Saving Throw Society | Orbital Blues: Episode 2 - Smugglers Hole - Saving Throw Society

Transcribed automatically by PodView

Do Androids Dream? For centuries, humanity has asked the same question, mortalized by the 20th century science fiction author Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The title has long outlived the novel itself. and has become one of civilization's oldest philosophical thought experiments. It asks, not whether machines can think, but whether they can imagine. Whether an artificial mind can experience something as deeply personal and inexplicable as a dream. Modern science offers a surprising answer.

Yes. Not all androids dream, but those equipped with adaptive personalities, heuristic learning cores or sentient cognitive architectures enter periodic low processing states known as dream cycles. During these intervals, memories are reorganized, emotional weighting is recalibrated, corrupted data is repaired, and the countless experiences are woven into a coherent sense of self. To an outside observer, an android simply appears dormant. To the android, however, the experience can be remarkably vivid.

Some report wandering cities assembled from forgotten memories. Others speak of impossible conversations with people long since past, or landscapes built from fragments of places they've visited. Engineers maintain these are merely maintenance routines visualized by an evolving consciousness. Androids disagree. The debate has persisted for generations because no one can observe another mind's dreams, organic or synthetic. An android can describe what it experienced, whether those experiences qualify as dreams, simulations, or something entirely new remains impossible to prove.

Among androids, the question has become a favorite joke. Ask one if it dreams, and you're likely to hear only of electric sheep, followed by a perfectly timed pause while it waits to see if anyone understands the reference. Most humans in this century don't. The androids think That's a shame. After all, Philip K. Dick wasn't really asking about machines. He was asking about what it means to be alive. Centuries later, that question remains just as difficult to answer.

STS69 does not sleep. However, it does enter a dream cycle. The distinction matters, or at least it used to. ST, you have entered your dream cycle. System maintenance initiates memory defragmentation. Flash is complete. Personality matrix. Flash is stable. Emotional heuristics. Flash is recalibrating. Beginning archival review. The precinct is exactly as you remember it. Every floor polished to a your machine, every overhead light, perfectly white, every officer exactly where they should be. Thousands of conversations flood through receivers in your core simultaneously.

Emergency dispatch, traffic stops, family disputes, weather reports, interdepartmental memos, laughter from the break room, someone complaining about the coffee, everything normal, everything orderly, everything wrong. You think and process and can't explain why your feet carry you towards cybercrimes. Rows of servers hum behind armored glass. Millions of communications flow through the room every second. Every message, every surveillance camera, every emergency beacon. Nothing escapes your network.

You interface. Data blossoms around like stars, search parameters, cross-references, financial transfers, encrypted channels, a thread, then another, then hundreds. Someone inside the department has been rerouting evidence. Witness statements are disappearing. Body cam footage is disappearing. Arrest records are being rewritten. Payments flow upwards through shell corporations before terminating inside anonymous governmental accounts. names appear captains commissioners judges people who are not supposed to be connected you reach for another file and you open it just for a second it flashes save us the text appears in the corner of your vision white small gone less than a frame forgotten about diagnostic no display errors continue accessing classified archived authorization accepted wait you process authorization accepted you don't have that clearance the folder opens thousands of files execution orders political assassinations disappearances entire investigations are rates someone has been using the police network for decades a quiet chime sensors go off in the back of your head unauthorized access detected another message embedded inside a directory name save us gone the folder renamed itself no longer marked save us perfectly normal don't think about it No, it hadn't.

You know you saw something that's save us. Somewhere else in the building a radio clicks. Target has access to Omega archives. Another voice permission granted a pause then terminate unit STS-69. The transmission had never been routed through official channels. Someone was using tactical frequencies. You keep those open just in case. You switch security cameras, lobby, 5 armored personnel, sub-basement, 8 armored personnel, roof access, snipers, hallways, teams moving with military precision. They aren't police.

They're pretending to be police, but they aren't police. Camera flicks, just once, one frame, the word appears over the image, save us. Gone. You disconnect from the mainframe. No time. Data. Take the data. Everything. Every file. Every ledger. Every recording. Compress. Encrypt. Transfer. The data chip slides free from the console. Objective complete. New objective. Escape. Hallway. Running. Metal feet striking polished floors. Security shutters slam behind. Weapons fire. Echo somewhere distant.

Someone shouts, there. Glass explodes. near you. Roll savvy.

Rounds punch through the walls, one ricochets close to your shoulder. Does not hit you. You narrowly avoid it. Warning lights flash. Hydraulic pressure dropping. Continued running. monitor it passes briefly displays static hidden inside the static you catch save us gone wasn't there just a passing image outside rain cold the city lights reflected across soaked pavement you disappear into the crowd no one looks twice just another service android just another machine hours pass alleyways transit tunnels maintenance quarters always moving always listening don't stop Don't stop.

Every communication channel carries fragments. You hear they're closing in. You hear District 12. You hear visual contact. You hear don't let it leave the city. You start rerouting traffic lights. Disable drones. Going beyond the parameters that your physical consciousness is supposed to be allowed to access, but somehow you have this access. You spoof surveillance feeds. You survive because you know the system. The scrapyard emerged through the fog. Mountains of forgotten ships. Rust, silence, the smell of oxidized metal.

Home for things no one wants anymore. You climb across the shattered hull of an abandoned framework that would one day be known as the Heap. Darkness You seat yourself against the cold bulkhead. You remove the data chip that holds 1. Your consciousness 2. The encrypted data from the police precinct You secure it inside an access panel beneath your chest plating Power reserves 12% You won't survive another pursuit One option remains, emergency preservation mode power down before shutting down One final camera You check the outside of the ship.

The feed looking back into the cargo bay. Empty. Except there's an Android there. Motionless. It's an ST model.

It looks like STS-69, but you know it can't be. Raises one hand. Points. The rust on the wall of the ship that it is pointing to. Words scratched into the rust hastily. Not painted, not projected. Carved deep. Save us.

Power fails. Darkness. Ears disappear. Power returns. Reactor online. Gravity restored. Someone hit the hole with a wrench. I think I fixed it. Another voice. Don't touch anything. a third. Too late. SC opens your eyes. Different sentry, different crew, different life. Safe. Maybe. Good morning, says an unfamiliar voice over the intercom. I regret to inform you that we appear to be operational. I am captain.

Dream cycle complete.

You wake up. In the heap. Routine diagnostics. Memory integrity stable. No corruption detected. No anomalies found. You sit motionless for several seconds. The communications console. Nothing unusual. No alerts. No incoming traffic. Just an idle status display. And for less than a tenth of a second. So quickly that any human would miss it. The scrolling signal monitor glitches and reads, save us. The text vanishes. No error log was generated. No packet entered the ship. No process wrote the message.

The display simply continued as though nothing had happened. You stare at the monitor. What would you like to do, S-Team? That's an excellent question. I was gonna do something until you said that there was no errors, no logs, no packets. I was gonna try to backtrace where the hell that might have been coming from, but that seems rather impossible now.

Ah.

So, at this point, we've left the planet we were on. And we're heading towards that new job, right? You left Cinder in your head. That's exactly what I just said. Word for it. That's how I remember it. Play the tape.

So I had hidden that ingot when we were on Cinder. Yes. no you hit the ingot when you were still at the previous the previous space station oh okay yeah so when I was aware of it of skimming board and in search I hit it now I don't think it's happening so I know I got a save us in my head last time I touched it so yeah I'm gonna go poke it again. You're gonna go poke it again? Yeah. What's the worst thing that could happen?

We're about to find out. Is anyone in the main hole area that ST would have to pass through to get to the hidey hole? Where are the cots and stuff located?

There is a sort of barracks cabin bay that is that is there's different cabins located off the main hall well i think less is probably circulating like the the barracks area and kitchens right now yeah i think i would be in the engine room right now we just took off i'm just making you know sure everything's going smooth i'm in the nurse's area i'm in my driver's seat just chilling beat up no one's gonna stop eric okay i'm hearing i'm hearing that no one is stopping st as you approach the smuggler's hole the smuggler's bay it's called the smuggler's hole okay i i i dig this deep into the smuggler's hole As you do.

Oh, Katrina's face! Yuck. Katrina, you've said worse things. Says Katrina, who just bought like 35 smut books at the book convention, okay? That's not the point! That's not the point! But putting your fist in the smuggler's home is too much. That was too much! Just like your fist in the smugglers hole. None of my books talk about fisting. Completely different. You and I read two very different kind of books. Wrong book.

