gopher://cosmic.voyage Messages from the human stellar diaspora kensanata@cosmic.voyage (kensanata) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Hoffnung/002a.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Hoffnung/002a.txt Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:53:54 GMT kensanata@cosmic.voyage (kensanata) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Hoffnung/002.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Hoffnung/002.txt Thu, 29 Nov 2018 21:31:14 GMT timotheus@cosmic.voyage (timotheus) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Garnet Star/001.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Garnet Star/001.txt Fri, 30 Nov 2018 05:48:27 GMT alexis@cosmic.voyage (alexis) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Voortrekker/3-listen-im-really-sorry-but.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Voortrekker/3-listen-im-really-sorry-but.txt Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:09:23 GMT anine To: sam (Sameen Lee) To: anine (Amelia Nine) Delivered-To: Sameen Lee Received: from relay4.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov by mta2.recoveryinstitute.org with ESMTPS id p3a290c7yy9059v3 for Received: from relay3.qec3.ganymede.earthsys.gov by relay4.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov Received: from host12.qechat.earthsys.gov by relay3.qec3.ganymede.earthsys.gov Date-Local: 19 Mar 2419 10:01:32.443 +0000 Date: 19 Mar 2419 10:01:39.08 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8" Subject: Chat Log sam <-> anine [8:41] sam: you there? anine: [Away: Tuesday: biweekly directorate review] [8:44] sam: FUCK YOUR MEETING THIS IS IMPORTANT [8:46] anine: yeah i know, it took me a minute to wind it up and get out sam: look i don't care just whyt he FUCK did you not TELL ME [8:47] anine: listen. i'm really sorry but there's something very wrong anine: she was right, we got SCARS updates through most of the descent anine: and they don't make any sense anine: look, give me a minute [8:49] sam: well? [anine Quit: sec] sam: FUCK [8:54] [anine Join: back] anine: okay, i'm off the work network. anine: i shouldn't be telling you anything right now. anine: can i trust you? sam: thats a hell of a question from you right now [8:55] anine: i know, i'm sorry, okay? but this could be my job, or anine: look, forget it, you deserve to know. i shouldve told you already. sam: TOO FUCKING RIGHT. anine: i mean i know you and she broke it off but all the same. sam: who told you we broke it off sam: we had one fight sam: ONE FIGHT> [8:56] anine: okay okay let me get to the point i can't sit in this stall all day anine: but before i do that anine: i really am sorry, i should've trusted you, can you forgive me? [8:58] sam: not right now. [8:59] anine: fair enough. [9:00] anine: so like i said, something is very wrong with voortrekker and that planet. the scars data DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE. she said the pilot said something hit them that they didn't see? anine: their radar says they saw it. they tracked it all the way in from a half million kilometers out. it wasn't even moving that fast. [9:01] anine: they got lerts about it too. sscars event log shows initial proximity alert, then nine minutes later possible collision warning, then impact alarms nine minutes after that, thirty secondds alter the impact event. anine: alerts* anine: seconds* sam: what [9:02] anine: there had to be alarms going off all over main control, there is nO WAY they could not have known they were in danger, and even if they didn't sam: ok but they were in manual by then right anine: no anine: the nav systems were still running in program auto, theyd idn't go manual until after the hit anine: the ship should've taken ITSELF out of the way, they had to go out of their way to override it [9:03] anine: and SCARS doesn't show them doing it anine: and it would anine: that's what we don't understand, even if someone went crazy and saotasged the ship why do all that and not just disable the whole sender, we'd think it was lost or something then anine: sabotaged* [9:04] anine: so none of this makes any sense [9:05] sam: i guess not [9:06] anine: and then there's this weird stuff she sent sam: you can say her fucking name, okay? sam: it's been 25 years not like i'm still going to be mad anine: okay okaty anine: fine anine: this weird stuff KIT sent sam: thank you. go on [9:07] anine: i mean this disease she's talking about, that doesn't make sense either anine: nothing works like that, it's not even biomechanically plausible sam: she's a xenobiologist, you know better than her? anine: ok fine but we have those too and they say i'ts bullshit anine: and that last part anine: i had to look up muscular hydrostats sam: tentacles anine: yeah [9:08] sam: she says