Omega Station Part 1

Hey everyone, it's Joe. I hope you're enjoying your summer and if you're south of the equator, I hope you're enjoying your winter. We are coming back to the public feed in October and to the Patreon feed in September. And until then, we're going to be rolling some things out onto the public feed that we think you guys will enjoy. Finlay and myself just got back from Chicago, where we did our very first Midnight Burger live shows. And it was a lot of fun and it was very stressful and it was hot. It was very hot in Chicago. But we had a great time. We got to meet a lot of the fans. The fans had a great time. It was a great experience. So we're going to be bringing the one of the recorded nights. We're going to be bringing to the public feed next month. And one of the other things we're going to be bringing to the public feed is Omega Station. Omega Station is a three part mini series. And it was the first thing that we, as a team, ever did together, myself and the cast of Midnight Burger. It's a three part sci-fi mini series. And we made it quite some time ago, but I think it still holds up. I think it's a really nice little story. So I'm going to play the first episode of that for you today. And I hope you like it and look out for part two and three coming up very soon here this summer. So once again Midnight Burger coming back in October on the public feed and September on the Patreon feed. And we're really excited about season five. We're starting to put it together right now. And I think it's going to be a barn burner of a season. I'm pretty excited about it. All right. So once again, this is the first episode of the very first thing we did together called Omega Station. This is Iris Actual conducting broadcast, broadcast 88.3 to Omega Station. Actual, do you copy? This is Iris Actual conducting broadcast 88.3. Do you copy? Yes, yes. Hello. I can hear you. Omega Actual, can you hear me? Yes, yes, I can. I'm sorry. Can you officially confirm? Sorry, sorry. This is Lars Laskham at Omega Actual. I'm confirming broadcast 88. 88.3. Yes, thank you. It's working. I can't believe it. Lieutenant, we are talking with you in real time. This is amazing. Oh my God. I, I, hello. Take your time. This is weird. You haven't had a conversation for 16 months. It's going to feel weird. Yeah, why is that? The brain is like a muscle. It can atrophy. I was talking just not to people. I bet. Let me guess, you anthropomorphized something. You gave something a name and started talking to it? The Air Scrubber Panel. Uh-huh. What did you name the Air Scrubber Panel, Lieutenant? Uh, Heronimus. Wow. That's a name. I took an art history class in undergrad. The name stuck with me. Okay. Good. It's good to have a friend. We actually hate each other, the Air Scrubber and I. I'm glad you finally showed up. Are you getting my instrument readouts and all that? Oh yes. Omega Station, you are lighting up our readouts like a Christmas tree. Well, I'll be damned. This is huge. It's epic. Do you need me to check anything on my end? Well, just to paint you a picture, there are about nine scientists running around behind me checking the data right now and they ask that you just keep talking. Okay. Um, okay. How about a standard status report, just like you normally would? Got it. Got it. Okay. This is Lieutenant Lars Laskham. I am reporting from Omega Station. This is Mission Day 511. 511. A nitrogen reactor is online and backup cells are charged to capacity. No fluctuations in temperature. Agridome is in working order, as far as I can tell. As I've stated in previous reports, the station rations have been depleted and now I subsist solely on the dome. So I've gone vegan. My Aunt Melanie would be so proud. Uh, oh, right. Uh, so one of the things that I've been told to monitor is any structural drift. As of today, I have not recorded any structural drift from the Custos. So I am still in no danger of waking up tomorrow in the middle of Tamba Reggio. Quick sidebar. One of our scientists was going over your reports and he loses his mind every time you call them the Custos. No kidding. It's hilarious. Has he seen the photos in my data packages? How is that not a mountain range? Okay. Let me recount the conversation I've had with him like 10 times. He says that yes, they may look like mountains from your perspective, but the Custo Rupees is technically a sharp drop from a flat plane. A sharp drop from a flat plane that is the size of the Appalachian Mountains. I'm calling them the Custos. Okay, hang on. Okay. So now the nine scientists behind me have turned into about 50. Hang on. 50. I feel so important. You should. Until there's another major scientific breakthrough, you are the most important test subject in history. I never thought of myself as a test subject before. That kind of takes the steam out of it for me. I'm