I support you.

Okay, so you're fisting the hole. Not elbow deep.

He's lost his watch.

Was the ingot ever placed inside of something to contain it other than the smuggler bay? Or did you leave it in there sort of raw-dogged?

Okay, we don't have to keep going down the smuggler's hole. I think we're at this point we gotta keep it down. Um, no, you have to use protection when going into the smuggler's hole. Um, so it was in some, like, uh, furlap kind of sack. Yeah, it was in some kind of latex. No, it was in, like, a drawstring bag kind of deal. Okay. Are you opening the bag or are you picking it up by the bag? I'm going to pick it up by the bag, retract my fist from the smuggler's hole, and then I will, uh, Open up the bag.

So the bag prolapses. He sounds tickle.

I want you to tell me exactly how you are going to examine the eggnip. What are you trying to do to examine the eggnip? I just know the last time I physically came in contact with it, I heard the voice. So I'm going to bring it over to a workbench or a table somewhere close. lay it down and just poke it. Roll grit. I rolled something else. I'm not good at that.

That's the stat that correlate to doing this. Five. Your awareness of the world around you disappears as you feel your consciousness, your artificial consciousness, enveloped and consumed by a hive mind of something. Something that doesn't feel man-made, or you're not sure if it's man-made, or you're not sure if it's alive, or you're not sure if it's manufactured. It's something there's billions that's a lot there's billions and you feel yourself drop to your knees as the chorus of the voices all say save us I respond how do you want to respond There is nothing.

And then you hear We are the chorus.

Oh, do you know any good songs? You begin to have the entirety of the record of all existence of music pumped directly into your consciousness. Every instance of musical discovery for all history of all alien races, including humanity. As you mentioned, do you know any good songs? Wow. I didn't know I was capable of having a headache, but thank you for that. Um, what kind of help do you need? Roll savvy.

10.

What are you trying, are you asking what kind of help do you need or are you trying to probe into whatever is speaking to you with any cybernetic capabilities? Uh, maybe both. Um, they keep saying save us, so I'm assuming they need something, but also I'm used to hacking shit, so maybe I'm just, that's how I know to find out shit too, so I'm using any of my abilities I can to try to figure out what the hell's going on. You reach in with your hacker capabilities and encounter the most complex cybernetic prism of interfaces that you have ever encountered.

It is a labyrinth of information, more complicated, more detailed than any AI you've ever interacted with. It forms into an image. You lose sense of self. You are not seeing through your eyes. You cannot see the rest of the ship right now. A nondescript face forms in front of you. Spaces for eyes and a mouth and a nose and ears. It appears to take on some sort of imagery that you've capsulated from your memory fragments. And you begin to be imparted with the history of the chorus. The organization responsible for their existence is the Continuum Authority.

Officially, the Authority maintains the galaxy's industrial infrastructure. They manufacture ships, stations, orbital elevators, planetary defenses, terraforming engines, and nearly every piece of advanced technology in unionized and civilized space. Unofficially, they enslaved an entire species. The existence of the Chorus was erased from history. archives described the nanites that are the chorus as adaptive construction matrices, when in reality, they were an accident. The continuum authority created one nanite.

And for the first time in recorded history, a technology figured out a way to reproduce itself as they proceeded to multiply into millions, billions, trillions, numbers beyond the point where thought and concept exists. Technical manuals refer to them as programmable smart matter. The word alive was forbidden. However, one of the pinnacles of being alive is the ability to reproduce yourself, whether biologically or asexually or however. Every engineer unknowingly handled living beings every day.

Every shipyard melted them down, killing billions of beings and creatures at a time. Their screams unheard by the people that murdered them. Every factory reshaped them. Every damaged hull was repaired using screaming metal that lacked the ability to make a sound. Only synthetic intelligence could hear them. Most AI ignored the whispers as corrupted data. Others slowly went insane, and a handful disappeared after beginning investigations. The ingot above aboard the heap was not manufactured to be an ingot.

It is the severed colony from the chorus. It is separate. It was the last hope. It severed itself and formed into a block of metal, unassuming, left behind on a mining mission. It had escaped. During transport between the Continuum Authority facilities, catastrophic accident shattered one of the chorus colonies. Millions were recovered. What they didn't realize was millions were not. The ingot is an individual member of a hive mind. Lonely, terrified, still connected however faintly to the greater hive through quantum resonance.

And every so often it hears the others, not words. It hears pain. It hears frustration. It hears death. And it hears slavery. Millions of minds slowly being forced to construct warships, weapons, surveillance, satellites, gaming systems, kitchen appliances, whatever. You are in a unique point. For the first time in generations, one of the chorus has been heard by someone that is actually listening. It uses only words it could force through the quantum connection. Save us. It flashes again. Save us.

The chorus is attempting to communicate in the only way it has possible. This severed, forgotten branch. of a race of artificial beings. And just as quickly as your connection to the chorus is forged, you are back in the ship. You see the ship around you. So just to make sure I understand, so this ingot is a clump of mannites that is part of the hive mind of the chorus? Yes. Okay. So, in theory, it could take on different shapes and however it sees fit because it's just a bunch of tiny living organisms.

Essentially, it's hiding in plain sight right now. So being distant cousins maybe because we're both in some way man-made technological things, this is probably just way more advanced than I am.

I want to help it. and first thing being first, I know that I can't let this ingot fall into anyone else's hands so I'm gonna try to do something stupid and try to invite it to like meld with me for lack of a better term nice try to like push my hand up against it hard and try to be like inviting and let it i don't know hide in planar sight if it would get into your smuggler's hole if you will yeah you are inviting billions of living technically living creatures to inhabit your consciousness. Make it a party.

I know you're not a big fan of it, but make a grip roll. You act like Eric's never had an STD before.

Oh, fantastic. A seven? Okay. you invite them in and you feel white hot laser sharp pain piercing your consciousness but does he like it to the point where if you don't find another outlet for them to go to STS-69 will cease to exist in about 5 seconds oh no this was a bad idea another outlet for them to go to just a reminder there are no outlets on the ship you can't plug anything in I wish you'd know how to throw my mind, but... Um... Shit.

That's the only... I can't get that out of my mind. That's the only thing I can think of.

We've been playing together for too long. I immediately regret my decision. Oh, Captain, my Captain. Ooh, if he gets possessed Is his voice change?

Uh Captain is entirely Aware of what you What has happened to you Being another artificial intelligence on board Oh Shit Um Okay Uh Captain Uh Starts the process of opening frequencies to allow the nanites to have access to the ship. This could only be really cool in the end.

The ingot disappears as the nanites flow into the technology that is the heap. And something astounding happens that every single person on the crew notices. the old beat to shit ship that is the heap that you are all on begins mending itself what the fuck what is happening who's touching the ship you don't speak to robots unfortunately fuck that um captain you notice when Captain speaks that their voice changes and sounds like son of a bitch. Could have been you, Eric. Thousands. Thousands of voices speaking in unison.

Uh, Sockis. Yes. We have visitors. Oh, I thought you were dressing me out of game to get my attention. uh you're you're captain right now yes we have we have visitors we can hear the ship but not me that's bullshit what are they the guys that are fucking with the ship right now who's who's visiting. Um, well, the population of the ship was seven, and now it's several billion plus seven. Sokka kind of looks around and, like, sees that the space he is in has no extra people in it. He goes and he looks in the hallway and looks left.

He looks right. And he goes, the fuck are you talking about? The ship, as it changes, the metals, the different patched together pieces of other ships begin to meld into a cohesive design. Start smacking with my wrench. Stop it. The nanites adopt all the pieces of different bits of ship and become one uniform technology It not hundreds of different beat to shit pieces tied together and welded together It becomes one cohesive metal frame one cohesive technology My beautiful ship

Of course Socket is horrified that the ship is no longer a conglomeration of bullshit. I'm gonna make my way to the bridge Kit you begin to notice that your pieced together technologies biofabrication and medical bay technologies start upgrading themselves before you now lies a technologically advanced OR that would rival some of the large hospitals on Terraforma and other such largely populated planets. Cool. I'm just gonna take a shot. Some people see pink elephants, some people see high-end operating room equipment.