she shas four fo them instead of legs now anine: right anine: talk about bullshit, there is no way anine: i asked our people here anine: i called the xeno institute and asked people theret o anine: every one fo them said there is no way in any world that a human body can have tentacles [9:09] anine: something about hydrostatic presusre and circulation and sam: you're just saying words anine: i dont pretend to understand it but come on do you really think this makes any kind of sense anine: i don't know what's going on out there but it has to be some kind of mental thing sam: don't you dare sam: don't you FUCKING DARE [9:10] sam: i knew you'd do this as soon as i sent it to you sam: i don' tknow what's going on out there either sam: but you knew kit as well as i did sam: better anine: look i know i'm not sayingit's her FAULT sam: YOU FUCKING ARE sam: "some kind of mental thing [9:11] sam: you think she went stir crazy out there and did something to crash the ship and now she's making up crazy stuff sam: you probably thinks he killed the people whog ot sicka dn died anine: yeah about that sam: oh whAT THE FUCK anine: we're pretty sure they're not dead [9:13] sam: what [9:14] anine: you know they all had implanted biomonitors right? anine: all the expedition crews do, those are big ships and people can get lost or hurt and not be able to call for help sam: ok and sam: oh bullshit [9:15] anine: we get telemetry packet sfrom the ship on those anine: most of the trackers are still showing active anine: not the people who died in the crash, the ones she said got sick anine: 247 out of 313 right now anine: slow pulse, slow respiration, almost no brain activty [9:16] anine: they're comatose but alive anine: ti's the other ones that really worry us anine: they're NOT online anine: but the last signals we got were anine: i mean they don't make sense [9:17] sam: you are saying that a lot sam: it's your job to fucking make it make sense anine: i know, okay? i know that anine: were trying, we were going to cancel anyway for a call with xeno institute before i heard from you sam: but you werne't going to tell me anything? [9:19] anine: look i'm sorry okay i don't know anine: i don't know what to do anine: were probably going to have to call the garison and that's scary anine: something went wrong with the gliese mission i dont knwo but we keep getting stuff anine: i think theyre building a ship over in the navy dock, i cant see much from the shuttle but a lto of new work [9:20] anine: im just really scared right now everything is going wrong and earth is probably going to get involved anine: i didnt know what to do and i fucked it up anine: im so sorry i shouldve said something i just couldnt think im sorry [9:23] anine: please say something sam: sorry im crygn [9:24] sam: crying* sam: im sorry i got so mad just sam: whatever else is going on she's alive sam: i was sure she was dead anine: we dont know she's not anine: im sorry [9:25] anine: we dont have her tracker shes one of the ones we lost [9:26] sam: what does that mean anine: i dont know anine: look whatever i find out ill get it tok you ok anine: ill tell you anine: ill make sure you know [9:27] sam: look if the ganymede garrison and earth are getting involved sam: i mean i do WANT to know sam: but i want you to stay sfae too sam: saef* sam: SAFE fuck [9:29] anine: i miss her too [9:30] sam: look well figure it out ok? sam: when do you rotate out next anine: end of next week sam: ok sam: come see me then we'll talk it over anine: god and sleep on that lumpy couch of yours? anine: my bakck was killing me for a week [9:31] sam: not what i had in mind anine: oh anine: well [9:32] sam: look dry your eyes and go back to work sam: you dont want people looking at you funny right now anine: youre right anine: ok [9:33] anine: i'll come see you and we'll figure this out. sam: right sam: till then you take care, dont do anything stupid anine: me? [anine: Quit: bye] [sam: Quit: ] ]]> alexis@cosmic.voyage (alexis) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Voortrekker/2-were-you-going-to-tell-me.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Voortrekker/2-were-you-going-to-tell-me.txt Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:09:20 GMT To: Amelia Nine Delivered-To: Amelia Nine Received: from relay6.qec3.ganymede.earthsys.gov by mta2.expeditionsupport.gov with ESMTPS id 11FEBBA088B for Received: from relay8.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov by relay6.qec3.ganymede.earthsys.gov Received: from mta1.recoveryinstitute.org by relay2.local.