sorry. You are so much more than a mouse and a wheel for us. I promise. I think that's a compliment. I'll take it. Okay. They're talking to me now. Are you experiencing any lag? No, it's like you're in the next room. It's incredible. That's so great. So who am I talking to? This transmission is encoded, but what you are saying gets sent to the control room. So say hi to the control room. I meant, what's your name? Right. Right. Sorry. I'm Jill Menaker. I'm the mission liaison. Hi, Jill. What do you do there? So I'm actually not one of the mission scientists. I basically relay messages to you from the project team. Why don't they tell me themselves? There's a lot of reasons for that. For now, let's just say that this project is classified and there's a lot of hush hush information involved. I noticed that in the pre-broadcast packet. So you are talking to me from the other side of the solar system in real time, but you can't tell me how in a nutshell. Yes. Okay. Okay. And now because of that question, I've got the government liaison yapping at me. Okay. He's telling me to reiterate to you that these broadcasts are classified top secret and you cannot discuss. Yes, I cannot discuss these broadcasts in my daily reports to mission control. Yes. This project is outside of mission control. It's very important to maintain that. Servant of Two Masters is a play from the 16th century by Carlo Goldoni. Okay. Where are we going with this, Lieutenant? When it said in my mission briefing that every day I'm supposed to have these conversations with you. And then that same day send a daily report to NASA without mentioning anything about said conversations. I said to Hieronymus that I feel like a servant of two masters. And I wondered where that phrase came from. Turns out Carlo Goldoni 16th century, a servant of two masters. It was a comedy. Is this a comedy? You're kind of off on a tangent right now, Lieutenant. I won't tell a soul. I promise. Thank you. But tell me, who's the other master? Who am I talking to right now, organizationally speaking? The Department of Defense. Really? This is a DOD project. All of NASA is a DOD project, Lars. They just give the Rockets a different paint job. So not really a servant of two masters. Not a comedy then. Who knows? All of Shakespeare's comedies ended in marriage, so play your cards, right? I'll keep your secret, but in return, I will continue to call them the Cousteaux and feel just fine about it. Deal. So what do we do now, Jill? Well, in true scientific fashion, now that we've got something working, we're going to see how much effort it takes to break it. Of course. We're going to send you a massive data packet right now just to see how much data we can transfer. It's probably going to cut the feed, so be prepared. When it cuts, we'll resume tomorrow with broadcast number 89. Okay. Well, it was nice to meet you, Jill. You too, Lieutenant. Barring a solar flare, I'll be speaking with you tomorrow at the same time. Looking forward to it. And sending packet in three, two... This is Iris Actual conducting broadcast 93.7. Do you read Omega Station? Affirmative Iris Actual. This is Omega Actual. I read you loud and clear. Hello, Lieutenant. Hey, Jill. How are things on everyone's favorite non-planet planet? The sun is shining, small though it may be, and the sky is blue. How are things on Earth? Wait, the sky is blue there? It is. Very blue. The atmosphere here scatters light the same way Earth does. That's wild. That's surprisingly familiar. I have to resist the urge to go for a walk outside sometimes. Mow the lawn, throw the Frisbee to the dog. Oh, why not? It's a balmy 343 below zero outside today. Awesome. How's your tan coming? So great. I'm really bronzing. So let me ask you something. Sure. This isn't the first time you've had a very basic question about Pluto. How does someone on a Pluto project know nothing about Pluto? Kind of weird, huh? I've been thinking about our first conversation a lot, mainly because there's not much else to think about here other than the vast ocean of frozen nitrogen I'm perched on the edge of. So boring. So be honest, are you faking it just to keep me talking or what? Well, okay, here comes the government liaison again. I'm waving him off. As I said, there's a lot I can't tell you about this communication device we're using, but what I can tell you is the following. For someone to use this system on my end, you have to be in something called the bubble. They call it that because it's shaped like a giant bubble because there are no creatives on this team. Only the person in the bubble can talk to you and the project team in their infinite wisdom decided there would be one person and one person only in the bubble who delivers messages from them to you. That's odd. They tell me they're working on changing that, but I don't know the