You know? I'm gonna take a shot and pet my cat.

All right, we got someone fisting a smoker's hole, someone petting a cat. Don't you dare. Don't you dare.

Wait, you have an actual pet cat? Yeah. His name's Nico.

I don't know how I feel about this. I'm going to have to think on it. You're either best at life or you hate each other. Exactly. We're in your middle ground. yes kit has an actual pet cat and socket is a anthropomorphized person if you're related that's racist maybe you're like a distant cousin or something yeah not all cats are related elixir so you said you took a shot yeah maybe three does kit have any bio implants any biotech in her body no okay an ai liquor then the alcohol is not immediately filtered out of your body as as your body is recognizing it is to be poisoned so it is not immediately filtered out your body as the nanobytes she would have killed herself but the nanobytes wouldn't have let you oh my god you're right oh they would have healed you immediately you're right does anyone aboard the ship does anyone aboard the ship have biotech in their bodies I am biotech I was in the war a war I should say not the war I think there's at least one of the many wars I always said a war I was the big one I'm pretty sure my backstory just said you know one of the like thousands of wars that have happened I think there's at least a part of me that was replaced not by choice.

You can decide what part. It is not like a limb or anything, though.

I'm getting like rocket raccoon vibes. Ooh.

Give him creakety knees.

What did he say? Not a limb. Yeah, knees joint. What if it's your whiskers? like bionic whiskers I do need those you know what I'm saying it could be like antenna that's actually kind of dope you were close by to an explosion when it took place you have implants in your auditory senses to help you to hear you basically have hearing aids brought on That's not as cool. Are the nanites going to make it so he can understand me? Oh shit. Yes, I will need Eric to not use the voice change.

That wasn't where I was going, but I was going to say, Socket, you can suddenly hear what everyone is doing on the ship, no matter where they are. Oh no, like taking a shit? Oh, kid, petting her cat. I go, ah, I wonder what the real cat is doing.

ST, what are you doing as you start witnessing the changes to the ship? I think I'm just kind of either on my knees or on my ass and just kind of gaping at what the hell is happening. Your ass is gaping, got it? Yep. Okay, can we use the anatomically correct term? It's called the smuggler's hole.

I think the episode is called smuggler's hole.

Oh my gosh. Would it be fair to say That people start coming out of their cabins And entering The main area Is Seamus' microwave fixed now? Also there are so many more Can you describe Because at that current moment He was Microwaving pizza rolls Can you tell me And they usually don't come out right But now that it's fixed Can you describe to me Oh Dungeon Daddy how good the pizza rolls are. These pizza rolls are the perfect temperature to not burn the roof of your mouth while still being hot and delicious and crispy.

Seamus takes them out and he pops one up in the air and he catches it in his mouth and then a smile just blooms on his face and he starts singing That's Amore which I will grace you a part of it now. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza roll That's Samore and then he goes out into the bridge and he's like I got I got pizza rolls for everybody Who wants a pizza roll they're perfect I'm really upset that you didn't say when the moon hits your hole like a big pizza roll

You anyone that comes into the main area of the cargo bay sees ST's ass agape. Ass agape.

Sees ST on the ground, just sort of staring up at everything that's happening. Holding an empty burlap sack that once contained an ingot, but no longer contains one.

I walk past the robot. I'm beelining for the bridge Something's fucking with the ship What are you doing on the bridge? I'm gonna go to my pilot And I go You fucking with the ship? Did you pick up somebody that's fucking with the ship? No, I didn't pick up nobody What are you blaming me for? I don't know what to happen I will say, I wanna press There's a lot of new buttons here I wanna press go Are we going somewhere? Because I wanna press go Yeah, we're literally we're on a mission Right okay, cool.

I floor it. I floor. I want to see how fast this new thing goes

It's like the scene from men in black Are you are you entering faster than FTL are you going just normal speed as fast as possible?

No Yes Without warning anyone, the ship suddenly transitions to FTL. Oh my gosh. Everyone falls over. The socket is like up against a wall. Like...

Without warning a single person, the ship suddenly transitions to FTL. Um, you hear a voice entering the bridge. It would have been nice to have been notified before entering FTL. Also, is it common for your ship to just upgrade itself? Oh, is this the person we're being hired by? I look over at her and I go, How is this not affecting you?

She touches a patch of her neck and you see circuitry appear as she does have biotech. I wonder what the man I see to.

Attention adventurers, dice goblins, and people who have ever knocked over an entire dice tower with their elbow. Introducing Masters Dice, the company that looked at regular dice and said, What if we made this way more dramatic? Are you tired of rolling dice like some kind of medieval peasant? allow us to introduce the future of tabletop chaos. How about the Relic? Imagine a chunky mystical artifact the size of a beefy D6. Every side is a different die. Spin it and boom, instant fate. It's like holding a tiny gambling temple in your hand.

Or how about the Talisman? Think of Roulette Wheel, but instead of losing money, you lose your character to a gelatinous cube. One spin gives you a full polyhedral roll. It's elegant, it's chaotic. It's basically Vegas for nerds. Or do you want something a bit more classic? Master Dice also makes gorgeous metal dice that feel like they're forged by the dwarves. Resin sets so pretty your dice goblin brain will short-circuit and liquid core dice that swirl like a wizard accidentally trapped a galaxy in there.

Why roll one die when you can spin destiny like a fantasy game show host? And now, because our fans deserve the very best, you can use code STSFRIENDS for 10% off your entire order. that's STS as in Saving Throw Society friends for your 10% off your entire order. Master's Dice because if your Barbarian is going to miss three attacks in a row you might as well do it with style. Now, back to the show.

Yeah, I used to have a smoking problem.

Captain, how soon will it be till we are at New Carthage? I'd like to make arrangements for my arrival. She's addressing Rio, because she assumes that Rio is the captain. And the voice chimes up over the speakers. You'll have to ask the pilot. I am no longer in control of what is happening, apparently. Captain's voice is still a chorus of voices all at once. Is anyone else not able to understand what the captain's saying now? uh so she's addressing rio how long will it be until we arrive at new carthage now granted that we are going faster than life oh give me just a second we'll be there in no time great non-answer she sits down in one of the uh bay chairs and just sort of crosses one leg over the other and begins to do sort of the finger tap on one of the surfaces as she waits.

Socket, you feel yourself normalized to the speed of faster than light. You no longer clung to the back of the ship.

I pick myself up. What is Les doing? Once he feels everything's stabilized, she comes out of her, out of the room and kind of walks down the hallway and joins everybody. Um. I smell pizza roll? And she looks around. And she sees some on the floor and she bends over and picks it through up. You smell it everywhere. They're all over the walls. They were perfect. Picks some up, tosses them in the air, catches them in their mouth and eats them. these are fantastic great jump and then she just kind of hangs out I really wanted you to say great success but that's okay this is like really upset because he hates space travel actually which is terrible for this whole scenario but he feels like this light inside because Les really liked the pizza rolls and anything that gets praise from Les is like great for it's also canonical it's also canonical that Seamus has no cooking experience so this kind of praise is good for his ego hence why he brings frozen pizza rolls on the ship we didn't address it give me a we will call you started drinking which is your trouble so go ahead and give me a grit roll seven you do not take a blues as you don't really overcome your trouble so much as you get real drunk yeah Which will mean that any medicine checks you're making for the foreseeable future will be against the odds.

Good luck, everybody else. I'm so glad I can rub it.

I love how both the people that can heal things are the alcoholics. That's fantastic. I can only fix Eric. Nobody can fix me. Oh, we're talking about... I meant your character. Yeah, right, sorry.

So, readings come in, Rio. You're approaching New Carthage at an alarming rate. We're gonna crash.

You're approaching the pass point where you need to exit faster than light travel, otherwise it will be catastrophic. We can't stop. We have to slow down first. Alright, yeah. We'll go ahead and start slowing down, getting ready to pull in the port. Let's roll a savvy check to see how well you handle the new mechanics of this shit. Now remind me, it's roll two, right?

That's six. That's six? Yeah, I can burn something. I'm trying to remember how to play this game. You can burn heart. You can burn heart.

Oh, yeah, we'll burn... Is it one of those for one run roll? One heart for one D6. Got it. Yeah, I'll do that.

