Episode 4 - Surely You’re Replaceable

1. We fly into the darkness and find ♦️5 an Advanced World. They are a species of cyborgs, half-machine, half-rodent-bird. They have miniature humans as pets and walk them around on leashes. Their primary food crop is crocodile fruit - crocodiles that grow on trees. Ratbirdbots! That’s their name. Dr What is responsible for this name.

   • There is a crocodile fruit-related famine here this year. So they’re starting to resort to eating the miniature humans instead. Secretly, it was a faction of tiny humans that caused the crocoblight, so that the other human factions would be eaten.

   • Dr What attempts to cure the blight. It works! Now we just have to wait a year for the new crop. We recovered four ore from our patrons.

   • Surely needs to fly the anti-blight pollen over the crops. It’s a victory!

   • Dr What is going to finish the job by using biotech to uncover the terrorist pets. He does it, but it makes him miserable.

   • They’re friendly! We’ve solved their crisis.

2. We sail into the darkness and find ♣️9 a Super Civilization. These are also cyborgs but they are half cyborg, half light frequency creatures. They can’t hear and they hate everything that can. They make loud shrieky noises, but they don’t know they’re doing it. Their shrieks have annihilated multiple civilizations, by driving people mad. They believe that once they’ve destroyed the universe’s other inhabitants, their synesthesia god will return to them the Song of Colour. The Song of Colour has been lost to them for about 35 years. Billy Zane dubs them the Midnight Shriekers.

   • Hardlight Shields couldn’t withstand their sonic assualt. We took two Damage!

3. We sail into the darkness and find ♥️2 a lifeless world. We successfully collect 19 ore bringing us to 51 in hold.

4. We sail into the darkness and find ♦️8 a black hole. The gravity engine fails and we are flung across spacetime and end up in ♠️6, and away mission that drops us into an alternate past.

   • We find ourselves in an alternate 1960s Britain, where the Beatles were only kind of so-so. Progressive youth culture found a focal instead in the accordion music of so-called ‘rage-mimes’. LSD was used effectively by the military to create psychic super-soldiers.

   • Dr What, against every instinct he has, formulates anti LSD, which he calls DSL, in order to de-psychic-ify these super-soldiers. He does so, weakening the status quo for the rage-mime rebellion.

   • Helen of Troi, Scientifically, synthesizes a far superior drug, to make everybody shut up and chill out. She’s too chilled to log the results.

   • With DSL on the rise and everbody chilled out, Billy Zane uses his engineering prowess to headphones that can actually play the real Beatles, so they can hear how good they are. The resulting correction of the timeline repairs the gravity engine from the time loop, setting us free!

   • Billy Zane and Helen of Troi both rank up.

5. We return to the ♥️A Anomaly. We use the scanners and are able to navigate safely through the anomaly.

6. We return to the ♣️K World Mind. They give us 7 supplies for our diplomatic prowess.

7. We return to Sol. Heroes.

8. We return to ♥️7 a shattered world. Surely attempts to fly through, but we take 1 damage.

9. We sail into the darkness and find ♦️ Crisis Alert, Radiation Storm. Dr. What handily inoculates the crew from the radiation using the scanners to help with early detection.

10. We sail into the darkness and find ♣️3, a primitive world. These are Feline descendants (like humans are ape descendants). They all have pompadors and wear zoot suits and go ‘waaaa’ like James Brown. They choose their ruler via death match karaoke. Billy Zane names them Brown Wah-Wah Cats.

    • Their Crisis is they have no milk. Also, they all have holes in their zoot suits. Their milk-moths have rebelled.

    • Dr What serves these no good moths a knuckle-sammich. He gets his milk. He always gets his milk.

    • Surely delivers milk to the cat president. Or at least he was supposed to. Surely spills the milk and is very embarrassed by this.

    • Billy Zane installs a point-to-point milk teleportation system, so they never have to cry about spilled milk again. They don’t work, so Zane organizes a boring, realistic solution: truckers.

    • We’ve saved these catfolk. They are now our friends.

11. We sail into the darkness and find ♥️6 Hyper Dense Spatial Flux. While in space, the Holodecks break and everyone is bored and pissed off. Inflamed by cheap public healthcare of very high quality, the crew has started knife-fighting each other, using ‘Beat It’ rules. The Michael Jackson estate is issuing a cease and desist over subspace once they find out we’re using the music royalty-free. Some things never change.

    • Surely, being an android is incapable of hearing copyright-breaking law, making them an ideal candidate to rebut the lawsuit. But Surely sucks, so the process server ship fires on us, doing one damage.

    • Surely gets back on the hailing frequency and attempts to explain their position. Instead of reaching a human, they get the automated voice message system. They get along. Surely explains the mistake.

    • Surely woos the Automated system of the process server ship and jacks their AI. She spurns him. Surely is humilated, rejected by a voicemail. This voicemail box is full.

    • The Process Server ship fires on us once more, doing one more point of damage. We turn off the music.

12. We sail into the darkness and find ♠️K an Unearthed Evil. The hard light shields are able to defend against the onslaught.

13. We sail into the darkness and find ♠️A Anomaly. We are able to navigate the anomaly safely and during our trip pick up an Empathy Enhancer inside the anomaly core.

14. We return to ♥️7 Shattered World. Billy Zane is unable to navigate the ship through the debris field. The ship takes 1 damage.

15. We return to sol.

16. We return to ♥️7 Shattered World. Billy Zane is able to navigate the ship safely through the debris field.

17. We sail to the ♦️10 Random Encounter. Away Mission.

    • We come across a Space Whale, not the one what killed Helen’s pa, but a different one. They’re lonely. They attempt to nuzzle the shi, causing many systems to freak out. In fact, they believe the ship might be another space whale and they’ve been alone so long that they’re kind of randy. We’ve only dealt with the first nuzzle; more are on the way.

    • Billy Zane, Pilot, must keep the shit from being knocked into debris by the nuzzling space whale. He does! He ranks up and even collects an ore into the cargo bay.

    • Billy needs to fly the ship in such a way that it is obviously not a space whale. He does so, collecting even more Ore (and Supplies) from the debris cloud in the process.

    • The frusterated space whale responds poorly. DR What must invent a aerosol based anti-aphrodisiac, tailored to space whale anatomy. He barely manages! The embarrassed whale fuels us up for 3 Supplies.

18. We fly into the darkness and find ♣️10 Mass Collision. Between Billy Zane’s engineering prowess, the hard light shields, and good old lady luck, the ship is undamaged.

19. We sail into the darkness and find ♦️4 a peer world. These are an aquatic people. Their cultural hierarchy is based around neckties. This is because this particular planet has all their male creatures; the ladies are on another nearby planet. You wouldn’t have heard of it. Dr What dubs them the Sausagonians.

    • They miss the ladies. It turns out that when they left, they weren’t coming back, and they want to apologize. The ladies didn’t come back because they became trapped by engine failure on the other planet. Its gravity is heavier. The planet with the ladies is close enough that they can see the ladies, so the dudes know all this. They want to apologize for giving them a crappy ship.

    • Dr What begins by punching his way towards a solution, security officer style. He gets the attention of the rowdy males.

    • Helen of Troi begins to counsel them and talk about how they should apologize - like how to do it. Use your feeling words. It works and their leader gives her an ore as a way of thanking her for taking the time.

    • Billy Zane remotely walks the ladies through repairing their ship and enhancing it so it can fly home. Easy-Peasy. Babycakes. Zane gets four ore.

    • We’ve solved their crisis! We are friends!

20. We sail into the darkness and find ♥️3 a primitive world. These aliens are just a cluster of eyeballs floating around. Weird clusters of eyeballs. It’s taboo to make eye contact with them. Every other cluster is made up of lazy eyes, so it’s hard not to make eye contact. Zane names them Blinkonians.

    • Their crisis is that their eyes are all dried out. Their eyedrop guy was just arrested in the arid nebula for crimes of hydration. Their planet is very dry and covered in onions.

    • Billy Zane, the Pilot, flies up into the atmosphere to seed some rain clouds. Success! We get an Ore!

    • Helen of Troi, a scientist, researches a permanent cure for dry eye. She succeeds, finding a small smattering of ore in the machine she used to synthesize the cure.

    • The eyedrop guy shows up, fresh out of dry-jail, and is pissed his customers no longer need him. Dr What has to punch him in his space face. The two beat each other, until everyone around is bored and wanders off.

    • All the same, we are friends now!