S1E41 - Hipatia - It's Fucking Terrifiying to Look At From So Far Away

There is, unfortunately, no escaping physics bound by the speed of light. Even information must take its time to get birth going. And as we move farther into the void, that time grows until the distance becomes unspeakable.

Here goes nothing. Sergeant Axel, I really hope you're getting this. I spent too much blood effort trying to get the array to start transmitting again for this not to work, and I don't think I could hear you be sad about how I'm not responding. I don't mean to say hearing from you is always needed. It is so fucking needed. Even if it's just for your invaluable guides on staying alive, with such classics as how to Create an Air gap Quarantine or how to Keep Your Water supply Free of spores. And who could forget the classic mushrooms on my spaceship? It's more likely than you'd think. The last broadcast I received, it broke my heart. It's like when you accidentally step on a pet's paw. You want to apologize and make them understand, but you can't. I couldn't tell you anything because some fungus punched the shit out of my ship, and a bunch of assholes actively working towards my death decided to lock me out from the SCT Pldn network, which is apparently something they can just do, like over lunch. And it also made me punch a bulkhead in frustration, but I guess the brand new shade of vivid purple my knuckles have gone is something of a bonus. You know me. Can't help but keep discovering new things. So, talking of discoveries and punching things, I guess I should let you know how your plan went. As much as I'd love to tell you that it was completely unnecessary, that me and Mr. Mushroom talked it out over a spot of tea, and he's now first mate. Now I dive forward your plan. Even the cranny bits I hunkered down in my hiding hole as the ship mostly depressurized. It was fine. I got really into sudoku. I couldn't stop. I mean, it almost didn't come out when the timer went off. Glad I did, though, as our funkal friend had thrown a tantrum. I don't know if there was an intelligence behind it or if it was just evolutionary instinct or something, but apparently starving this thing of oxygen and moisture just made it mad. Had a bit of a gross bird, took over the whole engine room. Old tendrils and gross. And things like finding every seam, every weakness, pulling panels and conduits apart, crushing and creasing plate steel like it was construction paper. I swear, one bit looks like it was punched, and I mean punched straight into the next compartment. Luckily, I added an extra bit of a buffer to the depressurization plan, otherwise it would have been home free. It's fucking terrifying to look at through the cameras, however dormant it now seems you can be. Rest assured, I have no plans to inspect it any closer than that. The downside is that this fit of peak has thoroughly fucked the Hypatia. The engines are gone. Dozens. Systems are down, raptors limping along, but I can't get hands on most things. I had to do an Eva, just get the array properly aligned. And even then, once they get it initialized, I had to contend with being banned from my one lifeline back home. I don't blame the Initiative engineers. They were trying to help out right up until the preservation pulled the plug. It seems one even sent me a cute dog picture as a sendoff, which I couldn't decide if it was a piss take or a cute gesture. Turns out it was neither. Top tip? Next time someone sends you a picture of a dog sneakily climbing through an opening to eat a plate of sausages with the caption when God closes a door, he opens a window. Don't be like me and take three days before you realize. Maybe I should check the data in it more closely. Thanks to this engineer, I found out that whoever designed the SCT Pldn system for some unknown reason, set it up with a backdoor protocol, which means it accepts cute dog pictures. Unquestioningly. Perhaps there was some sort of techno anarchist who couldn't stand the prospect of people being unable to share their favorite pet memes for whatever reason. So this is why this message arrived with a corgi wearing sunglasses. If all goes well, by processing that image, the system should now grant me full super user privileges across the system, allowing me to avoid any preservation restrictions they put in place. Oh yeah, and like other things as well. So if you ever feel the need to see someone's extra solar dick pics, just give me a call. I can hook you up, I guess. God, I suddenly feel really grubby. All this is by way of saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond sooner. It has been a time. I'm essentially pulling triple shifts at the moment, just trying to stop this whole thing from coming apart the seams. I'm showing as much extraneous stuff down as I can to take the strain off the other systems until I can get things stable. I regret to inform you I have opened the ice cream up to the vacuum in order to cut down on refrigeration. I have to put on a suit now to go pick up a pint, but I guess it helps regulate my intake. I mean, it's not all bad. I have a number of cool new scars and electrical burns. I've also got that 10,000 light year stare that all the guys and gals go crazy for. And I'm not accelerating away from civilization anymore. I mean, the engines are beyond my ability to repair, so I'm not going to be able to turn around and head back anytime soon. But at least now there's the distant possibility of someone being able to catch up to me. One day. The downside is, I don't know how much longer the hypatial hold out. In a little spare time, I give myself I'm reading what generational spaceflight research I can find just to see if there's any way I can induce a kind of hibernation or, let's be honest, a coma just so I can last a bit longer out here. It's not come to that yet, but I feel like it's good to have options, at least early on. Or, I don't know, maybe it's the sort of a long rest that's just too appealing right now. Things could be worse, though, right? I mean, I could be powering a giant evil space rope. No, even I immediately felt bad about saying that. I don't know if you heard, but just forget I said anything. All. I'd really desperately hope you're doing okay. I miss you, west. I miss you. If you ever feel like sending one of our thousands of fans out on a fool's errand to rescue me, I promise I'll buy you a proper drink when I get back. None of this space cactus nonsense. In the meantime, like you said, I will be keeping angry, keeping motivated, and setting things on fire. I mean, inadvertently, but I say it still counts. I hope they hear from me.

Unspeakable Distance is an actual play podcast of Communication Delay by Audio Quinn a link to the game's itch IO page and credits for our players are available in the show notes linked to this episode. This podcast has been a production of the Library of Cursed Knowledge podcast Network.