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov Date-Local: 19 Mar 2419 07:38:03.932 +0000 Date: 19 Mar 2419 07:38:11.45 +0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart-alternative; boundary="_000_14175761891450__" Subject: Were you going to tell me? --_000_14175761891450__ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8" goddamnit lia were you even going to tell me there was a chance? --_000_14175761891450__ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 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gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Voortrekker/1-made-it.txt Thu, 29 Nov 2018 02:58:27 GMT To: sam Delivered-To: sam Received: from relay4.qec2.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov by mta3.recoveryinstitute.org with ESMTPS id x124so177123a067 for Received: from relay1.qec7.ganymede.earthsys.gov by relay4.qec2.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov Received: from qec4.helio.earthsys.gov by relay1.qec7.ganymede.earthsys.gov Received: from qec.sv14417 by qec4.helio.earthsys.gov Date-Local: 17 Mar 2419 19:33:47 +0000 Date: 19 Mar 2419 04:54:32.119 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8" Subject: Made it... God, Sam, how I wish you were here. Maybe you could help me. You were always the best of company. None of us ever really expected to find anything complicated. Proks, maybe, if we were very lucky. More likely just smelly slurry that might have been something someday if we hadn't showed up first. But this? No. Never in a million years. Certainly not in twenty-five. Sorry. I know I'm not making sense out of this. I'll try again. They probably already have some of it from SCARS, but let me tell it to you my own way. What I heard, the midcourse corrections had us coming into the system weird. Not so weird we couldn't make orbit, but enough that we had to correct so the landing boats could reach Site One and back. Partway through the correction, we hit something. Or something hit us - I talked with one of the pilots before he died, he told me they didn't catch it on radar and that shouldn't have been possible, not with the damage it did. Had the idea it must've been directed, somehow. I don't know if that makes sense, but either way, it holed us. Holed us bad, and with the thrusters still firing. If they hadn't been, the fuel system would've been evacuated - we might've stayed up. But the blast gave us a vector we couldn't overcome on OMS thrust, and of course we'd exhausted the primaries. It wasn't a surprise when we hit the atmosphere. The surprise was that anyone walked away from the impact site. Just under three hundred of us. Doesn't sound like much of a miracle, but believe me, we were happy to take it until a better one came along. Wasn't even that bad a landing site, for all we didn't get to choose much - rolling sandy plains, some large body of water within eyeshot, maybe an hour's leisurely walk. We could do something with the place, once we got our feet under us. We didn't worry about the sickness at first. Barely even noticed it - most of us were more or less beat up, and not everyone had made it to a crash couch in time. We were all working thirty-hour days between broken bones and soft tissue trauma, inventorying what we had left by way of supplies, getting the worst toxic leaks from the wreck under control, and trying to jury-rig enough of a hab to keep the weather off - we hit smack in the northern temperate zone, and the climate isn't too bad, but about three hours out of every day we get storms you wouldn't believe. Fever, lower back myalgia, mild lower GI distress? We had two reactors still up, enough surplus power to run the handful of heads left with intact sequestration systems. Plenty of paracetamol and neoprox. We had so many problems trying to kill us, we were just glad this one wasn't. Then, all of a sudden, it was. Day Six, the sepsis syndrome caught us completely by surprise. Thirty-four dead in less than half one of Ross's long bright days - onset to lethality in minutes, the medics had never seen anything like it. The ones who died had been feeling worst, but we all had it by then, and still didn't know what it was. We found what tools we could for our one surviving biochemist, and she set to work trying to isolate the causative agent - with a lot of luck, maybe she'd figure out how to treat it before it killed us all. Probably would've been easier if she hadn't been hurting too badly by then to sit up. But she got far enough for us to pick up when she had to leave off. Light microscopy doesn't give you much structural detail, next to nothing about life processes, but we could see well enough what it looked like: something like an amoeba, sort of polymorphic that way, but with a trophism like nothing we'd ever seen and flagella it used like a mosquito uses its proboscis. We fed it whole blood and watched it suck the cytoplasm clean out of two dozen erythrocytes at once. Leukocytes it just *absorbed*, we're still not sure how - they'd hit the cell membrane and