: and this is, um, this is Celia speaking up again. She says,

Avery/Celia: look, y'all seem like you're not part of the hegemony. So I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. There's a ship that got. Custody of it's all very technical. the command keys are in my quarters upstairs. Uh, you, uh, get me off the ship and, uh, it's yours.

Sherman: Okay. Zahn is like:

Sherman/Zahn: “Okay. Whatever it's, uh, we, we gotta I'd rather not blow up today. Thank you. Yeah. Let's do that!

Avery: And Celia turns to you, Marty and says,

Avery/Celia: “I know you're probably wanting to like help people here on the ship and, and help the injured and stuff, but look, kid, you seem like a nice person. So I'm gonna level with you, the hegemony, really all it's cracked up to be there. They're pretty bad dudes and dudettes and other people.So, uh, just, I recommend just getting out of here before you blow up with this ship.”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, good to know. Uh, this is a shitty internship.”

AveryCelia: “Wait, you’re an intern?. You're not even paid?”

Jenine: “Well, I mean, like I still gotta get… The medical stuff is kind of weird. Like you got to, you had to go through some steps. I just graduated. So it's just kinda like I'm going through the steps.”

Avery/Celia: “man. College seems like a scam.”

Jenine: Yeah.

(laughter)

Avery: And she just, she does motions for you to follow in and walks out.

Jenine: I'm going to follow.

Chris: (pointing on Roll20 Map) Uh, is this an elevator or?

Avery: Yes,

Chris: Okay.

Avery: it's a lift.

Chris: Ollie is going to be standing there repeatedly in her hurriedly, pressing the call button while also, uh, pleading with the elevator as if it was a person saying like,

Chris/Ollie: “I know, I know we've had our troubles at the past. I know, but we just need to get out of here right now. It's a really bad situation we need to get out of here.

Avery: Bruce. You hear all this commotion? Do you just follow along or are you going to get off the ship or?

Caden: Oh, Bruce definitely is just following along silently.

Avery: Sure. Um, the lift door opens all yet at your, um, constant button. And, uh, you see a panel of numbers, the number two, the letter B and the letter D. Um, and, um, those are all lit up with green. although the letter B also has a key hole that needs to be turned in order to go to it. Um, and. Uh, Celia mentioned that the key is on, is in her quarters on deck two. and you see the decks four through 12 are all lit up in red and you know, that red means not accessible.

Sherman: Pushing that number 2!

Bee: Heck yeah, good choice

Jenine: Let's go.

Avery: I mean y'all could try and hack the ship. Totally fine. I mean,

Bee: deck two deck, two.

Avery: deck two deck two. Cool. So you all pop up over here, so y'all step out onto deck two. Um, and I'm going to need a skilled chef or no, sorry. Hey, dexterity. Save.

Jenine: Oh, no.

Avery: Or sorry, a physical, I guess is, is technically what it's called here. Um, hold on.Yes.

Bee: I think it would be evasion if you're looking for.

Avery: oh yes. Evasion. That is what I'm. Thank you. Yes, that is what I needed.

Jenine: Sick.

Avery: Yeah. A evasion save. And so basically, uh, you want to get higher than the number that's listed there on your character sheet.

Jenine: And this is rolling?

Caden: A D20

Avery: a D20 sorry.

Bee: I made it with a 17.

Jenine: Oh, no!

Sherman: Uh, what. You add to it?

Bee: It's just a, D20. I think.

Avery: It's just a straight yeah.

Caden: I don't think it matters.

Jenine: no.

Sherman: Well, shit.

Chris: There we go.

Caden: Bruce's first role in the game is, uh, yup.

Bee: Yeah.

Caden: Yeah.

Bee: Nice.

Chris: usually we get a whole bunch of ones before we even get

Avery: Wait, I'm sorry. Real quick with those rolls again. Who got what?

Sherman: nobody had said what they got yet.

Avery: Oh.

Bee: Oh, I did. I have a 17,

Avery: Oh, okay perfect.

Bee: I passed

Avery: Yeah.

Caden: Uh, I got a nat 1

Avery: Oh no.

Sherman: I got a nat20.

Jenine: I got a four.

Avery: Okay. Well, um, Caden, you're not alone at least because captain Celia also rolled a one.

Caden: look Bruce's big. He does not move fast. Okay.

Sherman: Zahn Got a nat 20.

Chris: Yeah,Zahn’s a ninja

Sherman: Nah, it's the boots, man. It's the heavy boots.

Avery: So two of you succeeded and the rest failed.

Bee: Oh, my God.

Avery: No, it's fine. It's totally fine. I was just, I was just checking before I roll this dice. Um, so as you step out nto the hallway. Um, the ship hits, it gets hit again with what feels like multiple tiny blasts all at once. (Multiple laser blasts) Um, and there's an energy surge in the wall panel, (energy surge) next to you in the hallway and it starts to surge.

let's see, um, all you got a five. Zhan you got a 20, sorry. I'm trying to remember who got, what one more time.

Jenine: you’re good

Bee: I'll just type it in chat.

Avery: That's fine. Sorry.

Bee: You're good. Um, quick question. When Polaris unplugging parts of the generator help with that in any way?

Avery: if anything, it would actually make it worse. That's why I'm rolling Two damaged dice for this.

Bee: Sorry.

Sherman: Oh, wonderful.

Bee: I thought it would cut the power.

Sherman: What does it sound like you're using the big dice, Josh? Er, I mean Avery?

Avery: I would never. Okay. 17. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. So, uh, Polaris and, uh, Zan, uh, you noticed the surge happening just moments before it happens. And you're able to kind of both like, almost like in sync with each other barrel roll a little bit ahead and miss this explosion, but the rest of you all see this, uh, the surge of electricity kind of shoot out and shocks shocks. Y'all for four damage. (energy sounds)

Jenine: Oh, gosh.

Avery: Yeah,

Caden: I'm going to ask the very important question.

Avery: Sure.

Caden: did it break my favorite blender?

Bee: Please, please save the blender,

Jenine: oh no.

Bee: Please, Was the blender Okay?

Avery: Blender's fine.

Bee: Oh.

Avery: You in fact, in fact, Bruce, that's why you took damage is that you saw this surge happening and your instinct was not to self preserve yourself. It was to preserve this blender

Caden: correct.

Bee: Thank goodness.

Avery: like a parent covering a child from something dangerous. You just wrap your body around it and take this little surge of electricity Into your body itself. And Celia is again, hurt, pretty bad, not dead, but looking pretty, pretty banged up. And with that, the ship is still under attack and very much not long for this universe.

Ollie you said you were trying to earlier, you said something about calculating how long you have left. Okay. If you actually want to roll that you can. it would definitely be intelligence.

Chris: Oh, it was just a gag for him to, uh, you know, using incomprehensible time unit

Avery: Oh, okay. I was going to say you could roll, you could roll intelligence programming to kind of figure out how long you have until the ship is probably not.

Chris: Um, hold on. I gotta figure out how to use this advanced dice roller. Again, these are d12 we are going for.

Avery: 2d six.

Chris: 2d six. Okay. I roll three because of reasons. And I got an eight actually. No in, so nine.

Avery: Yeah. So you calculated how many cycles this was earlier, um, and the calculations finally roll in and it's actually about 40 minutes that you have to get off the ship.

Bee: we're good.

Avery: You'll be fine.

Bee: We can stop for tea.

Jenine: Yeah.

Avery: Maybe.

Chris: assuming, um,

Sherman: that's as of ship right now,

Bee: exactly.

Sherman: if we take four more hits, shave off,

Chris: Well, I'm guessing

Sherman: she wants to run, but

Chris: to, uh, convert cycles into real time.

Bee: Yeah. You could probably tell Polaris employers would just go, oh, 40 minutes.

Avery: Yeah. Cool. Cool, cool. Um, Uh, Celia picks herself up off the ground and is just like, by the way, I haven't met all of you yet. Name's captain Celia, former captain. my quarters should be just down here, uh, on second door on the, on the, the left. So, um, yeah, let's try not to get blown up anymore and she hurries down the hallway

Bee: Yeah. As she's talking, Polaris was probably walking.

Avery: Let's see. Do you want to try and open her quarters or explore any of these other rooms first or what? Because you've got as you step out of the lift, there's two doors to your left and right. And then there's her quarters, which is further down.

Bee: W-would Ollie have said anything about how much time we have left?

Chris: Well I yelled it before we got into the hallway.

Sherman: He made the joke before we got into- the yeah.

Bee: Oh, I. I thought you made the calculations for now.

Chris: Before we got into the lift

Bee: Like after that last hit.

Avery: Oh, I was just letting him know that the calculation finally finished. So, if he wants to share that-

Bee: yeah.

Avery: That's totally fine. If not, that's also fine, I guess.

Chris: Oh, oh, I was okay. Well, I'm going to yell the thing I yelled earlier now, instead then. That way we have the, however many, cycles left.

Bee: Sweet.

Avery: Okay, that's fine. It's not a big deal. It's okay. Cool. So y'all are in this hallway and Celia opens the door to her quarters. So as you come into the captain's quarters, you see a fancier set of accommodations compared to what you all were probably sleeping on when you were staying on the ship, except for Polaris, of course, you had the worst accommodations by having to sleep in a smuggler’s hold.

Bee: Let's go.

Avery:But this is a very fancy room. It actually has room to move around and enjoy yourself. There is a table and a desk and a fancy storage chest and bookshelves with data pads on them. And a very comfy looking bed, much comfier than the little cots that they gave. All the civilian workers that got hired on. And, Celia walks in (distant sound of shower running.) and kind of holds up her hand and she’s just like-

Avery (Celia):“Wait, do you hear that?”

Avery: And what you hear is the sound of running water, coming from presumably the restroom in this, in this room.

Sherman: “I mean, most of the ship is broke lady, probably a busted line.”

Jenine: No.

Sherman: “Just get the key and let's go.”

Avery: Sure. She says,

Avery (Celia): “yeah, I'll, I'll start looking for the key. Y'all can either keep a lookout or help. Whatever you want, but, yeah. Let’s-” and she, she starts rummaging through the desk. Do any of you want to do anything in here? While she's doing that or just wait.

Bee: Polaris is just going to wait until she gets the keys so that he can take the keys. It's not like steal them from her, but like I'm the driver.

Avery: Okay.

Sherman: guess, now that it's like brought to his attention, (Shower running) Zahn's going to like peek in the bathroom, I guess, to be like, yeah, it's totally a busted water line.

Avery: Yeah. So as you start walking up to this door, you do hear the water shut off. (Sound of shower stops)

Bee: It fixed itself.

Sherman: I give it a two tap, like knock on the door, I guess. (4 consecutive knocks on the door)

Avery: You don't hear anything. In fact, you specifically hear nothing now, like there was something like, it was, it almost seemed like there was like movement and then as soon as you tapped, like it just went silent in there. And Celia shouts,

Avery (Celia): “I got them”

Bee: Polaris holds out his-

Avery: and holds up,-

Bee: yeah.

Avery: holds out like a whole-

Bee: Polaris holds-

Avery: oh, go ahead

Bee: go ahead. No, you go ahead.

Avery: Oh, I was just gonna say, uh, Celia holds up, um, a small little, like, basically a big silver key. Essentially that's what we'll call it. and it's just, it's very excited and, and is Yeah, looking very victorious and looks over at you zahn just as you give the door a double tap and the water shuts off and she kind of freezes for a moment.

Bee: Alright. Well, while she freezes Polaris will just take the key.

Avery: Sure.You yank the key out, and Celia rushes over to her bedside and starts rummaging under the bed. Zahn, you are still in front of this door. And from inside, you hear like a zip, (Zipper zipping up.) like a zipper going on.