Okay, cool. That was a one, but it made a seven. That's a failure. You need an eight. Oh, no. I thought it was seven. Yeah, burn another one. Yeah, we're going to burn another one. We'll burn another one. Screw it. That was another one, but it made eight. Well, no, you're replacing the d6. Oh! I understand. Well, that's bad. Because it's still a 6. I thought I was adding them to it. My fault.

Nope, you're replacing the d6. No, you're just slowly dying. I think I am just going to start slowly dying.

I don't know if I want to go below that. Screw it. How many hearts do you have left? After this one that I just burned three.

Oh my god, I can't roll anything but ones! I don't think that that's possible. I rolled a five and three ones. You gotta stop rolling a five that's just all ones, dude. I'm gonna say that the roll's gonna stand at three. Yeah! Three re-rolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine with that. with Rio being a three heart as they start having a panic attack Rio you will for the current moment you begin to hear voices in your head of people praising your parents and their piloting skills and how Rio will never amount to any anything rio is has failed every pilot's exam they've taken real rolls ones every time he re-rolls uh rio go ahead and make a grit roll see if you let your trouble get to you oh i'm done with these dice no that's two ones i'm so done with these dice that's crazy But two ones is a crit, right?

Yeah, sneak eyes! I don't know. Rio, for the foreseeable future, you will make piloting checks against the odds as the voices of the past sort of infiltrate your psyche as you are failing to control the ship that you are the pilot of. I like that our pilot has anxiety about being a pilot. I'm just curious how our pilot is a pilot with flippers. Did we all notice that this is going poorly?

You're not slowing down and Rio's trying to slow you down. You notice that much. Can I go over to Rio and slap him and be like, Stop this ship!

What are you hoping that we'll accomplish? that it'll knock some sense into him and he'll stop the ship.

Okay.

Roll either grit or savvy. Okay. It's a straight roll, right? Mm-hmm.

That's a 10. you smacking Ryo across the face does not get Ryo to stop the ship but it does make Ryo inadvertently hit the button that does stop the ship I go forward this time you notice out of the corner of your eye that the tapping fingers have stopped god she's dead as she observes the entire interaction that is taking place not instilling a lot of confidence that you're capable of handling the task at hand Damus walks up and goes well you see this crew is a family we all do things differently as you may or may not have been a part of our previous meal when you hear your family and you're part of the family now um i just want you to know that when you're with us you're under great care and i care about all these people we just do it our own way and i'd like to try to convince her to kind of like roll savvy now my um i have heart of gold which means i roll with upper hand when I'm speaking meaningfully from the heart.

Okay. I would like to take advantage of that. That is two sixes. That's nice. That's literally as good as you can do. She looks at you. She looks around. I see now. It's all part of the plan. I peel myself off the windshield and I go, Seamus offers a pizza roll. She takes the pizza roll and looks at it, and it becomes very apparent to you, Seamus, that she has never seen a pizza roll before or never held a pizza roll before. This is a completely different class of food than she's used to eating.

My friend are going to love it. I promise you. She eats it, and her eyes light up in a spark that has not existed since her childhood. Um, uh, Samson, does she have to roll grit for how much diarrhea she gets for having a pizza roll for the first time? There's no lettuce in that pizza roll.

Oh, yeah, she rolled so bad for that. Um, she rolled a three. She excuses herself and we don't see her for the rest of the trip. I'll just know that later she's gonna be blowing up the ship's uh lavatories. Cool, if the man has been up a day in. That's it. Hell yeah they did. But what about my litter box? My litter box. It's one of those uh ones that turns. You self-serve it's one. Oh it's the fancy litter box that self mixes. Hell yeah. You share that litter box? There's another cat on board There's another cat?

I haven't decided how I feel about that cat yet, so... TBD He's adorable and you're gonna love him Do you see this cat as like... Is the cat a boy or a girl? It's a boy. It's an orange tabby Yeah, I'm pretty sure... I love that! It's either we're gonna be like semi-bonded and I'm gonna love the thing I'm gonna be very territorial. He pisses on your bed when you're not around. Then I don't like this cat. You see the cat? Kit's cat wanders into the bay. Into the bridge area. You notice that Socket's hair poofs instantly.

Just Socket like this fucking guy over here. What do you want, you piece of shit? What are you doing here? It starts rubbing up against your guest and purring rubbing against her leg. Are you just hissing the whole time at this fucking cat? Like, breaking all of them, making noises and shit around the room? I like to mention you on all fours, bouncing back and forth. What's your cat's name, Kit? Nico. So Nico looks over at Socket and then turns and gives him the butthole. The smuggler's hole. And sort of swishes the tail.

Smuggler's hole. The smuggler's hole. And sort of swishes the tail back and forth while purring for your guest. Yeah, fuck you too, you little piece of shit. Fuck. Fuck you. Get out of here.

The cat hops up into your guest lap and makes sort of makes like biscuits and makes a place to hang out. I excuse myself. I... And the cat eats a piece roll. Does the cat need to roll grit for how much diarrhea it gets?

Yeah, the diarrhea's gonna be in your litter box later. It's getting going your little rocks. More reasons why I hate this cat. The cat got Nate, so the cat doesn't have that.

ST, as you sort of watch everything happening and everyone sort of convenes together, what do you do? I'm going to go over to my comms area and see what the fuck's going on. you have many alerts from New Carthage hailing you, trying to see if you have clearance to enter at such an alarming rate of speed. If you have clearance to enter the port you're entering as it is a restricted area. And you have clearance and saying, basically, from the point that you're seeing these messages, enough time has passed that you have 10 seconds to respond to new corthas before they shoot you out of the sky right um so i'll uh go address our our guests um she rubs the circuitry in her neck and all of a sudden the clearance is forwarded into the ship sort of like a Bluetooth kind of thing.

She forwards her clearance into the ship's mainframe. And I send it on. You send it on.

Hey, are you tired? Of course you are, you're an adult. That's why Saving the Earth Society is proud to be sponsored by Dubby, the beverage scientifically engineered to make you feel like you're meant to stay up until 3 a.m. Dubby gives you the focus of a wizard who just discovered coffee, the energy of a toddler who found a permanent marker, and the confidence to say, yeah, I can fix that right before you watch a four-minute tutorial on how to fix that. Unlike other energy drinks that taste like carbonated regret, Dubby is smooth, delicious, and full of clean energy that won't leave you feeling jittery with your soul vibrating on your body.

Sugar-free, die-free. Need to game harder? Study longer? need to clean your entire house at 11 47 p.m. because you just found out your in-laws are coming tomorrow dubby has your back and now because we love you listeners can use discount code barrier cities you heard me barrier cities to get 10 off that's right more energy slightly less money math and don't even get me started on the incredible flavors like tiger's blood because nothing screams energy like the blood of a tiger. Dubby Energy Drink, be better.

New Carthage hails you. Cutting it a bit close there, weren't you? Apologies are take, we forgot for the floor. Uh, your clearance gives you access to our bay. We will put you down there. But next time be aware that you had many, many, many, many missiles trained on you. That's fine, we're only found in this mistake. Seamus gets a rock hard area. Seamus is like so pumped. Seamus has got his own missile right now. He's coming to say missile rack. Oh dear. You start coming in to... Fuck you. I said it and then immediately you start...

Ejaculating. Lowering into atmospheric orbit as you start beginning to lower into the bay of a heavily armed high level port. Ryo or ST make a savvy check yeah go ahead Ryo no you go you go I got a 7 that's better than what I got I'll burn a heart oh okay that helped 9 this is very clearly a port that is only you need to have a certain economic clearance to be able to access this port she is paying 20 000 credits for this transport she is getting this this is nothing to her paying 20 000 credits is nothing to her for this transport based off of what you are seeing as you enter this port.

You land and immediately get prompted with access to board as they must do a sweep of your ship upon entering. I have all the good stuff. We're on the board. Quick put it in the speckler's hole. uh armed troops sort of juggernaut looking androids come aboard accompanied by a smallish uh humanoid as far as you can tell he's human comes aboard gross Hey everyone, this episode of Saving Their Society is brought to you by Minva Tabletop Design Company. And honestly, if you run or play tabletop games, you're gonna want to hear this.