timeline. Well, it made you the lucky winner. Did you answer an ad or something? I was borrowed. What do you mean? I was borrowed from another department. They approached your department and said, Hey, do you have a random lady laying around? Uh, okay. Well, I'm going to level with you because that's my style. They wanted me to ease you into it. But now that I'm here in this bubble and they're not, I'm going to go ahead and apologize rather than ask permission. Okay, level with me. I'm a psychologist with the DoD. They wanted a mental health professional to be the point person that speaks with you. In case I'm crazy, I don't think you're crazy. They thought I might be though. Yes. I can understand that. I told them you would. How did you know I wouldn't be crazy? Oh, wait. You've read my Psychoval then. Yes. So you know more about me than I probably do. Not really. What's your favorite movie? Wings of Desire. What did you do for the DoD? I'm a specialist in come on. You're the one who wanted to level with me. Deep psychological trauma. Wow. That sounds like the big guns. You'll see, I never had a nickname at Annapolis. The big guns would have been a great one. I'm actually surprised it took them this long to throw a shrink at me. Although I guess the talking cure wouldn't really work with a four hour delay. I think you're doing surprisingly well. No, you don't. I do. You're doing something impossible right now. You're 500 plus days into a mission on a planet that's as far away from Earth as you can possibly get. Not to mention I'm doing it all by myself. Yes. Well, no one was expecting that part. What were you expecting? You launched a colony payload and a rocket full of astronauts to the edge of the solar system. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think it'd be a ride of the magic school bus? Well, considering all that's happened, I think you're doing very well. You said surprisingly well. It was actually the surprisingly part I was taking issue with. If you've read my PsychoVel, you're probably not surprised at all, are you? No. You're performing exactly as I expected you to. You're going to have to forgive me if I feel a little uncomfortable now. I know. Like I said, they wanted me to ease you into it, but I could tell you smelled a rat somewhere. I appreciate your honesty. So, DoD fast-tracked an experimental communication system because they thought I might need some therapy sessions? No, the new system was the plan all along. The decision to beam a therapist into your life was made later. Honestly, though, can you blame them? What you've endured out there? What I've endured out here is better than what I was expecting. Tell me what you mean by that. Okay, that was very shrinky. What you just said. I'm imagining you and a cardigan with a notepad. They make us wear jumpsuits here, actually, and they are not flattering. I'm going to lobby for a cardigan. But can you answer my question now that you've deflected it with humor? We were the fourth rocket. We were the Hail Mary Pass. Mars and Salinas, Europa, and us. They were developing four launches at the same time. You think they poured all their resources into the long shot? You blame NASA for what happened? Come on. Two die from oxygen depletion, two more die from toxic shock after touchdown. Did they have the same problem with the Mars mission? You had several times further than the Mars mission. The president said four colonies. NASA gave them four launches. A lot of people said the fourth launch should have been Titan. You're trying to provoke me now. I am. Well, it has been 500 and something days, so I have had some time to think. The first three all have water. Everyone was saying that Titan had a subsurface ocean, but I'm betting they somehow found out that it didn't. And without water, Titan is just a big ball of hazardous chemicals. So what's the next stop for a drink of water? You seem to have it all figured out. I'll be honest. The first 100 days, I was pretty angry, but it's been a while. Where did you bury the others? The first two we jettisoned in space. That was their request. The second two, Donald and Amelia, you can't bury anything out here. The ground doesn't break. I built two cairns by the solar field. They're out there. We've seen them on the satellite images. It's not a bad view. Sun comes up over the red shoe in the morning. It's nice. Did you know them well? No. Not really. We made a pact. A pact? What do you mean? After we cleared orbit and we realized that part didn't kill us, we knew we were in for a long haul. The other ways of dying came into focus. Systems malfunction, trajectory miscalculation, Neptune. Neptune, you thought an entire planet was out to get you? Neptune's a gravity wall. There was a chance the math was wrong and it was going to suck us in. And then after all that, we were for sure going