Sherman: I, hit the open button on the door

Avery: Okay.

Sherman: door panel.

Avery: You open the door and are face to face with the barrel of a laser pistol. (gun cocks)

Jenine: Yoinks

Avery: Thank you for listening to the first episode of Beyond the Furthest Stars! Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Be sure to check out more of our shows at 1upPodcasts.com.

Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. You can find them on Instagram at ZodiacGallery. Check out their most recent Twin Peaks inspired project Wisteria Lodge, wherever you stream music.

Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks include: Starforged - Space. Starship Bridge, Orbital Platform, Robotics Lab, Starship Medical, and Gravity. Get some great Tabletop Audio for your games at Tabletopaudio.com.

Polaris was voiced by Bee. Bruce was voiced by Caden. Zahn was voiced by Sherman. Ollie was voiced by Chris. Marty was voiced by Jenine Florence. And all other characters were voiced by me, Avery Fisher.

Be sure to follow us on all the social medias @FurthestPod and let us know what moment from this episode was your favorite. Use the Hashtag #SpaceVibes to share your wonderful SciFi Stories with us.

We’ll be releasing episodes on the 1st and 15th of every month.

Until Then, we’ll see you out there: Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro Music fades out)

Prologue - Session 0

Beyond the Furthest Stars

Session Zero

Avery: Hello and Welcome to the first official episode of Beyond the Furthest Stars. I am your host and GM for the show, Avery Fisher. The first episode is just our Session 0. Our cast briefly introduces themselves, their characters, we go over safety tools, build the crew's spaceship, and then end with a little bit of lore. and the episode also establishes some of our inside jokes and goofs that we'll probably be referencing throughout the show. So if you want to go into the series with at least a brief understanding of where we are starting in our show, then this episode and the lore episodes that follow will be helpful in getting your bearings. If you want to go into the show completely without knowing what's going on, then by all means feel free to skip this episode and dive right into the story with episode 1 in a few weeks. Alright, let's get to the action.

(Theme Music Plays)

Avery: Well welcome everybody to this extravaganza, whatever it is that we're doing. so I guess we can start with, introductions and then just kinda go down my little silly agenda here, and then you can tell me about all your wonderful characters that you're creating.

(laughter) (background music fades in)

So I guess I will start. So we've all kind of talked individually, but for the record, my name is Josh. I'm going to be going by Avery for the purposes of the show. He/they pronouns for sure. And yeah, I've been podcasting for,eight years now at this point. Anyway, I am super excited to have you all here. So I guess I'll just go down the list in order: Sherman!

Zach: Hi, I'm Sherman. Or I also go by Shermit here eventually going to start streaming on Twitch, with my V tuber avatar, Shermit D Frog. but I also go by Sherman. I've been podcasting with Josh for what? Thre or four years now?

Zach: three or four years now.

Avery: I think this is year three.

Zach: Year three.

Avery: Yeah. Cause we started the summer before the pandemic

Zach: Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that would be, that'd be three years now. And, he/him pronouns, not really sure what else to add.

Avery: whatever you want, man. If that's it. That's it. That's all good.

Zach: I suppose.That's it.

Avery: Okay. Bee, I think you're next.

Bee: All right. Howdy. My name is B. I use they/them pronouns. This is my first time podcasting and I'm mostly just a goblin that stays in my room. sorry, in advance for any chaotic shenanigans that come about from my actions in this campaign.

Zach: I look forward to them.

Avery: It'll be fine.

Jenine: Here for it. Let's go!

(laughter)

Bee: Sweet

Avery: Jenine. Did you want to go next?

Jenine: oh yeah, I can. Hello. I'm Jenine Florence. I use they/them pronouns. I am an actor. I'm attempting to be an actor. but I love tabletop RPGs with all of my heart. So here I am, this is my third go around with doing a streamed kind of a thing. My first one was during the pandemic. I'm currently in another one that's running on YouTube, also in a podcast form, and then I'm here and I love Sci-Fi. I'm very excited. yeah, I'm hyped. I'm very excited to be here. Play goofy characters, sometimes angsty characters. We don't know what's going to happen. Let’s Find out!

Zach: Heck Yeah.

Avery: Cool Chris.

Chris: So I'm Chris, he/him playing together for three years. still not very good though. Kind of a newbie getting my feet under me. I am also a room, a room goblin, and, I also make somewhat, somewhat wacky and nonsensical characters. So I look forward to having plenty.

Avery: Okay. And last but not least Caden.

Caden: Hi, I'm Caden. they/them pronouns mostly, but also trying out he/him never podcast, but total nerd, mostly playing D and D. So this is my first time outside of playing D and D. So that's going to be fun and exciting. Also like to play chaotic characters. It's great. It's fun. Very excited to play in a space setting. Don't know what else to say about. I cause play so complete nerd in that sense too. And that's about it.

Zach: Heck Yeah.

Avery: Now that everyone's introduced themselves. I just wanted to real quick talk about safety tools, topics to be avoided, stuff like that in this game. Just so that way we're all on the same level. That way, you know, we can all be cool. The off limits topics that everyone kind of actually was almost all in agreement with as far as the consent checklist were: explicit sex. Sexual assault, harm to children or animals, claustrophobia, cancer, and heat stroke.

So we're going to just not bring those things into the game at all. And so in roll 20, which is what we're going to mostly be using for like the virtual tabletop, I think I figured out how to use them. but there are decks for the, for different cards as far as like, if something's coming up and it's like, Hey, this might be a little touchy. There is an option to basically say, yes, this is fine, you know, slow down or, you know, stuff like that, or the X card, which is basically like, let's end the scene here and there.

Zach: Okay. I didn’t know roll20 had that. That's cool.

Avery: Yeah. I S I, to be fair, I am new to roll 20, so I still have to figure out exactly how to use it, but I will figure out how to use it before the game begins.Other than that if there's anything that anyone thinks of as far as like a, a pretty big topic, that would like to be avoided, just feel free to message me privately and I'll get you taken care of.

Avery: Cause I don't want anyone to feel like they have to like, you know, broadcast what they're uncomfortable with here in the recording. I will say that in my settings, children are magically invincible, so don't, don't try to blow up a kindergarten. It's not going to work.

Avery: so I wanted to real quick kind of get a feel from everyone as far as like what they kind of wanted to go for as far as like mood for this, for this game. Like, are, are you interested mostly in like the drama and the exchange of role-play? Are you mostly here to war game? Are you wanting to solve some cool mysteries?

Kind of like what what's sort of the main Thing that you get out of TTRPGs. So that way I can kind of cater the experience to each player a little bit.

Zach: so I'm, I'm big into combat stuff. I've never actually done like a sci-fi one though. So being in a shootout sounds really fun, but I am also big open into far more Role-playing opportunities, especially since I kind of built my character to be more of a skill base person where I'm using like the environment to my advantage and stuff like that. So, yeah, I'm big open for that.

Avery: Okay. I guess we'll just go in the order that we did introductions in. So Bee.

Bee: Okay. Cool. I'm glad you said my name. Cause I already forgot what the order was.(laughs) as far as like games go and stuff, I'm more of a roleplay heavy person. I don't mind combat. And, as long as like, we have the opportunity to be like a little creative when it comes to combat and stuff like that. Cause I know in D and D there's a lot of like rigid rules usually when it comes to combat But yeah, other than that like I'm a pretty role-play heavy person. So anything else is cool to me.

Avery: Jenine.

Jenine: Hey guess what the actor's going to say? I love some good combat, as this is going to be my first time doing a magic heavy quote unquote magic heavy thing in a hot bit. So we'll see how that goes. and I would like to be comfortable with that, but I do like role-play and I do like combat a little bit.

Jenine: I've mostly been a melee, so we're stepping out of my comfort zone. So we're learning that a little bit. but yeah, I love good. Role-play I love just interacting with other people and like uncovering their backstories. I love being this like cheer leader on the side for everyone else's characters. So like, If we’re like uncovering someone's backstory and I'm like, yes, yes.

Jenine: Just know I will be like in peanut gallery. Just typing. Yes. The entire time.

Zach: on the sidelines with a bag of popcorn.

Avery: Cool. Cool. IChris, what are you looking forward to in the game?

Chris: A bit of both. I like the you know, I do like combat a lot, but, but pretty much I'm you know, I'm for the you know, the character progression, the story the you know, characters advancing, whether it's combat or Roleplay

Avery: Cool. Cool. And then Caden,

Caden: , I'm very much the same as everyone else. I love to RP and I like, I don't hate combat. I quite enjoy combat as long as it again, means something, it leads into the story somehow, like you can have random people shooting at you. That is cool, but it's also cool if those random people also like aren't just randomly shooting at you. There's a reason behind said thing. Even if they're just wanting to try steal our ship. the random hoard of zombies give me that backlog, right? Like, , very much, you know,

Avery: why are they zombies?

Caden: why are there zombies?

Caden: Why are there a cannibals on this planet that are trying to eat us? Question mark?

Bee: Good callback to the cannibals.

Caden: Yep. Right.

Avery: Cool. So it sounds like kind of everyone is looking for a good mix of both, but definitely wants combat to be something that impacts a story. And isn't just there for fighting, fighting, fighting something for the sake of fighting

Zach: Fighting for Fighting’s Sake.

Chris: Yeah.

Chris: I don't want to have to like grind XP or anything like that.

Avery: Go out and grind some skeletons for five levels.

Chris: Yeah, Those.

Zach: I got to find a good farming spot. Yeah,

Avery: Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Bee: sit in a high traffic area and just steal everyone's spaceships.

Zach: get experience points equal to the credit amount of each ship sold.

Avery: so speaking of that actually kind of feeds into my next thing of like, And no one has to have an answer for this now, but, think about whether you're wanting to play like some kind of like grand heroic quest, which isn't really what I had in mind, but I can do, or if you want to play, like, you know, just like a band of like people who come together and end up maybe being like smugglers or pirates or just, you know, freelancers or something.

Zach: simple sandbox kind of situation here.

Chris: Same.

Bee: yeah, I kinda thought we were just going to be a bunch of space goons that like came together in unfortunate circumstances and then got roped into something. And we're like, well, I guess we'll have to do this now.

Avery: Okay. Yeah. That's

Jenine: here for the vibes.

Avery: yeah. That's how I kinda what I that's, I mean, that's, that's how I kind of pitched the idea to everyone. And so I just wanted to make sure that that was still cool. So just making sure

Jenine: vibes

Avery: hashtag Vibes.

Zach: hashtag space vibes.

Avery: Oh, okay. I think we found our social media hashtag,

Avery: who wants to start with introducing their character. It can be in any order. It doesn't have to be in the order. We originally went in if someone's really excited.

Zach: Cool. I'll jump in Then. my character is Zahn Howard. He is heavily inspired by Isaac Clark from dead space as is his backstory in that he is a troubled individual. He's a engineer in his late thirties with a troubled past, I don't know how deep into the actual backstory we're wanting to share.

Avery: So for this, let's just do like, kind of like the 10,000 foot level, just like a bird's eye view kind of, of who Zahn is.

Zach: Okay. Yeah. Troubled past, grew up on a space station that was supposed to be a Terraform planet and that didn't go right. , So he ran after shit, hit the fan and

he lost the only person that ever really meant anything to him, which was his mother, which is where he got his inspiration for engineering. And yeah, for the past like 12 years, , he's been just kinda floating from system to system, working odd jobs, just to expand his engineering expertise. He tries to keep as much self-contained as possible for both efficiency. And like, he doesn't want to just vent all of his problems on people and he likes enclosed spaces. So no worry about claustrophobia, cause , he's going to be all up in there.

Bee: So we just get him a box and we set it down to the ship and it's his box. And that is where he sits.