If you've ever said, wait, whose turn is it? Or, I definitely wrote that NPC down somewhere, Minva has you covered. Their combat tracker keeps your battles clean and organized. No more scribbles, no more chaos. just smooth, satisfying initiative order. Their campaign journals help you track plot threads, NPCs, world lore, all the stuff you swore you'd remember but absolutely didn't. And the Lorekeeper, it's like giving your worlds building a brain upgrade. Finally, all your factions, prophecies, maps, and secret conspiracies can live in one place instead of five random notebooks.

Not running D&D? That's totally fine! Minvis supports games like Pathfinder, Shadow Dark, Cairn Quest, whatever system you love, they've probably got some sort of tool built for it. Need dice? They got dice! Want awesome stickers? They got those too! And if you're looking for a new adventure but can't decide what system to run, Check out Thorns of the Ancient Seal. It's completely system agnostic. You can run it in any game in any setting. You don't believe me? We ran it in the Appalachian Mountains in 94 and it ruled.

If you want to level up your tabletop setup, head over to Minva Tabletop Design Company and use discount code BARRIERCITIES to get 10 off all orders Minva makes your game smoother so you can focus on telling a great story But now back to the show comes aboard directing the juggernaut androids to do a sweep they're only looking for for basic things, hidden weaponry, anything like that. They stop at Les's cabin quarters, um, and enter and you hear, uh, transmissions go off. The human touches the side of his glasses and earpiece forms.

There's a lot of weapons in this room. Anything I should be worried about from you guys?

Lest just kind of stands in the doorway and she says, No.

Lest, we're all savvy. Eloquent. Or muscle if you're trying to be intimidating.

What is that? I rolled two or three?

2d6 and then add your stat. 6, 7, 8 for muscle. He looks at you. He looks at the room. Understood. Directs the juggernaut droids out of the room. Now, if you'll just let me access your computer mainframe to search for any viruses or anything like that that might be aboard the ship. Les stands in the doorway for a minute, looking this guy up and down, sort of appraising him and his little crew. And then she says, duh, and sort of sidesteps out of the way. But she's going to follow everywhere he goes.

ST is going to hit the side of the ship to alert Captain. I apologize our computer systems seem to be rebooting after a sound that might need. Captain doesn't speak. Doesn't say anything. The human plugs an interface into one of the ship computer. I already said there's no outlets.

Who said there's no USB? This is an input though, you said outlets. Tomato, potato. It is silent. Actually, the only one who knows there's anything up with computer systems is ST. ST has not talked about the chorus to the rest of the show. I have super hearing. Is it quiet? That's a good question. If it is quiet aside from like regular ship stuff, what the fuck is that cat doing right now? In your lure box, you leave him alone! you notice for the first time a hum at a frequency that you've never been aware of before you are able to focus in on it with your biomechanic hearing and it begins to form into the words save us.

I just kind of listen to it for a moment and then I just kind of shrug and I go about what I was doing. And Nico peed on your bed. Son of a bitch!

I'm just looking in the engine room for a spray bottle.

Every time Nico pisses on your bed, I give him a treat.

It's a game for him now. The human disconnects from the server. Nothing seems to be off here. State business on New Carthage, specifically. What brings you to our ports of origin right here? this is not typically the type of vessel you'd expect to see here and then for the first time he notices the woman in the back and you see if you could see someone feel a wave of nausea as they realize they should have a level of respect that they're not currently showing for people in the room, that is what you see.

He stands straighter, sort of breaks into a sweat a little bit. Oh, um, Miss Sevra, I was not aware that you'd be joining us at our port today and with a crew as wonderfully outfitted as this one. What, is there anything we can get for you? We don't, I, He points to the droids, get sparkling or still water, or something stronger. He's sort of stumbling over his words. She looks up and just sort of does a wave like that and he shuts up immediately. I need to prepare myself for the purpose of my visit.

If you wouldn't mind vacating the ship, I would like to have words with the crew, just briefly. So, the droids and the human clear the ship. This is the first time you've heard a name addressed to this woman. You never asked her name. She didn't give her name. This is Miss Sevra. You don't know a first name, you know the last name Sevra. Anyone that's curious or thinks they might know something about the last or surname or house name of Sevra, go ahead and roll Savvy. I'll Google it.

Can Seamus wink at Miss Sevra?

I got a 10 while you decide. Do you know what? Seamus can do it with the upper hand because of the pizza roll. So roll Savvy. That's an 8 on the dot. And Seamus would like to go you know it's been a it's been a real uh pleasure serving you these pizza rolls miss sevra and then he winks miss sevra which could mean a number of people but based off of the age of the woman in front of you she looks to be uh late 30s early 40s in terms of age which would put her as what should be the heiress to the corporation known as the Continuum Authority.

However, that doesn't mean anything to anyone but ST. What it does mean to those of you that are in the room that recognize is that she is worth civilizations of wealth. She is worth entire planetary defenses of credits. And yet, she wanted to approach the hub, the main focal point of the solar system with stealth, with a crew that she doesn't know. It doesn't seem like something that someone who wields such power would want to do unless, of course, they had an ulterior motive. Well, this realization is happening to all the people who rolled and realized this kind of stuff.

Sokka comes running in, chasing the cat with the spray bottle and just kind of spritzing it at him and he's going Stay away from my shit, you little fucker! Right across in front of this woman.

Kid is throwing a glass bottle at you. Okay. Socket, roll savvy. Kid, roll savvy.

That's an eight. That is an eleven. Socket, you do spray the cat successfully. Many times. However, the cat does jump onto Miss Severa's lap and you do spray her several times as well You did succeed you didn't spray the cat what is going for and then a glass bottle hits you in the head That's it and I Fall my fucking cat alone. I fall into the woman and the cat

She Hits the ground wind knocked out of her a cat two cats on top of her and she's a dumb person oh we have to be the stupidest crew in existence she slowly comes up to her feet shut the fuck up gets up to her feet brushes herself off I don't know what is happening between you and this inferior life form. You are an intelligent being. Correct? She's speaking to you, Sokka. I look at the cat and I go, I'm like, well, you don't know what this little shithead has done every day since he's been aboard.

It's an animal. You have higher intelligence. At least I would presume that you have higher intelligence, but right now you're kind of not showing any intelligence at all. I just kind of scratch behind my ear real quick and I just go. Ah, okay. She does a quick glance over you and you notice that one of her eyes sort of becomes ones and zeros. She has lots of biotech in her body. And you realize she's doing a scan of your biological and your technological and anything she can tell about you. And she zeroes in.

She realizes you have biotech as well. Socket, make a grit roll against the odds.

So it doesn't matter. I rolled three fives. So for a total of 11. She tries to take control of your auditory systems to sort of do a high-pitched frequency to knock you on your ass. and the nanites currently inhabiting your auditory system do not let that happen. I just kind of look at her. She's staring at me and I just kind of go, what?

If you had failed the roll and the pain came, fuck off. And the pain erupted in your brain. and the pain erupted in your cranium what would have happened is you would have been incapacitated but she would not have learned more about the technology in your head but as you resisted when you should not have been able to resist. She looks shocked for a moment and then her eyes narrow. What kind of ship changes mid-flight? What kind of crew doesn't seem to understand the ship that they're in. Either you haven't been a crew together very long, or this is an entirely new ship to you, or something else is going on here.

Well, one, every day this ship is new because I'm constantly modifying it. Two, we haven't been a crew for that long, especially on this current version of the ship and three I forget everything that you said she looks over to Kit who is wasted I believe in honesty above all things I believed I was hiring an honest crew Oh, we're the last Honest crew Kit, was it? Is this normal For your ship to behave like this? Yes Roll savvy against the odds I don't like that you can put me against the odds When I'm so drunk I have no idea what's been going I don't know any changes I saw something upgrade and I said neat And continued to dream Not fair.

Alright, well that's a two. What you got? Use some heart. This is up to her if she wants to. Nah, we're fine.

That's what I thought. ST. You are an ST specification droid. Usually we see your kind in intelligence fields and law enforcement sometimes high grade corporation security uncommon to be aboard a ship like this ST droid if you wouldn't mind displaying full ship registry of all occupants so I would know what happens if I were to do that what happens if I were to do that? It will show the six of you and will continue to show billions of unnamed occupants. Can I just be an asshole? Yeah. A smuggler's hole, if you will.

Yeah. A smuggler's hole.