just, I don't know, just melt into the thing. And then it'd divide, and both daughters would do it all over again. We never saw the whole cycle take more than a minute. We had plenty of antiparasitics, of course - med bay wasn't what you'd call intact, but the starboard-aft hold had most of the backup supply, and enough came through the crash to supply we who were left for a long time. Nothing we had touched them, though. Not even the really exotic stuff that hadn't been approved for human use yet, and we just brought because who knew what we'd run into? They didn't even seem to notice. We weren't equipped any more for blood filtering or that kind of complex intervention, and supportive care was the best we could do - try to keep the fever down with ice packs and neoprox, keep the kidneys and liver and heart and lungs going, and hope some of us would start to pull out of it before the last of us up and about weren't up and about any more. I don't really know what happened after I went down. I think it was Day Ten? Eleven? There weren't many of us still up by that point. Just over a hundred had died, I think. One thing, we'd just gotten Eve shifted to a new pallet and I was trying to clean up the mess of the old one and keep her from getting too hot, both at the same time, and next thing, I was here, flat on my back in what's left of Main Control. Nine days gone, just like that. I didn't even know we'd gotten any power back on in here - I don't think we had, when I went down. Don't know why I'm here, either. We saw enough delirium before I went down, there may not even be a 'why'. I don't feel bad at all. I can see I've changed; whoever put me here put me in a gown first, and there's not as much of me under it as there would've been a couple weeks ago. It fell right off my neck when I tried to stand up. That didn't go well. I think I should be hungry, but I feel full, like I just ate. I wish I knew if anyone else was still here. I've been awake a few hours, I think, but I haven't heard anyone. I don't hurt, though, and I'm not burning up. Right now I'm still mostly okay with that. I really hope someone else is still here. I don't want to be alone like this. Getting up in the chair at the sender console was hard, but I did it, and I can still use a keyboard well enough. I thought it was important to try to let someone back home know what happened. I don't know if the followup expeditions launched on schedule, I don't remember hearing before and not much of the mission log made it through the crash. If they did - I was going to say, tell them to make turnover early and go anywhere else. Even back home would be better than this place, with its barren vistas empty of vegetation, its anonymous sea we never even found the time to try to name or go and see up close. Smeared along half a mile an arrowhead stain of ship debris, at its apex a shallow crater centered on the shattered remains of all our hopes and dreams, and in a nearby shanty village, rows of corpses - decaying? mummified? Who knows if anything else can eat us here? - whom no one had time or strength to bury. Go anywhere else but this ball of death and deceit whirling around its lonely star. There is nothing for you here. ...is what I was *going* to say. But - really, I don't know. As I sit here I can feel my strength returning to me, and with it grows the conviction that it really isn't bad here. Look at what this planet's done to me already! - and yet I survive. I still remember myself. And soon I'll be up and about again, able to see what may be seen and do what need be done. Yes: many of us died. People I knew. Friends I remember and mean never to forget. No few closer than friends - spend so many years closed up with only a thousand or so people, sooner or later those with whom you were recede in memory, making room for those with whom you *are*. Not you, Sam. I've never felt that way about you. How I wish you were here! But maybe you will be. If the third expedition hasn't launched yet. I know we talked about it. Well - fought about it. I've never stopped regretting that, and I hope while I've been gone you might have come to understand why I had to go. Maybe we could see one another again. I would like that very much. I think you could help me. And you were always the best of company. But what worse can this planet do to me than it has already done? What worse can it do to any of us who still survive? We came here not knowing what we faced - only that it could hardly be worse than what we left behind. And even still I feel that very strongly to be true. We could never be together there, Sam. Here, who'd be to stop us? I know it sounds frightening, what has happened to me. It *was* frightening. It was scary and painful and frequently disgusting, and that's just what I remember! But I don't