Avery: And we put a little heart on it and we call it the companion cube.

(laughter)

Avery: Okay. Who wants to introduce kind of a general concept of their character? Next, you can be as deep or as general as you want, but go for it.

Bee: I can go next. Okay. So my cancer is named, , Polaris, full name, being Catalyst Designation, Polaris. He was raised by robots, which is very apparent in his mannerisms, which I'll try to stick to, but it's going to be a little difficult. , he's obviously a pilot, that's his main deal. but he is also capable when it comes to like fixing things or like tinkering things.

Bee: he also did learn how to sew from one of the robots. So that's pretty useful. So if we need team jackets, I got you. yeah, I don't, I don't know if I'm going to go into too much more because I feel like it'd be better to discover in the story.

Avery: Totally.

Zach: So your character is human?

Bee: Yes?

Jenine: I love the question, mark.

Bee: Yes, asterix.

Zach: appears human?

Bee: going to go with a solid yes. Asterisk smiley face.

Zach: I guess for clarity, my character is human and he's got a bad hunch. Like he doesn't have, , like Igor hunch, but he's got a really bad slouch just from being in tight spaces.

Bee: Hm.

Avery: doesn't practice. Good posture stretching. I see how it is.

Zach: Yep.

Bee: He sits like a shrimp.

(laughter)

Zach: a lot of, a lot of leaning forward. Yeah.

Bee: I see. I see.

Avery: Cool. Cool. Cool. Who wants to go next?

Jenine: I can go next.

Avery: Yeah.

Jenine: so my character's name is Marty Domingo. Human. and, and she's a fresh outta, out of med school kid in space. She she's fresh out of med school, top of her class doing her best.

Zach: Heck. Yeah, we've got a medic.

Jenine: yeah, We do. This is my first time doing doing medicine. I also fun fact I really wanted to do some stuff based off of my culture, if I'm Filipino and lots of us go into med school. as I was like doing more deep dives of this character, I realized like, it falls a lot with my grandmother who I, who I lost last year. , but like, I was like, oh, this is really cool. And like, this is me, like kind of honoring her in a fun Sci-Fi way. Cause she did medicine.

Jenine: So I'm very hyped.

Avery: Cool.

Bee: sweet.

Avery: That's awesome.

Jenine: this is going to be her and if she was in a space… space, the final frontier.

Avery: Oh, Janine Are you still doing the psionic aspect of the character or did you want to do space magic or?

Jenine: I'm going to do this ionic one. I am trying to wrap my brain around this again, cause I went through the book. Got confused again. , so I'll have it and I'll get you a straight answer as straight as it can be for me on how…

Zach: I’ve been reading over the hacking rules and the mod maintenance rules, which are kind of a pain in the ass. Because you have to, the rules stay that you have to like to maintain them every day.

Bee: Yeah.

Zach: I'm like, that's

Bee: Yeah. I read that.

Zach: would work.

Bee: Not worth it.

Avery: We'll make the rules kind of fit what makes sense for a, for a show. So I'm not, I'm not going to be too worried about in the weeds of like, oh, you have to get 50,000 credits to keep your ship running, you know, like,

Bee: We're just poor all the time.

Zach: Oh, God, those like having to pay for space fuel and stuff makes sense. Or doing, doing regular maintenance, but like maintenance. Cause you know, it makes sense. If you just ignore taking care of your ship, it's going to fall apart. But like

Chris: but not to the point where like, yeah, we're constantly forced to look after the ship

Zach: I put magnets in my boots.

Zach: Okay. I've got a tune, the magnets in my boots every single day to make sure that they continue to magnetize

Avery: yeah.

Bee: Wake up, brush your teeth, magnetize your boots.

Avery: Yeah,

Jenine: Love it

Avery: cool. Chris or Caden who wants to go next?

Caden: , I can go next. I am not human. I am alien. I am. Yes, I have created Who I quite love, Bruce, his name Is Bruce.

Bee: Is he shark?

Zach: Oh my God. I was going to say that.

Caden: but his but is,

Jenine: on that wavelength.

Caden: but it's very much based off of finding Nemo's Bruce, where he is. is, he is big. He is scary, but he is also a friend.

Bee: Oh, my favorite type of character.

Caden: yeah. I mean, there might be a fair amount of quippy run liners. I'm I'm thinking more friendly space, dad vibes, terrible puns,

Jenine: Yes.

Bee: Yay. We have a medic and a space dad..

Caden: intimidating as all else, but Bruce's actual employment. Well, You guys will find out, so I'm not going to spoil that. , but yeah, he's he's he is a good, good bean and I am Very excited to play him and hopefully not die right away.

Zach: That's the hope.

Avery: You all will be fine. As long as you don't get sucked out into space. I think you'll be fine.

Bee: I think I'll be refined regardless of being sucked out into

Zach: Nat 20 is always a thing.

Bee: Oh, do Nat 20s count in this game.

Avery: we'll, we'll we'll come up with something, if not, so no worries. We're all still learning this game anyway. So if we, if we have to fall back on some old, you know, some other systems, mechanics or something for something like nat twenties, no big deal.

Caden: It does say in the books that not twenties are complete successes and that ones are complete failures, but I guess that only really counts for saving throws. So I don't.

Bee: Yeah.

Zach: Well, it's one of those combat is still determined by D20 also.

Avery: I think hitting, yeah.

Zach: yeah. To hit. Yeah.

Bee: Yeah.

Caden: yeah.

Avery: It's all good. Okay, Chris, let's see what you came up with.

Chris: , yeah, I'm going for a robotic character. And go totally. Non-organic he's , was originally going to be like a sentient vending machine, but, , there's, there's too many, just too many like problems, like, oh, well he doesn't have arms, but then if he, if he had like a cart that he ride around on, then it's like, how does he sit and like, get in places, go up and downstairs. Like, I don't know if we just want to like, gloss over that. So

Zach: He coil;d have the clap trap problem: Stairs!? Why did it have to be stairs?

Chris: my mortal enemy.

Bee: Or we can like make a hard light, like kind of force you, it around you. That acts like a lightsaber and you just cut your way through everything.

Zach: see, I was going to go opposite direction of anti-gravity where he just like floats over it.

Bee: Okay.

Jenine: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Chris: So the exact form he takes is kind of a work in progress. And actually looking at the robot rules, that's something that, , like the chassis is something that's interchangeable and something that Josh might have to work out for. You know what, I'm starting with

Avery: Yeah.

Chris: the essentially, , at some point he is a, a, you know, service kind of Android and he's accidentally uploaded with a combat AI.

Zach: Oops.

Chris: Yeah.

Chris: Oops, oops. All bullets. I'm not sure exactly how that the, you know, the lore and the AI happens, but pretty much, you know, he was shocked into, , sentience. Right. Or the red eye out of the assembly line and he didn't have anything, but his programming. So he started going on a killing spree, , got captured. But since he was now sentient they couldn't just deactivate them.

Zach: Not Morally anyways.

Chris: yeah, not morally. And he was also fine for theft of his own body. So, they locked him up on the, on the prison ship. And for personality wise, he's kind of a kind of jaded kind of benderish on the outside, but, , on the inside, he's actually, he's actually kind of like at a, got a soft center, kind of like as Sundari kind of guy,

Bee: Oh,

Avery: Okay. Have you come up with a name for it yet? Or?

Chris: not yet a working name is Ollie.

Zach: I really like the balance of characters here.

Bee: Yeah, it sounds like we got a lot of ingredients to make a good soup, you know,

Jenine: The space soup.

Avery: So I posted in the discord under the character ideas, , channel, which I probably need to rename to something else. sort of the list of like different stuff that y'all can, pick for your ship. , so essentially what, what this first ship that y'all will probably end up getting. if you get off the Eos at all, I mean, you might, you know, blow up with it.

Avery: Who knows? , but

Bee: steal it. No, I'm kidding.

Avery: steal the Capitol worship. Sure.

Jenine: we would never,

Caden: It's ours now.

Bee: I mean…

Zach: guys, guys, guys, just for 10 K. All right. 10 K. We can have luxury cabins.

Bee: You know what? I like the idea of luxury. That would Be nice. I hear you on the luxury cabins, but what if we just had cold sleep pods?

Avery: so essentially

Zach: Or why don't we just all have drop pods, just sleep in the drop pod.

Chris: Just sleep in the drop pod. It's the ultimate safety. If we get attacked, I mean, we don't even have to go anywhere. We just dip.

Zach: just dip.

Bee: I mean, Zahn just needs a box, right? We established that earlier.

Zach: We would definitely, probably want atmospheric configuration so we can land.

Bee: Oh, I got it. don't even worry about it.

Jenine: I guess we can.

Bee: Don't even worry about it. I got you.

Zach: Otherwise we would need like an extended ship as part of our ship.

Avery: It'll be fine. So essentially we're going to be starting with a free merchant hull, which comes with 10 power, 15 mass, and two hard points to spend on these different fittings. So hard points is basically spots for weapons. So, and then I basically on this ship options sheet, I basically went through and picked anything that was like anything that could fit on either a fighter or Frigate cause those are the two, the frigate is the class of ship of free merchant is. And so they can take anything frigate or below or at least that was my reading of the rule. I could be wrong. so yeah. y'all can split that up evenly or collaborate. I won't really interject too much into this though, so I'm going to shut up.

Bee: Uh I do have a question.

Avery: Okay. I won't shut up.

Bee: Yeah. Please don't I have a question. I have many questions, because I already have a ship. Well, I have to, I don't know if the ship is the free merchant ship is going to be big enough to like, like have a hanger for where my ship will be. So will I have to just like fly side by side

Chris: You can probably tow it.

Bee: come over for lunch

Zach: You can tow it.

Avery: no, I don't think that so there is so there's a couple options.

Zach: where is it? I just saw it on this list.

Avery: So, yeah. So there's the ship tender mount, which allows another ship to hitch on to the basically you can attach a smaller ship to your ship basically, and then both ships can jump to warp or whatever. So that wouldn't really be an issue.

Bee: Okay.

Zach: Oh, it's I thought though I saw like actually having a landing bay in here.

Bee: Yeah. The reason I ask is because if I'm going to be flying big ship. I like my ship. So we would either have to drop it off at home or I yeah I don't Cause I don't know if my star fairer stuff will apply if my chip is tied to baker ship, you know?

Caden: There's the vehicle transport fittings. Is that like, could we classify your ship as a shuttle?

Avery: it's smaller than a shuttle, so yes, easily.

Bee: Oh, well, sick.

Avery: Yeah, sorry. That's the one I was actually looking for. Sorry. Yes.

Bee: Okay, cool. Cool, cool.

Avery: In fact, in fact, since Polaris, you already have a ship and I'm not going to take that away from the available mass of, of the current ship.

Bee: Okay, cool. Yeah, that was my big worry. That was going to be my next question.

Avery: no worries.

Bee: Cause that seemed a little unfair to take that away from the crew because I have my own ship.

Avery: You're totally fine. I meant to do that earlier and, yeah, sorry.

Bee: You're good. Sweet.

Zach: We should definitely get a fuel. I know it takes two power and one mass, but a ship can scoop fuel from a gas giant or star.

Jenine: Ooh,

Bee: that'd be nice. Is it… wasn't there a solar thing or am I thinking of something else? I might be thinking of something else.

Avery: , let's see

Bee: I think that's to charge batteries actually.

Zach: I am only in the ship fitting section. Let's see. Then the ship defenses. I should be looking at that as well. Damn.

Bee: do you guys, should I tell you guys. My ship has just so that we can roll that out if necessary, because it is a, it is a strike fighter.

Avery: Oh yeah.

Bee: Okay. Okay. , well on, let me pull it up, sorry. yeah.