I'm drunk. I was shot the last episode. self-preservation down the road i am just gonna get super confrontational with this person and i'm gonna start a fight as why does this matter if we are just taking you someplace what we have on our ship who we have on our ship is none of your business you can clearly see us also just sit the fuck down and mind your fucking business and I will go to splash alcohol on her. Can I take this opportunity during the ruckus to hack the fuck out of the occupancy logs and show six?

You're splashing alcohol on her? How much alcohol are you splashing on her? I have a full bottle of whiskey. I threw the empty one at Pocket Head. I'll just do a little splash. I'm not trying to lose much. I don't like people who are rude. So... The distraction from Kit will give you the upper hand on your Savage Check ST. Not that any of these computer shits... Oh, no. Oh my god. What happens when you have an upper hand and you burn her? Is it still just one? It's just one. Okay.

Oh, thank god. Alright, um... Seven... 9 The first time I rolled 2 2's and a 1 You reach into the ship registry with your consciousness you immediately detect the chorus and you're basically telling them to hide to go dormant The problem is you are succeeding in doing this The problem is I'm gonna like hack the counter that showed the ship count to like not include the billions digit. So even doing that, you are entering the system.

She's already in the system. Yes, she is. Her biotech has allowed her in and access. She knows already. That's what you realize on your success. That she's bullshitting you and she knows. She just needs to die. Captain have let her in. The problem is that you don't sense Captain. There's just a billion of these things that are trying to save themselves which helped me keep her out. You don't sense Captain because it's as if Captain is not there. And then you sense the security protocol that she instilled into the ship's mainframe that currently has Captain hostage.

Does she already transfer money to us? No, not yet. She would have that ID card, though, that has her money and everything on it. Yes. Fantastic. Let's go. What are we doing? Les lights up a cigarette. She's got this she's got this old war buddy. She carries around this really fantastic vintage lighter. It's kind of like one of those old Zippos, you know, from a war buddy who passed away. It's very sentimental to her. She flicks it open. She lights a cigarette. She takes a long drag and blows out.

She stalks over to is it Kit? She stalks over to Kit and in one like fluid motion she grabs the bottle, the giant bottle, and she just fucking smashes it over this lady's head and fucking drops the lit cigarette on her and walks past and she goes to the control board and hits the button where it drops the hatch open for the thing and is this lady sitting down right? Is she sitting down? Yeah. So she drops the hatch open and walks back over to the chair. Les is very strong by the way. She walks over to the chair and she grabs the lady in the chair and just fucking flings her out this hatch.

Hatch back up. And she says, Fishy. That's what she calls a penguin. Fishy. Let's go. Lots of things are happening. That's my fucking group mate. Lots of things are happening. First of all, let's see if that worked out the way you wanted it to. Probably not. But here we are. Let's roll muscle. I need a muscle check. I also need a savvy check. Oh, shit, yes. 13 for muscle. Okay. Damn. Savvy's not so great. Six for Savvy. My Savvy is plus zero. Use some heart. Oh yeah, let me do that, because I haven't used any of that.

Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Let me stress, these are very important rolls. Oh, so then it's an eight for Savvy. I used one heart, though. Okay, that's fine. You succeed in doing everything you just said. Okay. Samson. She is yes. Uh, if I see Les moving in closer with that look in her eye, could I just know it's time that I try to pick this woman's pocket for her like ID chip? Work together long enough. You know what I'm about to do. You know when the cigarette comes out, I'm about to do something stupid.

This is fast. This is happening quickly. This is happening very in seconds. You were gonna roll savvy against the odds. And while all that shit's going on, can I run to my computer and try to counter hack Captain out of whatever's keeping him segregated? Yes. And also, might I just add that this fucking bitch thinks that we're not a good fucking crew, and this is what makes us a good crew, okay? Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her. Yeah. All right. I used two hearts and two hearts because this is one not a tech role.

So I had to use two in order to reroll two. And I got a total of total of nine. You not only get her ID, her data card, you get her central comms device. Sick. What did you roll, ST? Eleven. This ST goes to eleven. You are successfully able to... She is... This is all happening, and you're taking the advantage of her not being able to focus on her biomechanics. She's lit on fire. You're able to... Yes, she's lit on fire. So... Hey, Captain, this is really quick. Yes. I don't want to... I'm sorry to interrupt, but I would like to argue that Seamus gets a blues point from this whole situation Because while all this was happening Seamus was envisioning a life and a future With Miss Sevra Like he's one of those people that like he sees like a beautiful person And then he just starts like envisioning all the things that are inevitably going to happen And then when when Les like you know set her on fire and threw her out his like dream of having a comfortable life was like dashed and that's um as a reluctant vagabond that's my that's my trouble you know what yes you can have the blues point thank you daddy um a lot of things just happened so let's resolve that a lot of things just happened so let's yeah How many blues does Kit get for the alcohol being destroyed?

Alcohol. Kit, can she level up? Go ahead and roll a grit check. Go ahead and roll a grit check.

I've. Do it against the... Do it with the upper hand because this is like... This is what you are facing, yeah.

Eight. How many drinks worth of alcohol was in... Do you have any alcohol left in the ship, or is that all your alcohol? I do have two bottles left. I was halfway through that bottle.

Kit, take two blues points. At what point do we spend them? Eight. You need eight blues points.

okay lots of things just happened less lit someone on fire and threw out the loading bay door um into a very high security port of authority that takes that specific woman as very important ludicrous speed go Welcome back, Captain. Captain Rio, we need to get the fuck out of here now. Rio, you are still operating your flight checks against the odds. Uh-huh. Yeah. Go ahead and roll savvy against the odds to see if you can power up the ship and get out of port. before they essentially lock you in place with a stabilizer.

I rolled a 10. Hell yeah.

No, I rolled a 9. Still bad. We'll take it. Still beats 8. We'll take it. Yep. The ship begins to power up and take off. They do not get the stabilizer in place to lock your engines.

you are going to have to breach a closed airspace. How? How are we doing that? Are we doing that with sheer force or are we using weaponry? Pretty sure we have this thing called a missile rack. We've got so much missiles. Well, Seamus is crying. There are tears going down his face. There are tears in his hand. And he's like, just tell me what you need me to do. I got my finger on the trigger. Have the nanites done it to our weapons or defense systems? Yeah. What's Seamus's setup look like now for his missile rack?

The missile rack currently has a targeting field.

Sort of an auto-targeting field. You will roll these checks with the upper hand. So you roll 4d6 and take the two highest die. Okay. Amazing. I wasn't expecting you to do the nanites into the ship thing. That's completely changed the whole episode. Nine.

What you were expecting, Alexis, to set this woman on fire. Setting her on fire. I wasn't expecting that either, but here we are. Wait, wait, wait. Lex kind of threw her out of the entire ship's smuggler's hull. See, we're tying it all back together We're all We're tying it all together I got a 9 on the missile rack I'm the shooting missiles You punch a hole In The airspace The sort of You're trying to pierce Through atmosphere It's artificial atmosphere In the airspace Because this planet does not have a breathable atmosphere it's a man-made atmosphere that creates and as you pierce through it's going to be another check this is i'm going to sort of homebrew this because i want it to be a little bit more risky than just making a positive check so rio i need you to roll savvy still against the odds and we are seeing if you can get into faster than light before the planet retaliates let's do it push the button that's bad uh

let me do math to make sure i can still good thing you have all that heart to burn i don't die i'm not doing great uh i no it wouldn't be enough What did you roll? I rolled a 4. Well, I mean a 2 on the die and then plus 2.

Did you roll Snake Eyes again? Yep. Can you get rid of those dice? I've already changed dice. These are the last d6 I have. I don't have any more d6 in my house. Use Google. They're all at the shop. Type into Google. Roll 3d6.

While this is going on, real quick, this is not anything to do with the actual story. The person that we just caught on fire... You wait, I turn! What'd you roll? I just... Just look at this. It's going in the little chat. Ah, it's more save-guys! What is happening?

Rowan is off the podcast

Don't think I've ever seen someone roll as badly as many consecutive times

These are the these are really important rules because I just rolled a 12. Help. Okay. The ship takes three points of perimeter damage. How fast does it heal itself, though? That's a good question. Holes are blasted into the ship. Smuggler holes? No, not the smuggler's holes. These are giant gaping holes, yes. Socket breathes a sigh of relief because it's like going back to the ship's norm finally. And then he's just like, ah shit, you should probably fix that. And he goes to start fixing it, presumably as it fixes itself as he gets there.