to die trying to land. We decided not to get too attached to each other. Well, that's literally the opposite of normal human behavior. Yeah, I think we do that. Most people wouldn't be able to resist. Remember that cutting to the chase thing that we did? Can we do that again? Sure. It's not a surprise at all that we didn't make any connections with each other, is it? No. Because we were all in the O classification. Yes. And what is the O classification? It's a psychological profile that you weren't supposed to know about. Well, we did. My team, the other teams we all knew. How? Major Charlie Lamb. From the Enceladus team? Before they split us off when we were all housed in Houston, Major Lamb thought it would be a hoot and a half to hack the servers and dig up the psychological classifications. So all 20 of us drank contraband rum and took turns trying to guess which classification we were in as the night dragged on. The five of us came to the grim realization that we were on the team nobody wanted to be on. Omega Station. The longest trip, the least chance of success, the suicide mission. We were slow to create emotional connections, preferred working independently, weren't entirely terrified by the prospect of dying cold and alone in space. I don't think that third one is a thing. How are the other colonies doing, by the way? Mars is having water issues. Enceladus has more water than they know what to do with. The geysers are spraying down everything and then freezing, so they're having equipment problems. Europa? We haven't heard anything from Europa. At all? A few months back, they were complaining of communication issues and then they just went dark. What about the orbiter? We had lost contact with the orbiter before they attempted landing. They knew we wouldn't be able to see them. Now we can't see them and can't hear them. They've gone completely dark. I am afraid so. Yes. What's the plan with that? The plan with that is to trust that someone else has a plan for that. This isn't the Europa team. This is this team. The top secret team that no one can know about. Correct. They should talk to Svi. They should talk to what? Svi. He's on the Enceladus team. That's a person's name. He's Polish. The names are weird. He's the comms specialist. He's a genius. You should give him a call. I'm sure they've already thought of that. I'm sure they're doing everything they can. Wait a minute. Why are you using this contraption to talk to me and not the station you've lost contact with? I can't tell you that, Lars. Not just because I have no idea how any of this works, but because... look. It's the military. It's top secret. I'm sure you understand. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Look, if anyone can fix it, it's him. Let me know if they make contact again, okay? Of course. And how are things there? Things here? You get the news. I'm sure you know. I get the NASA news. It's not the same thing. I'm sure you're being properly briefed by NASA. Is there a vaccine yet? If there was a vaccine, I'm betting NASA would put it in their updates. Have they got it under control at least? When I lifted off, there was a quarantine around the entire Seattle area. That was, what, 600 days ago? Can you do me a favor? Sure. Can you not talk to me as if I'm authorized to tell you anything more than what NASA's telling you? Can you not put me in that position? Sure. I guess. Sorry. This is a difficult needle to thread for me. For lack of a better word, I'm your doctor. And I need honest lines of communication between us, but there are also things that I am literally not allowed to talk to you about. I understand. Um, how are you doing with everything? Oh, um, I mean, I can't really tell you that either, but I'm okay. I'm doing okay. You've really bumped up against a barrier here, haven't we? Yes. It's refreshing though. I'm used to the barriers being psychological. Well, thank you for telling me what you can about Europa. They really should talk to Zvi on Gamma Station. If there's anyone who can shed some light, it's him. I'm sure they thought of that already, but I will relay the message. Thanks. I'm going to send this packet now. Okay. In three, two. If you're a fan of true crime, horror, or creepy encounters, you've got to listen to disturbed true horror stories. Each episode shares the terrifying experiences of real people retold by professional actors. I've been down on his hand and he pulled back, but he pushed the knife a little harder against my sweatshirt. I began to hear the breathing and growling of what could only come from a monster. Find disturbed true horror stories wherever you enjoy your podcasts. So I have a bone to pick with you. What's that? The death team is very busy, Lieutenant. They are. And I had to really twist some arms down there to get them to create that Scrabble game. Okay. The