Bee: I just built my ship today, so,

Zach: Heck. Yeah.

Bee: okay. , for weapons, my ship has a Reaver battery and then I have fuel bunkers, so that takes less fuel.

Bee: And then I have one free power, but I don't really know what to do with it. So it's just sitting there.

Zach: Added in later… the fuck nuclear missiles,

Chris: yes.

Avery: Yeah. That's I think those are only for capital ships though, to be fair.

Zach: actually it says class: forget. It's the last thing on the class frigatet lists.

Avery: Oh, right. So, so I also, I also took out anything that was deemed a special,

Bee: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. I was about to say rip that kindergarten. No, no, I'm

Chris: Yeah,

Avery: Yeah, no. , no, , yeah, sorry. I also, I, yeah, I didn't want to start y'all off with, with nukes right away either.

Jenine: Well

Zach: the chaos we can.

Jenine: RIP

Bee: Hey, don't worry guys. I think I might have a hookup. I'm kidding. Okay. I'm going to try not spoil, but I do have a question. Should I text it to you or should I just

Avery: Ah, yeah. Drop it in your, in your private channel.

Bee: Cool. Cool.

Avery: That's fine.

Avery: Sorry. I may have overloaded y'all with a tyranny of choice, so I apologize.

Zach: a tyranny of choice.

Chris: Oh, no, I'm just trying to figure out like, cause if we're taking it from a merchant, it should probably have more like, you know, cargo bay and, and fuel efficiency stuff.

Bee: Yeah, That's what I was thinking.

Caden: Well, the ship lockers are free if I'm reading that right. Get that good, good storage ship lockers. Yes. General equipment storage for crew. Get that. Good. Good crews space.

Bee: Oh my gosh.

Chris: Nah we we'll just leave it on the floor.

Bee: Yeah, we just, we just throw everything on the floor.

Zach: on the floor

Chris: Actually, we don't even have zero or artificial gravity. So it just floats this floating everywhere. Pile… cloud of junk

Bee: and the stuff is just everywhere.

Zach: Oh, geez. definitely need me to workshop.

Bee: Fair fair. I was going to say, we should probably get like a workshop in a med bay, right?

Jenine: Yes,

Caden: yeah,

Jenine: I was going to throw med bay,

Bee: I do also like workshop because I do work things too as well.

Chris: I think it's only extended med bay. I think that like their standard. Yeah. It's like a.

Zach: I think it might be just a given.

Avery: Yeah, I think, I think there's probably like a spot like to, to patch people up, but I think extended med bay is more like, this is an actual room that's clean and sanitary and not.

Zach: extended med bay can provide medical care to more patients. So instead of being like a one room thing, you can have the whole crew in it.

Caden: It's the same way that we don't have to pay for like the actual pilots area navigation room, because it was just a ship would have one. You would hope.

Bee: Just a ship without a cockpit.

Caden: Yeah, no controls. It just goes, it's a drone ship. Yup.

Zach: Ooh, Boarding Tube.

Jenine: control it with one of those RC things, you know, like the RC remote

Zach: boarding tube, sound fun.

Caden: I was thinking that

Bee: Well,

Jenine: Yeah.

Caden: Allows Boarding of a ship in Space.

Bee: I mean, we can just throw our crew at the ship. Okay.

Zach: I mean, I don't have the sh I don't have the suit that, I want

Chris: think that's how the boarding tubes work instead of a torpedo.

Zach: No.

Bee: I feel like that's a two way, cause it's a tube.

Avery: yeah, I mean, it'd probably be a tube or a two-way street for sure. granted, if you're in the position of being able to board a ship, they're usually not in the position to board the ship. So, you know,

Bee: True fair. I mean, I do also have, well, I guess, nevermind, you guys would have to have like Vacc suits.

Zach: I have my character already wants one. So

Bee: Okay. Sweet, sweet. Okay. Yeah. Cause I was going to say, I could literally just like you guys could just tie yourself to my ship, I’ll fly us over.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, I think as a robot, I might just be immune to the vaccuum.

Bee: Someone get a skateboard and I'll just whip you onto the other shifts

Bee: okay. So what do we have so far

Avery: As far as I've heard, I've added the, transport fittings with, and that's no cost at all. The extended med bay, which is one mass, one power and the workshops, which is one mass and one power. So I didn't hear anything else definitive after that, but I can totally, if I missed something, let me know.

Chris: should probably get a smuggler hold, just in case.

Zach: Definitely smugglers hold.

Bee: already committing us to a life of crime? I'm in, I'm on board.

Jenine: Well, it doesn't have to be crime.

Zach: sensor, sensor mask sounds good.

Avery: A sensor mask?

Bee: oh, should we get an armory? That's free.

Caden: I think both armory and ship locker.

Bee: We could also just have-

Caden: Just get the free stuff as well.

Avery: Sure.

Bee: I mean, we could, just have weapons floating around miscellaneously on the ship.

Jenine: We could, well, that makes battle on the ship. Easier. Cause its like oh no-

Bee: Yeah. You could just grab something out of the air,

Jenine: you gotta roll for what weapon you’re grabbing.

Chris: You never have to reload. You just-

Zach: I suppose it should be noted that we have cargo space as well.

Chris: It’s gun game.

Bee: enemies get onboard and we're like quick press the button to release the weapons. Just from the air ducts. Just weapons begin to float around.

Avery: Instead of, yeah like, like on an airplane instead of the oxygen masks, it's laser pistols.

Zach: I was thinking like, straight out of like Punisher or something where you just hit a, like a panel on the wall and just stuff flights, flips over to access.

Bee: Yeah.

Zach: I mean, I'm down for that! Condensing, you know? Save space.

Bee: I mean we could just have an armory, but have everything floating around so we just open the door.

Zach: So we definitely, I'm definitely pro fuel scoops.

Jenine: Scoops!

Bee: Okay. Yeah. I'm also pro fuel scoops.

Jenine: ye! same.

Bee: gas is expensive even in space, so

Avery: ok, six power and 10 mass remaining.

Chris: hydroponic production. You, fleshy beings might have problems if we run out of food.

Jenine: oh.

Zach: That's, for me, that's listed under cruiser.

Chris: Oh, is it? It is! oh, my bad.

Bee: dang. We need to get a cruiser at some point.

Zach: Cruisers require a lot more people to operate though.

Bee: Nah, we can have a robot crew.

Avery: You could have a robot crew. This is true.

Zach: definitely. I feel we should get atmosphere configuration. so we can actually land

Bee: nah, I got us. Don't even worry. Yeah. Yeah. We should probably get that.

Zach: and then possibly amphibious operation. Yeah?

Bee: That would be fun. Flying the plane in the ocean!

Zach: and operate underwater.

Jenine: That seems super fun.

Zach: That seems so cool.

Bee: Actually, it does seem fun. However, comma, I will let slip this a little bit of lore of my character has never set foot on a planet. So, that may make things a little difficult.

Chris: May make things a little, a little fun.

Bee: Could be more fun. You're right. You're right.

Zach: You know, in hindsight, it could be possible that my character has also never set foot on a planet.

Bee: Let's go space space, buddies.

Zach: That would just be interesting. Yeah. Going for space station to space station, never, actually just winding up on a planet.

Bee: Yeah.

Zach: I like that idea.

Bee: I mean, my character has broken atmosphere cause he has to know how to get in and out of orbit, but he's never actually like set foot on a planet.

Zach: On dirt.

Bee: Yeah. He doesn't know what dirt is

Jenine: What is earth? What is this?

Bee: E-orth?

Zach: What is earth lowercase? E

Avery: Why won't this brown stuff come off of my boots. I have stepped in mud. Oh no.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what is this stuff? It's coarse and rough and gets everywhere.

Avery: I hate it.

Bee: Oh my gosh. Having to discover sand for the first time. Sounds awful.

Jenine: Oh no.

Caden: was going to say, is sand, the glitter of earth, like.

Bee: Yeah, nature's glitter

Chris: Oh my god!

Zach: It can be. Yeah.

Zach: So what are we, what have we got so far?

Avery: I, I, I wasn't sure if amphibious operation was a settled thing or not. So I have not included that yet.

Chris: No, probably not.

Jenine: Probably not, yeah.

Bee: yeah. I mean, these are things that we can get later too, no?

Zach: indeed.

Avery: totally. Yeah.

Jenine: We’ll put a pin in that for the future.

Avery: Sure. so-

Bee: I mean we could also just steal other ships.

Jenine: Wha- we would never do something like that!

Avery: there, there-

Jenine: Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Avery: There is a lot of, a lot of potential theft going on here. I'm I'm, I'm a fan.

Bee: I don't know, I feel like the cheapest and easiest way to get a better ship is theft.

Jenine: So should we, should, should we do the, there's the, there's something about detection. There's a

Bee: Oh, right, right, right.

Jenine: stealthy boy. Should we go for one of those?

Avery: sensor mask, right?

Zach: Oh. I think I said that a sensor mask, a long distance, disguises a ship as another?

Chris: Yeah.

Bee: ye- oh!

Caden: Ooh.

Jenine: Oh, I was looking at the, we did the emission dampers. Yes, no.

Bee: We did the emission dampers.

Zach: yeah. Adds plus two to checks to avoid detection.

Bee: That'd be nice.

Chris: How much of a drive upgrade do we want?

Bee: Oh yeah. I was. So when I was making my ship, I was looking at the drive upgrades and what they exactly do, and it just makes you, makes it so that you can travel further, faster, like with one jump.

Chris: Okay.

Bee: So I don't know.

Chris: Less fuel, I guess.

Avery: And honestly, I still haven't decided how like, How much I'm going to stay married to the idea of like, oh, you have to do seven jumps to get to this system.

Bee: ok, cool, cool, cool.

Avery: I kind of liked the idea.

Zach: Like Star Wars?

Avery: I kind of like the Star Trek idea.

Zach: Yeah.

Avery: Yeah. Of like no jumping is like, to get to a commercial break, you know, like you, you go to warp.

Avery: So that way the sponsors can get their advertisements in, that kind of thing.

Jenine: Mood mood mood.

Avery: which I might end up doing like fun little, like fake like space sponsors, kind of like,

Jenine: yes!

Bee: Oh my god, I was literally about to ask if we could like make, if everyone could, like, if we can have a channel in the discord where we can make up, like fake products-

Zach: Totally!

Bee: to do like little ads for it, that'd be so fun.

Avery: Yeah.

Jenine: Let me use my graphic design skills for marketing,

Avery: Please, feel free. Feel free. I, yeah, I mean, I I've, I would love other people to help create this silly project.

Bee: heck yeah.

Avery: So yeah, I'm all for it.

Bee: I cant graphic design but I can draw.

Chris: Ollie's advertising suburb, teens may or may not still be active.

Zach: graphic design is my passion.

Jenine: I cannot draw, but I liked, I liked the textology stuff. Typography stuff.

Bee: high five!

Jenine: woo-hoo!

Avery: What were you saying, Chris?

Chris: Ollie’s advertising sub routines may or may not still be active, so be prepared for random advertisements at time to time.

Avery: I love it. Yeah. Like, well, part of that's because like I was playing like outer worlds the other day and it's just like, oh, the corporation is your friend. I'm like, oh yeah, that's great. Thanks.

Zach: Would you like to know more

Avery: Yeah, exactly.

Zach: Straight out of Starship troopers?

Avery: Yeah, stuff like that. Exactly. So I honestly wouldn't worry too much about drive upgrades.

Bee: Okay. Sweet. There was something I was looking at that I completely lost.

Zach: I've, I've moved on to looking at ship defenses.

Bee: Probably good. Probably good. Oh yeah. For like stealth. Could we just like, paint or ship black and add little white dots?

Jenine: Yes, I vote. Yes. chaos!

Avery: I mean,

Jenine: But what if we’re on a planet?

Bee: Oh, right. I mean,

Bee: we can do like the shark thing where like the bottom of our ship is like painted like the stars. And then the top of our

Chris: And the top is-

Bee: is painted. Like the ocean

Avery: oh my gosh.

Bee: Question. Can we drift a, a spaceship?

Avery: uh.

Jenine: asking the real questions.

Bee: I have to know.

Zach: Can we hit the E brake.

Avery: Probably.

Chris: I mean, it all depends on the piloting skill.

Avery: yeah.

Bee: I got us. Don't even worry about it.

Jenine: That sounds so good. So trusting.

Bee: I mean to be fair Polaris probably does know how to drift a spaceship based off of his teacher.

Jenine: Mood.

Avery: Mood. Okay.

Chris: You can technically drift anything, whether it's, whether it remains in one piece, has to be seen.

Bee: I dont know, Good.

Chris: I mean, when you steal it, it's free.

Avery: Yeah.

Bee: The five finger discount.

Avery: So based on everything I've heard so far? No, it's all good. It's all good. ,

Zach: that's going to be the name of the game here.

Avery: you got four power and six mass left. You've got the transport fittings, the med bay, the workshop smugglers hold, armory, locker, fuel scoop, atmospheric configuration and emission stampers.

Caden: So, so one more time, how much, how much money do we have on both of these things? We have six power and two mass, or am I getting those backwards?

Avery: , you have four power and six mass left to spend.

Caden: Yeah I was completely off on, on math. Nice, nice, nice

Zach: May I request that we take out the, extended med bay as I don't think all of us are going to be getting hurt at once. Having just a normal

Jenine: That's fine. We got, I got this. I'll be a great healer. I got this.

Bee: Yeah, again, we could always-

Chris: will be in and out.

Bee: steal. No. Okay. I'm done with the joke. Yeah.

Jenine: One specific ship just for healing

Zach: Thats going to give us one power and one mass back. So we should be at five power and seven mass.

Bee: Okay. We do need weapons and also defenses

Avery: So your, your, your base AC is 14,

Zach: Okay.

Avery: and your base armor is two. And so basically AC is what's to hit, armor is damage reduction. So, so if some, if, if someone attacks your ship and hits you for two, it'll do zero.

Bee: Ah!

Zach: Gotcha.

Caden: I really like the defense lasers.

Avery: just to help clarify for any like, cause like some of these armor options say, add to AC, you know, stuff like that.

Avery: So just wanted to clarify what, what does, what.

Chris: Hard points are taken up only by weapons. Right?

Avery: Correct.

Bee: Yeah.

Zach: Hardened poly ceramic overlay sounds good. It takes up no power and only two mass and its AP quality of attacking weapons reduce by five.

Chris: That is for fighters only.

Zach: But the pound, if you upgraded to frigate, because it's a one with a pound, these costs are multiplied by two for frigates. So you may get two mass.

Avery: Yeah, it can, it can get put onto a, a frigate. Unless I misread that, but I'm pretty sure.

Bee: Mhmm, it can.

Avery: Yeah.

Zach: It's just, I think it's so the, the class is the like lowest thing that it can be put on. So the hull compartments can only be put on a capital ship or bigger

Chris: then. Yeah.

Zach: Instead of, you cant put-

Chris: that sounds really useful.

Zach: Hull compartments on a fighter. So you can, you can upgrade from there. So, yeah I think that's, that's my understanding of the rules.

Bee: Mhmm. what was it, the, which one was is that, that you were looking at?

Zach: hardened, poly ceramic overlay.

Bee: Is that a fitting or is what is which,

Avery: That's in the ship defenses, ship armor, the fighter. Yeah. Fighter armor.

Bee: Okay. I was looking at frigate.

Zach: And then we upgrade that to frigate. It takes up two mass, but no power, which means we'd have five power, five mass?

Avery: That sounds about right.

Zach: In which case we, that would be our only defense, but, you know, giving them a minus five is pretty nice. And then we get, I don't know. Let's look here.

Bee: I mean, there's, there's quite a bit of decent weapons. I do also have the, Riper battery so I can go out and, you know mess with them.

Avery: Sand thrower just throw pocket sand.

Bee: please don't hit me!

Zach: I was looking at that. I'm like,

Bee: -If you doooo!

Chris: Yeah, these, these weapons are pretty beefy on power cost.

Zach: Yeah, I was looking at the plasma beam

Bee: plasma beams are always good.

Zach: 3d six. It takes the, the remaining five power.

Bee: Yeah. Yeah.

Zach: I don't know what the AP is though. So is that for them to hit?

Avery: AP, this weapon ignores, the weapon ignores this many points of the targets armor? ,

Zach: oh! Armor penetration, AP. Okay.

Bee: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Bee: I dont know if-

Zach: So between it or the multifocal laser, which no, no the multifocal laser is 1d four, but it ignores AP 20. But I liked the Plaza beam where it's, 3d six. That's a nice,

Bee: Question, is it too late to change my ship options for Polaris’ ship?

Avery: of course not,

Bee: Okay.

Avery: not until, not until we actually start playing.

Bee: sweet. Okay. And then also how would, is the ship costs and maintenance thing going to be a big part of what we do? Cause we-

Avery: no, I, I find no joy in accounting.

Bee: Sweet. Neither do I.

Jenine: Oh thank God. Math is so hard.

Bee: ok cause-

Zach: We already have to do rock math. I don't want to have to do money math. I didn't go into accounting.

Avery: like, like if your ship gets like, really badly damaged, like a laser beam shoots through it or something. Yeah. We'll probably have to have a discussion with a mechanic about-

Zach: About fixing it.

Avery: -repair costs.

Chris: Yeah,

Bee: Just bring a ship with like two big holes in it. Hey, can you fix this?

Avery: yeah. You know?

Chris: We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks.

Bee: Okay. Because when I was building my ship for weapons, I really wanted to get the poly spectral mess beam, but I saw the cost for maintenance and I was like, ah, never mind.

Avery: Yeah. I'm not-

Zach: Oh, two mil. Holy crap.

Bee: Yeah. Yeah. So if that's not going to be a huge, huge issue, then I'll probably take that.

Bee: because it also ignores 25 points of armor instead of the-

Zach: I don't know if TL is going to be a factor for Josh either. And that's technology level, which that's a five instead of a four.

Avery: it's fine. Not worried about

Bee: cool. I mean, I don't know how.

Bee: advanced the custodians are, but I feel like that may be a non-issue for them. I don't know.

Avery: they’re, they're perfectly comfortable with technology. I think you'll be fine.

Bee: Ok, cool, cool, cool.

Chris: That sound, they sound pretty, pretty up there.

Chris: And the plasma beam, I support that choice, absolutely.

Zach: So we've got a little bit of mass leftover, but I think, I think we've gotten pretty much everything we can, as far as we can fit in that-

Chris: We could fit one more, augmented plating on

Caden: I was going to say, if we have two more plasma or, sorry two more mass, we could fit the augmented plating and that would be more armor.

Zach: Oh, hell yeah.

Jenine: I like that.

Bee: let's not be squishy.

Zach: a little slower, but I like, I like having higher AC yeah, let's do it.

Avery: Okay.

Caden: and leave us with anything else or is that us, done now?

Zach: I think that

Chris: well, we have one,

Avery: Nope. One free

Chris: have one mass.

Caden: Oh! can, can I argue lifeboats

Bee: Probably for the best.

Caden: like we're going to, I feel like we're going to put ourselves into a theft, theft situations. A lifeboat might not be a bad idea.

Bee: Theft, theft, theft!

Chris: Nope. We're straight up, ride or die.

Zach: I support.

Jenine: So lifeboats, plural, that means enough for crew to leave.

Bee: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Zach: Yeah. it says emergency escape craft for a ship's crew. So I'm assuming it might be like, especially with it being, you know, a crew of what, five or six of us one craft would be enough for us.

Avery: Yeah.

Avery: I'm assuming that, that,

Zach: Star Trek size, space craft.

Avery: yeah. So I'm assuming that when you get the lifeboat, if you get the lifeboat, see the free merchant can have a crew of up to six. So that's going to have at least enough room for six people. So

Zach: Perfect. Then yet a lifeboat. Should it be the last bit of mass that we can use?

Avery: Okay.

Caden: I imagine it like a ship's lifeboat where it's just like, in those one of those like tiny little boxes and you look at it and you're like, no way that could fit, like however many people it should. But then, like as soon as you release it just like expands and you're like, Yes.

Jenine: ah, like an air mattress or when they ship those mattresses and you have to wait forever for it to expand.

Bee: Or you make the mistake. I did and cut into the bag immediately and it blew, it just explodes.

Chris: Yeah,

Bee: Yeah.

Jenine: I did that with a bean bag

Zach: Oops.

Avery: Oopsie doodle. okay. Now the moment of truth, and you can wait, you can put it off until session one or session two, if you want, but do you want to name your ship?

Zach: ooo.

Bee: The SS theft. I'm just kidding.

Jenine: snatched.

Zach: The SS battle royal.

Avery: The SS five finger discount.

Bee: for the emblem of the ship is just a big hand print that’s painted on the side.

Jenine: Hm.

Bee: I don't know.

Zach: We could, We can all just start pitching ideas in the, in the discord

Avery: Yeah, feel free. I mean, that's totally fine.

Zach: til one sticks.

Caden: Yeah.

Avery: Yeah. I don't, I don’t want to-

Bee: feel like, I mean, it could also be something that we do in game, like after we've come together as a crew,

Chris: that's exactly what-

Avery: totally fine

Chris: Like it could have a, the name of whatever it is when we steal it and then, you know, whatever we decide to call it just comes about naturally.

Bee: yeah

Jenine: And then we paint over it.

Chris: Yeah. Just a big, big painted crossed out name.

Avery: little, a little, a friendship montage of y'all becoming close friends.

Jenine: Craft bonding!

Bee: we. Yes. Bonding through theft. My favorite. it sounds like we've, we're pretty set on not being friends with the person that has the ship and just stealing their ship.

Jenine: We don't know!

Zach: We dont know!

Chris: I mean, it depends on how open he is to just giving it.

Bee: Will they be cool with us, like painting over their existing ship name?

Jenine: Well, I mean-

Avery: Oh, to be clear, the person who has the keys is also not the original ship owner.

Bee: Oh, okay. Sweet.

Jenine: I was about to say, if this person is trying to run with their own ship from a place, I think they would want to rename their ship.

Bee: hm, yeah. Got me there!

Jenine: I've been watching a lot of the star struck Odyssey, from Dimension 20. So that's chaos all in itself.

Bee: I can only imagine. Yeah, alright, What-

Zach: The bogus journey.

Bee: What did you say?

Zach: The bogus journey. I just happened to look over and I saw my bill and Ted movie. Like- bogus movie.

Jenine: Oh, good movie. Good movie.

Bee: Okay. Question.

Avery: Bee, you had a question?

Bee: Oh yeah. It's a nonsensical question.

Bee: If we, okay. If we're planning on stealing multiple ships, I'm not sure how married to this idea everyone is, but, does that mean we're going to have to rename every ship? or are we just gonna have the ship name that we're currently on and just put 1, 2, 3-

Zach: oh my gosh

Jenine: So, hear me, hear me out. We do it Bridgerton style, which is we name all of them in alphabetical order.

Bee: Ooh,

Jenine: So the first ship we steal starts with an A, and then it goes B, but then again, we are in space. So there's so many different languages.

Bee: true.

Avery: This is true.

Chris: Truth.

Jenine: Another thing I was binging, Bridgerton.

Avery: Oh, this is going to be, this is going to be fun. I'm so excited.