hurt any more. I'm not sick any more. And I'm not afraid any more. You don't have to be, either. It's really not that bad - the body never remembers pain, you know. I remember that I hurt, but I don't remember *hurting*. Does that make sense? You can come here. Join the third expedition and come find me here. Come sooner, if you can. There might be a research ship. I miss you, and I hope you miss me. We can be together here, and though I'm feeling much stronger now, I still wish you were here to help me. I still can't hear anyone, and I don't want to think I'm alone here. Not forever, anyway. Besides - once I get more of my strength back, make up for what I've lost in the last little while, I think you might like seeing me. I think I do. And I'm sure I want to be close to you again. Well. That's enough for now, I think. I'm sure I'll have more to say later, but once you get this you'll know I'm still alive, and even though we couldn't send our landing report, there's really no reason not to send the followup expeditions. Not really. Some won't make it, but enough will. And if we weren't going to take that kind of chance, why come out here at all? I'm going to send this, with all the power the transmitter will take. It'll get to you eventually. Then I'm going to try to stand up again. I think I can manage it, now. It'd be easier if I still had legs, I suppose. But four limbs shouldn't be *that* much harder to manage than two, and I'm still enough of a biologist to remember how muscular hydrostats work. I think it's just a matter of figuring out which impulses go where...oh well. By the time you're here, I should be all finished embarrassing myself with them, I hope. I never stopped loving you, Sam. Please don't have stayed angry with me. I hope we'll see each other again. In the meantime, I'll see if anyone else is still alive. And with whoever's left, I'll start preparing for those who may come after us. By the time they get here, if they do, we'll be ready to make our new settlers a home. ]]> tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/003.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/003.txt Thu, 29 Nov 2018 01:26:46 GMT jabooty@cosmic.voyage (jabooty) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Franciscus/log001.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Franciscus/log001.txt Wed, 28 Nov 2018 05:04:37 GMT timotheus@cosmic.voyage (timotheus) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Garnet Star/000.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Garnet Star/000.txt Sat, 24 Nov 2018 01:25:34 GMT khuxkm@cosmic.voyage (khuxkm) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Excelsior/001.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Excelsior/001.txt Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:20:10 GMT FUEL CONVERSION: GOOD H20 RESERVES: GOOD CRYO SLEEP: WARN [autotranslator on] Corporal Sam Arnold, Systems Administrator --- Hello world! The computer on board the Excelsior has removed me from cryosleep pursuant to Procedure [REDACTED]. Our automated telemetry sensors are down (see the systems report above) and our cryosleep chambers appear to be experiencing overvolt as a result. I think I will wait at least a week before re-entering cryosleep. More transmissions will follow after this one. Jerome, I feel for you. It's sometimes staggering how long these missions take. Just looking at the instrumentation here on the Excelsior, we seem to have been in transit for [unit translation = 1252 years]. Geralt, it's nice to hear from you and the Adrestia. Glad to know your mission seems to be progressing smoothly. We set out with our charter and ship around Alpha Beta 2 Beta towards a better tommorrow. We set course for the nearest inhabitable planet and the Excelsior, a first-class SpaceCorp Astroviator Mark 3, took off. We entered cryosleep around Beta Alpha 10 Beta and set the Excelsior to power-conservation (hence the incomplete systems report). I will begin procedures to fix the overvolt in the cryo systems and to fix the auto-telemetry systems. Sam Arnold, signing off. --TRANSMISSION END-- ]]> tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/002.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/002.txt Thu, 29 Nov 2018 00:25:14 GMT tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Starbloom/001.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Starbloom/001.txt Fri, 23 Nov 2018 13:24:50 GMT demosthenes@cosmic.voyage (demosthenes) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/adrestia/hello.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/adrestia/hello.txt Wed, 21 Nov 2018 06:49:23 GMT tomasino@cosmic.voyage (tomasino) gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/001.txt gopher://cosmic.voyage/0/Melchizedek/001.txt Fri, 23 Nov 2018 02:44:15 GMT