Scrabble game that we are currently playing across 3.2 billion miles. That's the one. Yes. You have not made a move for a week. Let me just say, you'd think across the wide expanse of 3.2 billion miles that there would be more vowels. That's a terrible excuse. Vowels are important. Without vowels, English has a system failure. You're not allowed to fly through the cosmos and land on a distant planet, only to be undone by the lack of an A-tile. Okay, fine. I'll get to it. But you did say that you would bring Scrabble and a pizza and wow. They're still working on the pizza. Mozzarella is very hard to beam through space. Your quick sidebar. Before I left, I was at a pizza place and there was a cheeseless pizza on the menu. And then shortly after that, a pandemic was sweeping the globe. You see what happens? I will admit that a cheeseless pizza is definitely against God's plan and is indicative of a society worthy of His wrath. But I don't think it's virus related. I'll keep working on it. So what is the secret brain doctor reason you're having me play Scrabble with you? Do you see me as that calculating? Am I wrong? I mean, you're not totally wrong, but you're kind of wrong. I don't think that this game of Scrabble we're playing is going to lay bare all your secrets or something. It's a way of creating some normalcy. Sure, normalcy. I get my food from a space farm. Let's get normal, everybody. See, this is the schizoid problem. You think you are impervious to human being things and have no reason to participate in them, but in the end, you are still a human being. The what problem? The schizoid problem. What is that? The problem here is that I talk and things come out that shouldn't. This is why I don't really believe in the talking cure, not because it doesn't work for patients, but because eventually I'm going to say something I shouldn't, you know, law of averages. The schizoid problem is my problem. Schizoid personality disorder. Welcome to your diagnosis, Lieutenant. Sorry, I didn't mean for that to come out. I read my entire top secret profile. It didn't mention anything about a personality disorder. That was deliberate. How so? Liability. That's my theory anyway. Liability. They didn't want it to look like they had launched a crazy person into space? Not just you. Several people on the final teams had disorders of one kind or another. That com specialist you mentioned the other day with a funny name, Svi, he's on the autism spectrum, but yes, to avoid it looking like they launched rockets full of crazies into the great beyond, they removed all diagnoses from the psych profiles. Were they really that hard up for people willing to take this trip? No. On the contrary, people with certain disorders and conditions turn out to be incredibly effective in the right situation. CEOs of major corporations, 20% of them are bona fide psychopaths. Somebody should maybe address that. Anyway, don't freak out. Everyone on the Omega team had the same disorder as you. Schizoid personality disorder. Yes. Okay. Tell me about myself. Should we? How about we forget I ever said anything? Well, right now it's more interesting than the Scrabble game, so I'm afraid you're painted into a corner. See, I was trying so hard to be professional. You weren't, actually, at all. Which I found to be deliberate, by the way. A lack of professionalism to get me to loosen up and relax. A game of Scrabble to establish a sense of normalcy. I also see this little slip up of yours to be deliberate, too. I think you just quote unquote accidentally let my diagnosis slip on purpose. I think your behavior this entire time, since we started this little secret science experiment, has been a fairly deliberate means to an end, though I'm not sure what your goal is in doing so. Okay. Well, my goal was to get you to say something like that. Just now. The conventions of human interaction. The polite little lies that slip back and forth between people in their polite interactions. You're uninterested in those things, aren't you? I suppose. A lack of interest in social relationships. A tendency towards solitude. Detachment. Apathy. A lack of intimate attachments. Possessing a rich and elaborate internal fantasy world. These are the hallmarks of Schizoid personality disorder. I don't know about the fantasy world. You named your airscrever, Heronimus, and have daily conversations with it. Noted? People don't like being diagnosed sometimes. They feel it puts them in a box. Sometimes, after a diagnosis, people will deliberately act contrary to it just to, you know, stick it to the man. I needed you to come to the realization yourself, which I believe you have. I can't really say it's rocking my world. I know. You've probably known all this about yourself for a long time, but I needed us to get here together. Okay. Well, here we are. What was the point? I