Bee: I too am excited.

Bee: I want to know, I'm really curious how many ships we can steal before the end of season one.

Avery: The galaxy is your oyster.

Bee: yeeees!

Chris: We have to have a full blown Armada going. Like we ha- we've got to just get a massive crew. Start our own faction, take over the galaxy. It's the, it's the only outcome.

Avery: No, y'all, you'll become the straw hat pirates of the, of space. Just have a massive fleet.

Bee: Yeah, can we make, a like, a car sales, like, like a dealership with all of our stolen ships?

Jenine: We would never!

Chris: Yeah. a used ship salesman

Jenine: but what

Avery: retire at the end of season one as like-

Chris: offload all the merch.

Avery: like, like scamming car salespeople. Just yeah, I can get you into a battleship. No problem. Come on. Let's look at the inventory. Oh, you know, my boss, he's saying he can't go any lower than four mil. Sorry.

Chris: Yo just don't ask where it came from.

Bee: I- and, okay. Another question. If we do start stealing ships, will it increase in like, can we increase in size up to a space station?

Zach: Oh God. How do you steal a space station? You just, you just take over a space station. like-

Bee: Well, what I'm saying is, okay, well, if we're, if we're upgrading the size of the vessels we steal, we could probably get a couple carriers to attach to the station to take it elsewhere. We take the station and we push it somewhere else!

Jenine: Yeah. It's like a circus.

Chris: Yeah. I mean,

Jenine: It's a traveling circus.

Chris: We just get a bunch of carriers, with tractor beams.

Bee: it's like in Monty Python, the pigeons and the coconut.

Avery: I do. I do like the idea of y'all stealing a spaceship, a space station though. And I could think of a few ways that you could probably do it with a little fudging of the rules. I think it could be done. Cause by default-

Bee: I’m sorry that-

Avery: by default that comes with no spike drive, but I mean, a clever, clever mechanic, a clever engineer could probably Hotwire one onto it somewhere.

Zach: Hypothetically speaking. Yes.

Bee: I'm sorry that I'm shoe-horned us, with my silly, silly little joke. Into stealing shit.

Avery: No, what it's going to be is, it's this, this podcast is slowly going to devolve into fast and the furious in space.

Jenine: Never!

Bee: We drift the space station.

Avery: It's all about family.

Chris: We’re family here.

Zach: We become two fast, two furious

Avery: Yep. And there'll be some bald character who just always talks about family all the time.

Zach: family, family, family, family.

Bee: Yes, can we drift a space station?

Jenine: Yeah, The real questions here.

Avery: The real questions for sure. Yeah. Well, we'll try

Bee: I wanna, I wanna know-

Zach: Can we use nitrous on a space station?

Avery: nitrous.

Chris: I mean, you're the engineer.

Bee:You are the engineer.

Zach: I am the engineer here!

Bee: Could you put nitrous in a space station?

Zach: I suppose. I'll, we'll have to find out. We need a copious amount of nitrous.

Bee: so much nitrous. Is there a gas giant that's just nitrous?

Avery: Oh, well, cool. Well, that little team building exercise I think is done as far as creating your ship. Congratulations.

Bee: We did it.

Zach: yeet!

Chris: We are now the proud owner of a shiny new ship.

Bee: Nice. I'm going to drift it.

Bee: We'll break it in- You know how like, people like christen ships with like a bottle, I'm going to christen it by drifting it.

Chris: The ship is the bottle.

Zach: The ship is the bottle!

Avery: Wait.

Zach: Hopefully you don't smash it on a rock trying to drift it.

Bee: Well. Okay. Well, if we get enough ships, we can use one of them to have just like really good armor and then I can drift it into an enemy, bigger ship, then just eject myself out of it.

Chris: Initiate operation battering Ram.

Bee: Yes, exactly.

Chris: Oh my God. I mean, Yeah, when we have enough ships, they'll just be expendable though. Like we can scrap ‘em for fun.

Bee: We can just use them as trebuchets.

Avery: just, just do the whole don't maneuver a bunch of times. Just go to warp right in front of another ship and just blow it to smithereens. Well, I don't think there's anything else really to cover. , I could talk about kind of what's going on in the universe when y'all start, if you want, or we can save that for next session.

Avery: Cause I'm probably gonna record a bunch of that stuff anyway, either way.

Bee: I like lore.

Avery: Okay, I'll talk a little bit about it. So essentially the way I've, I've built this, this universe is, through playing a game. Cause I like, I like games. So I played this game called alone on a galactic map and it basically,

Avery: Had me roll some dice, draw some cards out of a deck and flip a coin. And it gave me like a little prompt for like what this thing is in space. So I have a bunch of these different prompts that I then kind of fleshed out. So, you know, for example, there is an artificial wormhole that's near a civilization.

Avery: And so I was like, okay, what would that look like? So this artificial wormhole, [01:03:00] no one knows where it came from or who created it, but there's three planets that orbit around it. And each of the planets, each of the planets societies, Revere this, wormhole as like the place that their gods reside in.

Avery: And so, the civilizations, when someone passes away, they just launched the coffin into the wormhole as like that's where they go. Basically anyone who's alive and tries to enter the wormhole is like stopped. Right, and it's like forbidden for living creatures to go through. So that's like one of the, the cool hip places you might encounter, in this galaxy.

Avery: So, but the main players in this galaxy are the independent systems, which basically just kind of govern themselves. So this wormhole would be an example of one of the systems that acts as sort of an independent system. Like they don't, they don't answer to either the hegemony or to the Republic. They just kind of do their own thing and are kind of left alone by the rest of the galaxy.

Avery: But there's also the hegemony, which has been kind of an isolated power for a long time. And they've just started kind of expanding and. Taking over independent systems, but not with like force, like they show up in the system, they quote unquote negotiate. And then all of a sudden that system is part of the hegemony.

Avery: And it's kind of weird,

Bee: Sounds like they're manifesting their destiny.

Avery: a little bit it's on their it's on their, their vision board.

Jenine: Thanks U.S history.

Zach: yaaaaay.

Avery: Yeah. So it's on their, it's on their vision board take over other systems

Bee: Interesting.

Avery: and then you've got the Republic, which is sort of this kind of aloof, kind of corrupt body of, of planets that more or less are like, Like they think they're invincible.

Avery: So they're not really worried about what happens to the independent systems or what the hegemony is doing as long as they can kind of maintain their comfort, their cool. yeah. I didn't pull that from recent history at all. Did I?

Bee: Sounds like we have to unionize the Republic.

Jenine: Oh, goodness

Zach: We got to overthrow, security head Bezos.

Avery: space pays us.

Bee: mean one star cruiser to the, to the Capitol is, you know, take a right. That'll take care of that right away.

Avery: Yeah. So those are sort of the major players in the galaxy though, but there's lots of like small little factions. There's, you know, you've got your run of the mill space pirates who just want to board ships and take what's theirs or what, what they see as theirs. You've got smugglers who are always looking to. You know,

Avery: Make a quick buck or quick credit, there's asteroid belts with casinos and racing and all kinds of cool stuff. There's a Dyson sphere, which I don't know if any of y'all are nerd, nerds enough to know what a Dyson sphere is, but

Chris: That's pretty dope.

Bee: I love Dyson spheres.

Zach: Mhmm.

Avery: yeah, I've, I've made that into a creepy little, house of house of mirrors kind of thing or something like that.

Bee: Heck yeah.

Avery: Hall of mirrors. I dunno. There's, anti-matter anomalies all kinds of fun stuff. So this, this game is a lot of, a lot of fun in,in how it goes about world building. So

Zach: I was gunna say, it's world building is extremely open.

Bee: yeah. I saw that too. It's really cool.

Avery: Yeah. , and it was a good way to like, kind of like get the creative juices flowing, you know? Cause like, yeah, it just gives you a very basic prompt and

then it's like, it was on me to like, think of, okay, what would be an adventure hook for this? You know, why, why would this location matter? So,

Zach: That's a, that's how I kinda came up with my, my backstory. Was alright, Where did I come from? Alright. Let's world build.

Avery: yeah,

Bee: Heck yeah.

Avery: but I'm all for, you know, you all making parts of this galaxy your own. If there's an idea you have for a world or a star or something, feel free to. Come to me and bring it up. There'll probably be moments in the campaign where like something will get introduced. And I might say, you know, Chris, give me a name for a planet, you know, or something like that.

Avery: So if you want to come up with your own like quick little reference sheet or something, feel free, but if not, don't worry about it. I don't want to give you guys like homework or anything, but, you know, I, I want to make sure that it's not just me dictating a story, to y'all I want this to be as collaborative as possible.

Avery: So

Zach: Cool.

Bee: Sounds fun.

Avery: yeah, just, this is your galaxy too.

Bee: universe is our proverbial mollusk.

Avery:Yes, it's mollusk, It's mollusk shaped. How about that? I don't know what that looks like, but sure.

Zach: Is that mollusk shape on the back of an even bigger space turtle?

Bee: Wow. The possibilities are endless.

Zach: Are we going to have to fight Lord Xenu? At some point

Avery: Lord Xenu.

Chris: I guess that depends on us.

Bee: I mean, even bigger question. Are we going to have to fight flat earthers.? or not earth, I guess, but like people that believe their planet is flat. Well, I guess in this university planet could be flat.

Zach: A planet could be flat.

Chris: Yes. We have to come across flat earthers.

Bee: Do we have to fight round globers?

Chris: Yes. We have to fight the round globers on a flat planet.

Avery: There's, there's a contentious war on this planet. Some of them believe that it's flat some believe that it's round it's, it's really just sort of, a swirl.

Zach: It's more of a hexagon.

Bee: One get a person gets up in front of the crowd and is just like, guys, we have space travel. We can figure this out.

Avery: No, it's all a conspiracy.

Chris: It's a hologram man.

Zach: Hologram!

Avery: cool. This is going to be great. I can already tell.

Bee: Yes.

Chris: Yeah.

Avery: well, if, is there anything else anyone wanted to talk about? before I let y'all go back to your lives?

Caden: I have a question.

Avery: I hopefully have an answer.

Caden: well, it's more on just, this is PG 13 rating. How much, swearing is allowed. Question mark.

Bee: Yes. That was the first thing I asked.

Avery: So PG 13, as far as like, I'm not going to go into like graphic detail of like blood guts and gore and all that stuff. That's too much. But, I do not care about

cussing. I do not. So if anyone has a problem with it, we can totally tamp it down, but I'm not worried about, about that at all.

Zach: By the, by the film association, we'd still be where we'd be an R rating, but, it'd be like,

Avery: R for language PG 13 for everything else,

Zach: yeah.

Jenine: Cool.

Bee: We only get one. Fuck.

Zach: Oh God.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah.

Bee: We can only say it once.

Chris: one fuck per episode.

Zach: and then from there, we have to be bleeped

Bee: Yeah, exactly.

Jenine: Rip to post

Zach: it's up to post to choose, which fuck is the, is the

Avery: is the most impactful.

Bee: the one to be said

Jenine: the most important one of the episode.

Avery: Yeah. Yeah. So,

Bee: the fuck of the day.

Avery: so yeah. So if anyone has a problem with that, let me know privately publicly, it doesn't matter. but yeah, we can. Yeah. But if, if I, if I don't hear any objections, then I'm not going to care. That being said also like, If someone's character is literally F this F that every single sentence I might say, like, Hey, let's chill.

Bee: I don't think we got any New Yorkers in here. So I think we're good.

Zach: I was going to say, I don't think anyone, any of us here are going to be Eric Cartman.

Avery: No, I don't think so. But yeah. Cool. Yeah. So I guess two weeks from now is when we'll start our official journey.

Bee: Very excited.

Jenine: hehehehe!

Zach: Heck. Yeah.

Avery: Yeah. I'm gonna save this,

Chris: Our voyage amongst the stars.

Avery: ship character sheet. cool. Well, This was fun. And I'm so glad y'all are here.

(Music Fades in)

Avery: Thank you for listening to Beyond the Furthest Stars! Our cover art was created by Xander Riley of the Heart Beats podcast. Be sure to check out his work at XanderDRiley.com. Our intro and outro music was produced by Dustin Carpenter. You can find him on Instagram at ZodiacGallery. Check out their most recent Twin Peaks inspired Project: Wusteria Lodge, whereever you stream your music. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Be sure to follow us on twitter and tumblr under the handle @FurthestPod. Our episodes release on the first and fifteenth of every month. Thank you so much for listening.

Prologue - On Recent Hegemony Activity

Avery: Hey everybody, we’ve got another prologue episode for you today. Remember that our first episode will drop on July 1st, 2022 with transcripts in the shows for every episode. Enjoy!

Eve: On Recent Hegemony Activity

By: Dr. Arilani Trelish , PhD. Astrohistory

On a far off world on the very edge of the Galaxy is a mysterious world shrouded in storms of sand and lightning. A world untouched by society or civilization but yet holds sway over a vast domain. A world few have ever set foot on. A world even fewer have returned from. This world is Tartarus. Homeworld and capital of The Hegemony, a federation ruled by a mysterious council of 12 and a being they call The Eternal One. From their temple deep in the heart of the storm, this council executes the will of the Eternal One and keeps the systems within the Hegemony protected.

For 500 years the Hegemony has been an isolated group of a couple dozen planets and systems. In the last 50 or so, their gaze has fallen upon the independent systems of the Galaxy. In the past the Hegemony sought to dominate galactic trade, but now their goals seem to have changed. Little by little they've absorbed system after system into their hegemony, all without firing a shot. The expansionary fleet continues its mission of growing the Hegemony. But for what purpose? And why do they seem so frightened at the prospect of failing?

Only time will tell and speculation within the Republic and Independent Systems persists. Some see it as a desperate attempt to obtain resources, others see it as a desire to impose the will of the 12 and the Eternal One on the rest of the galaxy. I feel I can offer a different theory. It is not a power grab or resource grab. It's a strategic retreat into the galaxy. The Hegemony is near collapse and this is a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. Is this retreat due to internal strife or did they perhaps find something lurking in the intergalactic median that the rest of us have yet to encounter? Only time will tell.

Prologue - On the Planet Tartarus

(Scene opens with the sound of a crashing ship, an explosion, and the turning on of a recorder)

Chase Highwind: This is Captain Chase Highwind's personal log. It is currently the 12th of Libra, in the 30th year of Protector Nelnan's reign. I've crash landed on a planet far outside the edge of the Moirae Galaxy. My spike drive went haywire midjump and sent me hurtling toward the edge of the galaxy. I was able to conduct repairs to the drive to pull me out of my jump, but couldn't stabilize in time. So far, I've seen no lifeforms Just this… eery black obelisk on a distant mountain. It’s the only structure I can see, but it must mean that SOMEONE lives here. So I am heading toward it. Maybe they will have some food or something… Shouldn't take too long. I've set up a data link between my recorder and my ships long range radio. With any luck, even if I don't make it out of here, my logs will be broadcast somewhere and someone will know what happened here.

Chase: Captain Chase Highwind's personal log. 13th of Libra, 30th year of Protector Nelnan's reign. I reached the Obelisk late last night and set up camp just outside, not wanting to disturb whomever lives here. I picked up a strange signal on my communicator when I woke up this morning. It wasn't there yesterday but started broadcasting sometime in the middle of the night. I wonder if its coming from within the Obelisk?

Chase: I should clarify, this isn't an Obelisk like I thought. Its more of a tower. Wide at the base, with a tiered structure tapering off into an antenna at the top. No light or heat signatures are being picked up through the windows or with my scanners. It looks to be abandoned… Let's see if I can get in.

(foot steps on gravel) (Hard knocking on metal door)

Chase: "Hello! My name is Chase! My ship crash landed here! Is anyone there!"

(door slowly creaks open)

Chase: Alright… I guess I am being invited in. Let's see where this goes.

Chase: Chase Highwind's personal logs: 13th day of Libra, 30th year of Nelnan. I've been inside the tower for about 8 hours now. I've run into nobody but there is definitely someone or something here. There are databases full of data here in this tower. I've tried accessing one of the servers but the code is so old, I don't have any device capable of communicating with it… whoever or whatever lived here before must have disappeared long ago. But how did they keep all these systems running? I am close to the top floor. I think I'll sleep in the tower tonight. I saw a dust storm on the horizon and would rather not be digging sand out of my boots tomorrow.

Chase: Personal Log, 14th day of Libra, 30th year of Nelnan.

Alright this place is giving me the creeps. Last night I could have sworn I heard breathing. But I couldn't find any evidence of someone being here with me. This planet is dead. Probably just the stress of crashing and being stranded. I think I could probably use some of the materials from the tower to repair my ship. I've made a mental list of items that I need to repair the booster engines and atmospheric configuration systems, but I don't know how I will get everything back to the crash site. I am just outside the last room of this tower and about to head in. It says "E1" above the door, but I didn't see any other numbering system in the facility. Weird. Here it goes!

(Metal Door sliding open)

(Beeping of machines and monitors)

Chase: Alright This is a pretty big room actually. There appears to be a circular table with 12 seats around it. In the middle is what can only be described as an artificial intelligence armature. But… something is weird about it. It almost looks like it is hooked up to a cold sleep pod… I am liking this less and less the more I am here. But… that sleep pod would make an excellent source of materials for repair… I am sure it won't be missed. I'll just make sure no one is currently in there before I shut this thing down.

(foot steps, wiping glass sound)

Chase: What the…? There is someone in there.

Robotic Voice: Yes. This is my former biological host. Who are you?

Chase: What? Who's there!?

Robotic Voice: I asked you first. Who are you?

Chase: My name is Chase. Chase Highwind, Captain of the Freighter Lucky Fox.

Robotic Voice: Welcome Chase. You may call me the Eternal One. Why have you come to Tartarus?

Chase: Tartarus? You mean… This place is the homeworld of the Hegemony? Doesn't look like much!

Eternal One: Looks can be deceiving. Why have you come here.

Chase: I… I didn't mean to come here. My ship malfunctioned and I crashed here.

Eternal One: And so you seek repairs?

Chase: Yes… yes I do!

Eternal One: I see. Unfortunately, much of what is here cannot be used for such a purpose. As you can see, my world is decimated, devoid of surface life and the robust industry that many in the Republic enjoy. Tell me, Are you from The Republic?

Chase: I am. But we aren't your enemies! We have a peace treaty.

Eternal One: Peace Treaty… Query. I find no record of any such treaty. My systems show that I entered a hibernation state approximately 150 years ago. A hibernation that ended when you entered this chamber and distrubed the biological preservation aparatus. I can find no record of any treaty in my database. Perhaps a closer inspection of your ship's records will enlighten us.

Chase: Us? But you said this planet is devoid of life.

Eternal One: Surface Life, yes. However, as I said, looks can be deceiving. Did you not learn your history? The Hegemony answers to The Eternal One who rules through a council of 12.

(doors opening, robotic steps moving closer)

Chase: pff… a bunch of robots? Wait… that smiley face… I recognize that face… Jungle? But they haven't been in operation for a century and a half.

Eternal One: As I said… looks can be deceiving.

Chase: You know what, I think I will try and repair my ship on my own… I gotta go.

(Fast running)

(Door slamming shut)

Eternal One: I am afraid, chase, I cannot let you do that. Open Fire.

(Laser blasts)

Eternal One: Take the remains into the caverns. Let the pit fiends feast. And bring this ship's computer to me. I must learn of what has transpired during my long sleep. And finally: Summon the Council of 12. There is work to be done.

Prologue - Interview with the Protector!

Interview with the Protector

Robot Voice: Welcome to Holonet News!

(Jingle)

Tànyl: Welcome to a very special edition of holonet news! I am your host Tànyl Zumren

and today we have in the studio The Protector of the Astraios Republic himself, Sersis

Nelnan. Welcome Protector and congratulations on a historic 9th term as protector. I

believe this makes you the longest serving protector in history?

Sersis: Yes it is an honor to serve as the Guardian and Protector of the Republic for

another 5 year term. We have enjoyed 40 years of prosperity and peace. So much so that

many independent systems have petitioned to join the Republic.

Tànyl: How exciting! I do want to ask you about reports we've been getting that there

was some sort of... event on the capital world of Olympia. Some have said the planet is

under a quarantine.

Sersis: now, now Tànyl let me assure everyone of one thing. The Republic remains

strong, it remains secure and it remains protected by my leadership and the votes of the

Assembly.

Tànyl: well that's quite alright Protector but what about Olympia. Is it closed to traffic.

Sersis: non-essential traffic is restricted but there is no quarantine. Business is flowing as

usual on Olympia. Some... additional protections have been implemented to keep the

world safe from smugglers, Hegemony spies and the like but nothing...

Tànyl: Hegemony spies!? Can you elaborate on that?

Sersis: well you just never know when things might spark up again between the Republic

and Hegemony.

Tànyl: So you're saying that the Republic's intelligence networks have been

compromised or aren't up to the task of monitoring Hegemony activity?

Sersis: No, Tànyl that isn't

Tànyl: well looks like that's all the time we have for today. Thank you Protector for your

time. We hope to talk to you again soon.

Sersis: Now wait just a minute I -

Robot Voice: You've been listening to HoloNet News!

(Jingle)

Prologue - Galaxy Exposé!

Welcome to Galaxy Exposé!

The Republic! The shining Jewel of the Core Worlds! An example of how planets can work together in harmony to benefit everybody on those planets. A champion of free trade, enterprising inventions, and life-saving science! But is that all there is to The Republic!?

Tonight, on Galaxy Exposé, I, Flyx Nayla, will bring you the TRUTH about the founding of the Republic! A Truth that many seem to want to forget! A Truth that we cannot forget if we are to protect the Republic from what is coming!

250 years ago, the Planet Olympia sent ambassadors to the other core systems: Elysium, Hades, Valhalla, Eden, and Duat. After careful negotiations, these six core worlds formed the first pan-system organization and called itself The Astraios Republic. The Republic started out as a simple Legislature: a planet sent a number of representatives to Olympia based on the planet's population. From this delegation, a high councilor is selected to form the high council of the republic. This council then selects one of their own to stand-in as The Protector of the Republic: A figurehead that acts as a mouthpiece for both the council and The Assembly.

On the outside, the Republic formed out of the desire to protect the Core Worlds from dangers, to build a stronger economy, and to meet the demands of the many people of these various worlds. But the reality is not nearly as altruistic as it seems. Tonight, I will bring you a story about a true Devil's bargain between the founders of the Republic and the former Corporation known as Jungle! A story forgotten and passed over in our schools in order to continue the comfort and complacency of our citizens.

During the formation of The Republic the founders sought to maintain control over their planets and societies through the constant supply of goods and services from Jungle. A happy society, so the reasoning went, is a compliant society. The Republic fueled the needs of the society through cheap goods and services, built on the back breaking, exploitative labor of the factory workers throughout Jungle's vast Corporate structure. As they were drawn into War with the Hegemony, they realized the hold that Jungle had on them and the way their societies were dependent on the comforts of Jungle. They couldn’t conscript soldiers into defending a Republic that was based on comfort and relaxation. So they used Jungle to fight their war for them.

After the war, the citizens of the Republic realized just how much their lives would change without Jungle to comfort them. The transition was difficult, but eventually an equilibrium was established. Over the decades, there are few who remember the passive acceptance of suffering that the Republic was founded upon and it is barely touched upon in most educational programs. But we have assurances from The Assembly, The High council and The Protector that these mistakes are in the past and no longer affect how the Republic is governed today.

But citizens, let me ask you this: Does a society free of corruption elect the same leader for 40 years? Does a society dedicated to the fair treatment of the all its people conduct their business in private? From behind an impenetrable shield, surrounded by an army of killer robots? Would our society, knowing the horrors of the past, willingly welcome back the founder of Jungle with open arms? It seems we are headed in that direction! That's right! That is the shocking truth I wanted to reveal on this broadcast. The Protector, Sersis Nelnan, is really a puppet for Beff Zejos! Somehow he still lives and seeks to rebuild the control he once had! None of us are Safe! None of ----------

We're Sorry! This Broadcast's feed has been temporarily interrupted. Please Try Again Later! Long Live The Republic.

Prologue - Inhabitants of the Galaxy

Hey everybody, we’ve got another Prologue episode for you today. Remember that our first episode will drop on July 1st, 2022 with transcripts available in the show notes for every episode. Enjoy!

Welcome to State of the Galaxy. I am your host, Maxtn Gammon. Come with me as we explore an exciting place, full of life forms both familiar and new! As we expand our horizons, beyond what we currently understand. As we learn more and more about this galactic civilization that we are a part of, let us Explore The State of life in the Galaxy.

The Moirae Galaxy is full of countless creatures both large and small, organic and artificial. The vast expanse of beings has never been fully catalogued. How could it? Just by the sheer volume of stars and planets in this galaxy, there are countless numbers of life forms we have yet to encounter!

But of course, you are not listening to this to hear about what we don't know. You want to hear about what we do know. First, let's start with the basics: Humanity.

Humanity is a strange species. They cropped up and developed all over the Moirae Galaxy. From the central core world of Olympia, to the Independent System of Oizys, all the way to the far off reaches of The Hegemony, humanity comes in a variety of forms. Some have developed a psionic powers capable of great feats of power! Still others have developed evolutionary skills to filter out radiation, poisons, or other harms to their physiology. Humanity, like all sentient species, has a great range of characteristics, traits, and moral codes. The humans of Olympia joined the galactic community early on, establishing trade networks early with other species: The Nokoloids, The Scirin, and the Krazeks to name a few. As they explored the galaxy further they discovered other bastions of Humanity. Humans who were more or less exactly the same, genetically. This shattered the established history of the species, bringing into question the religious beliefs and spiritual practices of the various worlds that humans had developed on. Question remain as to whether or not humanity has a now lost history of galactic expansion and exploration, or if it was just evolution's random influence that brough about such similar species on vastly different planets. For now, let's leave that mystery alone as we explore the other inhabitants of the Moirae.

Androids are fascinating. The merging of flesh and machine to create something more, something beyond what "life" is normally considered. The first androids came about through scientific breakthroughs in robotics nearly 800 years ago. Doctors and Engineers from all over the galaxy came together and created the first Androids using their own minds as templates for their personalities. By copying their own brainwave patterns and the structures of their brains, they took those copies and loaded them into a computer.

While a fascinating breakthrough, the mind copies were rejected by the android's computer systems as viruses and the data became corrupted, leading to the machines shutting themselves down. But this setback did not deter the scientists, and only emboldened them further. Eventually, they discovered that the copies were all missing something in the coding of the data. Through some advanced mathematics, the scientists discovered how to replace this missing code.

With the missing link in the code restored, a new species was born. One that could be built at a factory, have its flesh and tissues grown in a laboratory, and then have its mind uploaded in a coding facility. Each android slightly different in appearance, based on what flesh template is used to grow their tissue, and each android's personality slightly different due to the variations of the code copying performed in the last step.

Androids have become a part of every day life in the Moirae Galaxy. Living and working alongside people of every planet. Some Androids have had long careers in politics, science, and communications while others have sought a more solitary existence, pursuing their own passion projects along the way. It is fascinating to speak with androids, to learn about what they think, whether they feel, or how their creation challenges the notions of evolution, philosophy and life itself.

The Nokoloids were the original species to develop interstellar communications a thousand years ago. With multiple tentacled appendages, an average of 12 eyes per person, and a robust culture that loves technology, this should come as no surprise. The Nokoloids, once the most advanced species in the galaxy, freely shared their technology with the beings they met along the way, bringing other species up to the same level as them, technologically.

There was always speculation that The Eternal One of the Tartarus Hegemony was a Nokoloid, given their long life spans and the ability for them to go into a sort of suspended animation for hundreds of years. But this theory was quickly shot down after one of the few people to ever journey to Tartarus returned and told tales of a dusty, windy world that would be inhospitable to the wetter, more temperate conditions the Nokoloids prefer. While not able to confirm who or what The Eternal One is, this evidence certainly eliminated a Nokoloid as a potential possibility.

The last species we have time for today are The Scaph! A fascinating species for a few reasons. First, like humans, they seem to have several different home planets. This has allowed them to adapt to a variety of conditions and situations throughout their evolutionary history. Some Scaph are exceptionally good at handling cold environments, others can tolerate the sweltering heat of volcanos. With the advent of space travel, these evolutionary advantages intermingled within the species and produced offspring that contained several of these traits.

The Scaph, based on all available evidence, have always been a travelling species. Even before space travel, evidence of permanent Scaph settlements were scarce and limited to a handful of places called Nests. These nests would be where the reptilian creatures would return toward the middle of their life, lay their eggs, and continue their travel. But these children were not simply abandoned. As Scaph age, like all creatures, their bodies become weaker and travelling among the stars becomes more challenging. These older scaph often form polycules around these nets to raise the newly hatched offspring in the culture and heritage of The Scaph. The Scaph in these nets come of age after a few years and with a little education from these well-travelled, older Scaph, the younger Scaph set out on their travels. Once confined simply to their planets, the Scaph have embraced the wider galaxy as a new place to meet the internal need to travel. Some still stay on their planets, but every year more and more Scaph venture out into the galaxy.

The Moirae galaxy is a wonderous place, full of creatures of all kinds. As we continue to explore the furthest reaches of our galaxy, we will likely discover many more new and strange life forms! What an exciting time! This has been Maxtn Gammon. Thank you for joining me on State of the Galaxy!

Prologue - Lore

Hey everybody,

This is Avery Fisher and I am so excited to bring you the first of many prologue episodes from Beyond the Furthest Stars. Sit back and relax as we journey into the Lore and the History of the Moirae Galaxy, where our story takes place.

The Moirae Galaxy is a place of wonder. Much like our own milky way galaxy, it is a spiral galaxy home to billions and billions of stars, planets, and other structures. Its history is a long and complex one, stretching back to the dawn of the universe. As gravity and other cosmic forces began to shape the Moirae galaxy into what it is today, life also took shape here, much as it has on Earth. Humans are just one of the many different forms of life that can be found scattered throughout the Moirae. Reptilian creatures called The Scaph, Creatures with tentacles and teeth called The Nokoloids, Androids, A.I.s and all sorts of strange and wonderous creatures have developed in the many planets and star systems that make up the Moirae.

For the sake of our story though, we will begin only a thousand years before our story. The first launch of an interstellar mission between worlds set off a galaxy spanning age of technological innovation, cooperative trade between worlds, and mutual peace that seemed like it would go on forever. Worlds, once isolated from their galactic neighbors, began meeting new creatures different from them and yet still shared the same zest for life that they had.

There were of course bumps in the road: Language barriers, differences in customs or worldviews, and even the occasional exposure to germs that required quick action to help save people before they died or were seriously harmed by the exposure. But through all of these barriers, the people of that time strived for a galaxy of cooperation, trust, and growth.

After nearly 700 years the bonds of peace and prosperity began to fray. As is all too common in history, the peace was shattered by the greed of individuals. A corporation known as Jungle sprang up, seemingly out of nowhere, to throw this era of peace into disarray.

Jungle promised a galaxy full of convenient products at affordable prices, and services that could reach the most isolated systems in Moirae. The well-off systems embraced Jungle and began integrating its services into everything they did: their homes were managed by robots from Jungle, they got their medicine and food delivered directly to them by Jungle, children were entertained by Jungle holovids. Everywhere you looked in the wealthy parts of the Moirae Galaxy, you'd see that friendly looking smiley face branding.

But there was a dark-side to Jungle. Jungle's founder, Beff Zejos, placed his own planet of Oizys under the boot of Jungle, forcing its population into working for Jungle. Jungle absorbed every other company on its home planet until it became a juggernaut. The comforts of the galaxy were built on the backs of the workers from Oizys and other less well off planets.

The comforts of Jungle led the richer systems to band together to protect their way of life. They soon formed the Astraios Republic and became the galaxy's first multi-system power. From the capital world of Olympia, the Astraios republic ruled over a vast expanse of worlds close to the galactic core and created a happy life for its citizens, but at a cost. They enjoyed this tranquil existence through the backbreaking labor and slow degradation of the planets exploited by Jungle.

As with all great powers, there will be those who oppose such a group. In the outer rim of the galaxy, on the Planet of Tartarus, an ancient being stirred from a millennia long slumber. Calling itself "The Eternal One" this being spread its will throughout the outer rim planets, taking control and bringing the inhabitants under its influence. The beings of this federation began calling themselves "The Hegemony". It opposed the tranquil ignorance of The Republic, the willingness of its citizens to ignore the plight of other worlds and interests. Though they too were corrupted by Jungle and found many of its services enticing as it built up its massive war machine.

Eventually, the Hegemony and Republic came to blows over their mutual interest in Jungle. The war was fierce and drawn out. Weapons from Jungle Weapons Labs fired against ships constructed at the Jungle Space Docks. Robots constructed by one factory owned by Jungle were facing off against Robots constructed at a different factory. The war was both sad and comic. With neither side gaining an advantage over the other, and only enriching Beff Zejos further.

After years of exploitation and back-breaking labor, those workers rebelled and began dismantling Jungle from within. Within a matter of days, Jungle had been destroyed and Beff's entire fortune was confiscated. Beff was eventually tried for his crimes and sent into exile, though his final destination remains a mystery.

With Jungle dismantled, its crimes exposed to the Galaxy, the Republic attempted to quietly bring Oizys and the other planets into the fold of its power. The Hegemony as well attempted to capture these territories by sending people to share the will of The Eternal One with them. But the people of these planets were wary. Wary of replacing one overlord with another. Wary of being reduced to wage-laborers for the comforts of others.

Every planet once exploited by The Republic and The Hegemony for their comfort and their wars rejected these advances and formed a Coalition of Independent Systems. Each system, each planet, had control over their own destiny. No one would interfere with how they ran their planets and if anyone did, the entire Coalition would band together as they did against Jungle.

After the War with the Republic drew to a stalemate and with the rejection of The Eternal One's influence from the Coalition's worlds, The Hegemony withdrew back to the outer rim worlds and remained silent. The Eternal One would wait until the galaxy was ready for its influence once again.

The Republic Settled into a state of reduced comfort but more sustainable and ethical practices, forced upon them by the lack of Jungle's exploitation. Instead of taking from the Coalition planets, they traded and exchanged freely.

For 150 years, the Galaxy has remained at relative peace. It has its occasional problems: Life going extinct on some planets, the occassional blackhole splitting a world apart, android uprisings, rogue A.I., Space Pirates, Smugglers, and all manner of bad luck that is just a part of life. But galaxy shaking events and wars have been a thing that many species have not grown up with.

But The Eternal One has stirred once more… The Hegemony is on the move once again…

The Republic has become corrupt…

And our story is just getting started.