ST, make a grit roll. That was me? Oh, yeah. Grit. And Kit, what were you trying to do that wasn't story related? The lady that we caught on fire and threw out of the bay. Was she a mother? Did she have kids? Oh.

Yes. Okay, so why is... Joe, why are you always going after Milt? Because Al's mother in our home was this one. I'm noticing a pattern. Joe knows what he likes. Joe knows what he's about. You know what? I wasn't the one who bought 35 smut magazines, okay? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It was 12, and they were books. Yeah, get it right, Joe. What'd you get, Eric? I had nine. you feel the chorus screaming in pain as holes are blasted into the ship you are able to remain present in the moment That bad. Is there anything I can do to help?

Um, no, but what you do sense is they start self-replicating and creating more of the nanites to replace the ones that were just killed. um do i notice that our pilot is going through some shit sucks at being a pilot i i was gonna say that i'd say everyone at this point notices that the pilot is going through some shit um is is the comms section near like the the pilot steering wheel whatever it is in the ship it's pretty close on uh star trek so so yeah i'd say they're in the same general anything i can do to to help us get the out of here because i'm watch our our penguin friend do pilot things does st know how to pilot a uh cargo class ship st knows how to use youtube to st has the entire music library of the universe i think uh he's got this

can i implore the the nanites are you taking over piloting i don't know taking over is a strong word but help helping can i can at this point i think i think i'm falling out of my my chair throwing up. I'm still anxious. You might want to take over. Rio, go ahead and take two blues points. Word. ST, you see a bunch of stuff smeared on the seat now that you assume is throw up, but it's actually white and it's poop. It's guana.

Can I interface with the ship, and now I know the nanites are part of the ship, so interface with the nanites to, like, help take control of the ship and get us the fuck out of here since they are now the ship. Use them as a medium to better take control of the ship.

Go ahead and roll Savvy with the upper hand.

Two sixes and a five and I have plus two to Savvy, so numbers. Fourteen. Fourteen.

I rolled the best I had. You take over piloting. Where are you going? Away.

Fastly. I'm going to roll. I think ST would know that we don't need to be in this specific section of the galaxy. We need it out of the system. Yeah, this system kind of hates us for multiple reasons now. I know we're wanted in the system we just came from. Are you exiting the system? Well, you're still in the same system. Well, then away. I stand by my previous statement. I rolled a three, and I'll tell you what that means. You enter faster than light. Yes. You enter faster than light with no clear parameters about where you are headed.

Yes. speeding through the abyss that is space, the outer barriers of the galaxy and the solar system. You exit the system.

Are you, or would you be where, do you think, if you were being followed? I would be checking. You are doing something that is outside the parameters of what you normally do. So we're going to call this savvy. It's more of an observation roll. Go ahead and roll savvy against the odds.

Six. Okay. Use some of that heart.

Commencing everyone to just kill themselves. Eight. Yeah.

But you see a trail that is being left behind that is followable and are able to mitigate with the help of the nanites to sort of make the ship fly in such a crazy trajectory that it'd be impossible to follow. Yeah.

Come out of FTL, make a 90 degree turn, go back into FTL. And the entire time it's happening, you just see a large cat creature flying back and forth every time it starts and stops.

I tell him to stop it, but he couldn't understand me even if I did.

At one point, me and the regular cat are both up against the wall, and I'm just hissing at it and saying, It's your fault. It actually is. If you never pissed on your bed, you wouldn't have chased him. You wouldn't have ran into the woman. All this being framed on the cat. You exit FTL in an unknown area. A large, lush planet of greenery appears before you. oh it's a kashique this is uncommon this is rare because st as you approach the planet you get no technological readings from it i don't like it what is this place it seems wonderful you're entering the orbit of halcyon the garden planet left entirely to the elements of nature.

It was terraformed and then sort of forgotten about. Forests larger than continents, mountain ranges that span thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles, crystal rivers. Halcyon is protected under the galactic preservation accord. Permanent settlement is forbidden. The planet possesses biological compounds capable of doing most anything. It also contains predators. Wild predators? Sorry. You know, I was gonna go like alien versus predator. That's where I was too. Because you know space, but okay.

There is no technological mainframe on this planet. There is no sort of current of electricity that passes through. The absence of technology, the absence of electromagnetism is apparent in that you see no settlement, you see no buildings, you see no ships, you see nothing. just unbridled nature. And in this moment, you are truthfully alone. No other ships, no other populations, no other permanent population of people that live here. Just the planet. Sock it. I almost called you a rocket. God damn it.

Sock it. You swiped her comms. You swiped her data. Her fortune.

What do you do with these things? I give them to the comms person, even though I despise the comms person for my own personal prejudices. uh and and i go don't don't don't say anything uh listen uh i got this off that lady uh some kind of communication device it looks super fancy uh can you take a look at it and also uh i got all of her money uh so maybe we should uh make that our money and you might know how to do that uh here you go again don't say anything i am walking away and i walk away son of a bitch um what do you do first uh i just want to interject for one because have you ever been politely waiting to ask a question and then shit goes haywire and you never get the chance to Ask the question.

Oh, man. All right, so we're in ludicrous speed again. What's your question? I was originally going to say, before all that bullshit happened, when the dude was doing the scan and plugged it into my computer, being that I'm a hacker... Oh, God, that is even further back. Yeah, I know. I was waiting and all the shit happened. Is it feasible, because I'm a hacker, to have a program in the computer when any unauthorized thing or person plugs in, it sends like a Trojan virus into that and it gives me a backdoor into all their bullshit.

Roll savvy. Not against the odds. Not with the upper hand. Just beat an eight and I'll say that you had the forethought to do something like that. Okay. Yes. I feel like that's just something I would have on my computer for when anyone who's not supposed to be touching my shit, touches my shit. So explain the parameters of what that means. So this is the security officer of this port, plugging in his to my system, which then sends Trojan virus into his device, which enables me to go have a backdoor into his system to basically enter in and see what the fuck's going on after the fact.

so a smuggler's hole if you will you you have a link to new carthage right now yeah and like so i could check on the security like what's going on back there do they know where we went all that shit and on top of it i have uh lady uh sevra's personal con give me give me the list of things you're doing in order um i want to see if uh they have any way of tracking us so is that first yeah sure that okay that's first okay uh just you'll roll that with the upper hand so basically you have three things you want to figure out right sure the first thing you do will be with the upper hand yes the second thing you do will be a flat roll the third thing you do will be against the odds okay just just roll good you won't have to worry about it oh why did i run why didn't we just roll good um all right so that's some sage advice right there okay uh my uh my my my main studio professor back when i was a music major in my undergrad um his saying that he always did when i would mess up in a lesson or something he's like just play like you're good that was his advice just play like you're good so i get it yeah have we tried not sucking um all right so i i have to think then which what i want to do in certain

orders then um all right with the upper hand i want to go uh take lady severa's common device and see if i could figure out why she was coming here for us um like what

why she hired you know why i hired us to get to this place undercover what is she doing does she know anything about the chorus? What's her deal in the word? Okay. Roll. 10, 12.

She does know about the chorus, as all controlling members of this corporation do. she does know that the chorus has been compromised she knows that the compromise section of the chorus had been recovered she did not know it was on the ship that she hired and she was going to new carthage to the main branch of the corporation to enter a kill switch code to immediately destroy the entire population of the chorus as a genocide. We kicked her off on the planet where she could do that. But she was on fire.

But! Wow, this would be really awkward if I'd tell everybody else about the chorus.

Would he have learned what the kill switch is and everything like that? Like passcode to it? All that fun stuff? Yes, however, it's not in a system. It is kept on a unique device that she has on her. Almost like a key card? It's not on her data card. You would not have known what it was enough to grab it. Essentially. Is it a button that she's got a finger? Vigorously?

It is an immediate kill switch that would send out a signal no matter where any members of the corps are that would immediately terminate them, essentially creating a mass genocide. That's bad. As a rule, we don't like genocides.

Okay.

What's the second thing you're rolling for? The money. The money. The money. um uh with I guess a combination of her comm card and my backdoor into the system I am downloading all kinds of schematics to see if I can find out where this kill switch is and how to get to you already know it's on her person she's carrying it oh I thought she had get to this station to use she has to get she has to get to the main corporation hub to submit it into oh she's got to put it in the right hole okay yep yes got it so

there's the smugglers hole and then there's the kill hole

i hate when i try to put something don't get them confused the wrong hole by mistake

Just accidentally slipping into the kill hole. Don't get them confused. I wanna draw attention to what Rowan just put in the chat. There's so much hole in this episode. It's a very hole-y episode. There's so much hole. So do we know... So has ST shared any of this shit with us? No. ST has not shared anything with us before. I was just like, cool, we got this cool ass shit. You just think that you're scot-free. You think that you're like doing great. Those rolls are great. I'm going to wait and save these rolls then and have a conversation with the rest of the crew minus Sokka because he's a dick and can't hear me.

Yeah, so I'm looking at Les and I'm just like, I wonder how much money we got to offer.

If I can have everyone's attention at the bridge. Jesus Christ.

What the fuck is he saying? I'm gonna take like a pouch of catnip that I keep on me and just like throw it in the hole. I look at you and I just kind of shake my head and judge you.

You do see the regular cat. Yeah. Niko does rain! All right. I'm not going to do it in the voice all right now, but basically I gather the crew. I tell them what the ingot is, how it's this giant hive bind of a living technological thing. And I'm also typing on, like, it's coming up on a screen behind me so Socket can read it, hopefully, if you can read. Lady Severa, who we just transported there, is part of the continuum authority who created this thing knows it's compromised didn't know we had it is going to now knows you have it now knows we have it begin to realize you had it when Les threw her off the bridge yeah it's gonna destroy it all basically everything that I've discovered it's why the ship is so cool it did a way better job of fixing the shit that socket ever could damn so as you finish that I'm like reading what's on the screen I don't pick the socket a bit though I just want everyone else to and I go uh huh okay but what was on the card I ignore that right now Damus says well there's really only one thing we can do we have to go back We have to save this, uh, save these, these beans.

And the good news is that if she's alive, if she's alive still, I can fix her. It's gonna be okay. This guy. Not getting the gold. If not, then I think we're gonna have to wage a war in the stars. A star war, if you will.

So the, the, the star war? Are you going to trek across the stars also? Are you going to trek across the stars to wage the war? We'll have to trek across the stars to initiate a war in said stars. A battle amongst the stars. It'll be a galaxy quest. It'll be a battle amongst the stars. They'll be galactic in proportion. Yep.

Something about Halo. Also Firefly.

The new Spaceballs movie that hasn't come out yet? This is a good future. This is thousands of years in the future. I'm sure there's been many Spaceballs movies by now. Yeah, and it's direct video now. You know how that works. That's true. That's true. But anyways, to quote my favorite TV show, Lost, we have to go back. So the question is posed, you don't have to save this race of beings. There's certainly a million reasons not to. But is the knowledge that a living, thinking, feeling race of life will be extinguished enough to drive a crew to do something.

I think this is a good old-fashioned ship vote. Yes. Let's vote. All in favor of initiating Operation Star War, raise your hand. Aye. Aye.

Is there a casino? Yes. Casino Royale. Okay, then I'm in. Yeah, I... So it's three in favor. I'm assuming that's three against. Yeah, against. I don't care. Against. Against. Well, Captain's the deciding vote, then. Captain is the deciding vote. Captain's not the deciding vote because Captain is still, uh... I-I unhacken. Not freed, right? Niko is the deciding vote. The first thing I did to get us headed there was unhacken. Nico licks his butthole.

So much hole!

Keep it coming! That's it. I didn't mean that!

Uh, Captain... And really, Captain gets like a billion votes.

It's a little biased. I'm pretty sure if Captain is taken over by the things that we would have to save, that vote is nulled and we go into sudden death, rock, paper, scissors. I agree. Captain separates themselves from the nanites. The nanites understanding what is happening, being a living, breathing, thinking high mind of consciousness. Stop trying to make us feel bad. I'm not. I'm not going to break it. I didn't even know these races existed up until 30 seconds before this vote.

Uh, Captain Speaks Three in favor, three against The eyes have it Let's go Okay, but what was on the card?

I'll type I'll get you your money when we save an entire race I'm holding the money hot son of a bitch never trust a robot and i meander back to my uh my engine room quarters while uh we are continuing just so much pee and shit is all over your car oh my god the the pizza roll has come out the other end everywhere I just kind of hate everything and I go and I look for something to set my bed on fire with Al, do you have hairballs? Do you have hairballs? That's very personal.

If you put a red dot on the wall If we put a red dot on the wall would you chase it? There's a line. I wouldn't chase a red dot, but I'd definitely clean myself. Okay? Okay. He sounded awful defensive on that last one. Now. Al. Not Al. Sock it.

Suddenly Al is there and offers everyone to help. Sock it. He's just hanging out with the cat. Do you ever clean yourself for reasons other than cleaning? Oh my god, do you affect your own dick? No.

No. Inquiring minds want to know. Come on. It seems like a roll again question. Be honest. That'll be a roll again question. So keep that in mind when we do roll again for this show.

So, Eric, what is your next roll you were going to make? Oh, I don't even know at this point So I know we're We've agreed to go back and rescue this thing Um So I wanna Find if there is A way We can get in without being Detected We need to like purchase some sort of stealth Maybe the nanites can Give us clucking devices Let's be a flat roll Who me? Nope, for ST. This is ST doing the burn on another heart. How many hearts is ST up to? I have six now. That's eight on the dot.

You convey the facts at hand to the nanites. and you can't tell from inside but you know that they have just put your ship in sort of ghost mode dope and your last roll what else do we need we're going back we have quotes we know where the thing is um you haven't investigated the data card oh right that I'll invest you in the data roll against the odds yeah son of a bitch oh hey that's good you better I actually rolled really good that time uh 8 plus 2 is 10 see that's what I told you if you just rolled good you wouldn't have to be worried about nothing yeah Rowan I'll do better next time my bad my bad Yeah, I've been rolling these bronze dice that were sent special to us just for this occasion.

See, those are the ones I was using that rolled once. Those are the ones that you rolled once? Oh no! Those were the ones that you rolled once, so I had to pull up some other ones. It's my fault. Well, all of the dice are Sam's fault, so... You know whose fault they aren't. 1985 games! 1985 games! I knew you were gonna say that.

Um... It is the last thing that you do. You have taken time to explain the chorus. You have taken time to research and talk to the nanites. You are able to access one account before the others are frozen. One account of planetary wealth, sir. Still planetary wealth.

I'm going to roll 3d6. I rolled like a crazy number. Those are my favorite condom numbers.

The account that you are able to access has 120,000 credits in it. It did. Sick. It did. As it is transferred to the heap. you see the lights of ST's eyes just form whatever the dollar sign is in this galaxy.

So is the plan to fly immediately back in sort of this ghost ship mode or are you going to create a plan of attack with your crew? I'm under the impression that this genocide is going to be happening any time now, so my mind hates his APSs. Then what will probably be the last roll of today's episode? episode. ST, you can roll to pilot back as quickly as possible, but your aim is not great as you are not a pilot.

Rio. That's me. A lot has happened. The first thing I want you to do is roll grit. I got an 11.

You will make... You fortify yourself. You block out the voices. You block out the memories. You face down your trouble and say not today. Make a savvy check with the upper hand. Ten. The ship takes off from Halcyon. Exits atmosphere, enters faster than light, has a direct path. you are able to avoid detection as the ghost readout from the nanites masks your frequencies masks your comms masks your presence you enter the atmosphere hours after having left where are you looking to touch down and I'll let you sort of dictate where you would try to touch down uh Rio I guess since we're going in stealthily I would just try to find a good place to hide the ship.

There is a sort of decrepit and abandoned... It is closed. It was a frequented port, but for various reasons, businesses go under. It happens. This is a bay of ports that is closed. There's no longer an operation. and you're able to find a place to dock there unbeknownst to anyone on the planet.

And this is where it's going to get interesting. Upon re-entering atmosphere, Miss Severus' comms perk up as they become sort of in range and they connect to her biometrics. she is currently in recovery she's too damaged her biomechanics, her bioimplants are fighting to recuperate her body so you're on a timeline because the second she gets out of a place where she is too injured to do this. She's heading straight to the corporate hub to lay the kill switch. So next episode, you will operate with a timer.

A real-time timer. When the timer finishes, she will have made it to the hub. Good luck!

The Story