usually say we should be Freudian about diagnoses. To name it is to claim it. Naming it takes away its power. I don't think we should do that here. Why is that? Because it is my humble professional opinion that the disorder that makes you a bit of a cold fish on earth is the number one reason why you haven't decided to take a walk outside without your helmet. I believe that the solitude you're experiencing right now would have driven the average person crazy about six months ago. Your disorder right now is offering you just as much protection as your radiation shielding. Okay. Lieutenant, are you still there? This has been an illuminating conversation. I'm glad. It seems to me that a top secret project geared towards having illuminating conversations with me is a waste of resources considering there's a global health crisis on earth. The higher ups don't see it that way. And I'm having a problem with that. I'm having a hard time seeing what the point of all this is. How much of this project's money could be rerouted somewhere else? Money? That's hilarious. What? I haven't heard the word money for a year, maybe a year and a half. What do you mean? Jill? I'm going to assume the silence is because you're weighing what to tell me and what not to tell me. So let me tell you something. I haven't heard from NASA for two weeks. Do you understand how rare that is? I would get daily responses from them. Now nothing. You were my only contact on the ground and we're spending time talking about what, my mommy issues or whatever? NASA's got about 50 different ways to respond to me and they're using none of them. And since you're not telling me anything, I can only assume that something very bad is happening. Jill, I'm asking you to help me. There's... hang on. What's going on? Remember the bubble I told you about? The bubble you sit in when you talk to me? Yes. It locks from the inside, I discovered. And you just locked it? Yes. Because you're about to tell me something you're not supposed to? Yes. Okay. The Pacific Ocean is unusable. What do you mean it's unusable? We can't access any ports. They're all infected. The entire Pacific? Yes. I definitely was not getting that information. It started about two weeks after your launch. It happened too fast to lock it down. The West Coast was infected and everyone was leaving the cities. We fell back to the Mississippi and we tried to hold it there. Tried? There's a military blockade around Chicago now. No one can leave. A few people have been shot trying to sneak out. Christ. So when you say money to me, it sounds... it's nostalgic. There's a rationing center where people get their food for the week. Two bags per person per week. You're probably eating better than most right now. They were just going to leave me in the dark on this? Lars, I don't think there's a they anymore. I think every resource is being devoted to keeping people alive on Earth. I think NASA just... Walked away? Lars, your entire atmosphere consists of nitrogen. And it is possible that you are in less danger now than we are. How much of the world is left? East of the Mississippi, minus Chicago. West Africa, Germany. Siberia, Greenland, New Zealand. How many people are dead? We have no idea. Oh my god. I'm completely on my own out here. I'm still here. Why has NASA walked away and you haven't? Honestly, we're a small top secret military base in the middle of nowhere. I think they may have just forgotten about us. Fuck. I'm sorry, but you have to understand what it's like here. Hang on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hang on. What is it? Well, it looks like they're going to override the lock. There's not much time. Let me talk to someone there. No, just listen. The reason why this project is important is because you are important. You, Mars, Enceladus, Europa, you have to stay alive. You have to because you may be all that's left. This is, it's an extinction. Tell me that you understand. I understand. They're going to open the door soon. Can you do me a favor? What? Can you tell me something nice about Pluto? What's it like there? Something nice. Something nice? Yes, please. Uh, something nice. Uh, there's three moons. Really? There's actually five, but I can only see three. Sometimes they're all on the moon. Sometimes they're all in the sky at the same time. That's nice. The biggest one is Chiron. It's massive. It takes my whole fist to block it out in the sky. It's gray with a dark brown spot on it, like someone spilled coffee. Three moons sounds like pretty good company. I wish I could see it. I'll try and take a picture for next time. Next time. They're opening the door. I don't think they'll let me talk to you again. I wasn't supposed to do this. I'll figure something out. Look, look, just promise me. Jill? Jill? The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish.