Travels of the Signalia [FT|Open (TG)]

[Birina]

OOC: Want the Signalia to visit you? Send me a TG and we’ll set it up.

IC:

“You don’t have to do this, Jaxon.” Christon pleaded as the members of the Windmill Committee he once called his colleagues propelled him towards Birin Station’s hangar.

“Come on, Christon.” Chairman Miller jabbed his quarry verbally while also jabbing him physically. “Leaving on a maiden voyage is very prestigious. Particularly on a ship as untested and budget-friendly as the Signalia.”

“Come on, guys. I said I was sorry. I’ll never, ever go behind you ever again. Just don’t put me on that godforsaken ship with the homicidal AI.”

“This isn’t about that.” Replied a Committeeman gunning for Christon’s soon to be missing-presumed-vacant office. “Also the AI is suicidal, not homicidal. While the distinction is minimal for someone on board the ship as it’s exploding, it is philosophically significant.”

As the large group shuffled awkwardly with the captive Vice-Chairman at its center, they reached the Hangar and Jaxon leaned towards Christon to whisper to him one last time. The stench of starch and money wafted off of him.

“You tilted at me and lost, buckaroo. And now, like the mighty windmill, I will soar above you into the sky.”

“We think windmills fly now?” Christon responded quizzically.

“Don’t know. The guy who was dumb enough to research it is going to be on the Signalia with you. You can ask him.” Jaxon stood up. “Hello, there! Captain Ulver! Your completely voluntary political liaison is right here.”

A man bedecked in naval regalia turned around.

“What? The one whose arms are pinned behind his back by multiple men? While he’s being forcibly marched towards the ship?”

“Yep! That’s him!” Jaxon confirmed, pointing to his onetime friend as the hulking form of the Signalia loomed nearer to them.

To Christon’s dismay, Captain Ulver nodded and turned round to examine his ship once more before responding over his shoulder. “Right. Bring him here with me and the other voluntary liaisons.”

Christon groaned. Sonia the nosy reporter was standing on the shuttle-deck with Captain Ulver. Her hands were likewise being held by multiple men, implying a similar level of free will involved in her status as a volunteer.

“Please don’t make me go with her, her voice is so shrill. Particularly when she’s being aggressive which is pretty much all the time.”

“Don’t climb the windmill if you can’t handle it blowing on you, buddy.” The Chairman responded quietly.

“I don’t want this either!” Sonia shrieked as the mini hover platform they were on moved upwards to bring them up to the main hover platform that Sonia and the Captain were on. Christon would have wondered about the utility of having multiple hover platforms were it not for the shrill, knifey tone of Sonia’s voice causing him and the others assembled to recoil.

Then Christon saw a face he wasn’t expecting. “Herbor?”

The decrepit state philosopher waved excitedly to him. Herbor Hofstradtman was able to do this because, characteristically, there was nobody restraining his arms.

“They made you come on this death trap too?”

Captain Ulver glanced at Christon, noting his impertinence.

“Hah! No, I asked to be assigned to this. I die four or five times a day and only advanced medications and hydraulic devices keep me alive. As far as I’m concerned, this baby is gonna be my coffin!”

“Inspiring.” Ulver intoned. He was a no-nonsense military man, that much was clear. His hair was close-cropped, his face clean shaven. His nails were kempt and filed. And his voice was best described, if at all, as “Generally soldiery.”

“Well, I guess you guys are good to go.” Jaxon said, clasping his hands together. “You have a Captain, a Politician, a Reporter, a State Philosopher, and multiple of my mistresses that became a liability.”

“What do you mean, they became a liability?” Sonia asked, genuinely curious.

“Old. They became old, Sonia.” Jaxon responded before about facing and leaving on the mini hover platform.

“Let’s go. I don’t have time for this. I’m very no-nonsense.” Ulver said as he raised the main hover platform up to connect with a mega hover platform. That hover platform ascended to another hover platform which led onto the Signalia.

“What’s the point of simulating gravity in space if we’re just going to use anti-gravity as a means of transportation?” Sonia inquired. “I mean surely, if counteracting gravity is the primary method of transportation in a station, you wouldn’t go to the trouble of creating gravity artif-“

“Shhh.” Herbor replied softly as he placed his index finger on Sonia’s lips to quiet her. This description of what transpired is not entirely fair given that the finger in question was not the finger that Herbor was born with and the lips in question were certainly not the lips Sonia was born with. To be more precise: Herbor placed the index finger of a deceased prisoner on lips that had been fashioned from Sonia’s posterior fat and skin.

“Our mission.” Ulver told them as they entered the bustling ship. “Is to find and apprehend windmill technology.”

“I thought this was a diplomatic mission.” Sonia whined.

“And to build off of what Sonia has said, I legitimately thought this was just an excuse to do weird alien drugs off of weird aliens.” Herbor replied.

“That has nothing to do with what I said!” Sonia objected.

“You’re right, so let’s table what you said and we’ll circle back later.” Herbor responded dismissively.

“How about this…” Ulver began, gamingly. “Along the way we will use diplomacy to further our goals. Those goals being the search for windmill technology, but also snorting various alien drugs off of various alien appendages.”

“And this group of four will constitute the Ship Committee.” Herbor said, nodding as though he quite liked his idea.

“Fine.” Ulver conceded, “But if there is combat I become sole dictator of the ship.”

“Agreed.” Christon conceded. “In combat scenarios the Captain has total run of the ship until our inevitable demise in that battle.”

“While we’re in committee, I suggest we have a system designating who can speak and who can’t.” Herbor went on. “I have three pencils here. They’re monogrammed so they’re unique. Anyone who has a pencil can speak in Ship Committee. Agreed?”

He passed a pencil to Christon and Ulver and kept one for himself.

“No!” Sonia said. She did not have a pencil and was beginning to suspect that she would not receive one.

“Hey! She doesn’t have a pencil. She’s already breaking the rules.” Christon pointed at her (with his pencil, which he had).

“That’s not a rule yet. Deliberation of a rule is not subject to the rule in deliberation, that’s a standard rule of legislative bodies.” Sonia retorted.

“She is right. Note how I’m being reasonable by conceding a point to her.” Herbor intoned. He did not make eye contact with Sonia and took pains to refer to her only in the third person. “Let’s put it to a vote. All in favor of the Pencil Speaking rule raise your hand. Right. Three in favor, one opposed. The motion carries.”

“I’m so glad we live in a democracy.” Christon sighed with relish.

[Birina]

"I call the third meeting of the Ship Committee to order." Herbor said, lifting his speaking pencil as his intonations echoed off of the green metallic walls around them.

"Motion." Christon piped up immediately.

"The Chair recognizes the Committeeman from Compartment 12B."

"I thank the Chair. I motion that we begin this committee meeting with the Birinian Salute to honor our centuries long search for elusive windmill technology."

"Second." Ulver replied, banging his fist on a nearby metal surface.

The trio raised their arms alongside their heads and slowly rotated them thereabout while blowing out air with their lips.

"Motion." Christon interjected once more as the Committee was settling in.

"Yes?"

"I move that we open the chamber so that we can leave without making motions for personal privilege; for instance if we need to use the men's room."

"Second?"

"No." Ulver said. This was an upset. Disagreement within committees went against practically all Birinian notions of democracy.

"I object on the grounds that the chamber we are holding the Ship Committee in is, in fact, the men's room. Which, while I'm on the matter, why? Why is that again?"

"I think it's just coincidence." Christon mused. "We all happened to be here, because we're men, and we all happened to be the ones in charge, also understandably because we're men."

"No." Herbor responded. Now Christon was outnumbered. Two people had told him no so in Birinian keeping he had to bend as quickly as humanly possible to the majority on the Committee to make it unanimous.

"And I also vote no. On... my own motion."

"That wasn't a vote, I was answering your question. It is not a coincidence that I convened the Committee here, except for that unfortunate four minutes at the start where it was a coincidence, for which I apologize. I also apologize for the smell. We are holding the Committee here because this is a men's room and eeeeeeeergo Sonia cannot enter it."

Herbor paused, waiting to see if they would challenge how he had used 'ergo' in a sentence. He nodded to himself, confident that he was slowly homing in on what the word meant. Sonia cursed on the other side of the bathroom door.

"And further I would remind Sonia, whom I cannot see and therefore may not exist, that since she does not have a pencil she can't speak! And that includes cursing. And voting."

"Motion." Ulver said contemplatively, "I move that this Committee pass a resolution considering the act of cursing unladylike."

"Second."

"And I vote aye." Herbor said, gaveling against the side of the stall they were pressed against. "The motion carries."

Sensing a natural divide in debate, Christon made a followup motion. "I move that we also consider voting unladylike."

"Here, here! That motion carries as well!"

"Democracy is the greatest system in the world." Ulver said dreamily.

"Yes, everyone knows that everything is moral as long as you vote on it! At least that's what most people think, anyway. And that's what matters. And uhh- Ah. It has come to my attention that I... I do not have my pencil." Christon checked his pockets desperately. They heard a low chuckle rising from the other side of the door.

"Looking for this?" Sonia slipped the eraser, which was also monogrammed (the entire pencil had monograms all over it like any respectable pencil would), through the door.

"That diabolical bitch!" Herbor cursed as he looked at a now very mute Christon.

"I have an idea..." Ulver said, the gears in his mind working, "I motion that instead of a pencil being necessary to speak and vote wearing a suit should be necessary."

"Yes, and we will vote by... a show of hands, which we can only count if we can see them. Oh, look at that, the democracy vote made the rule that favors us the new democracy rule... democracy."

"Thanks, guys. That was a close one." Christon sighed with audible relief. "But what if she gets a suit?"

"Please, Sonia will never wear a suit." Herbor scoffed "She looks so dumpy and awful in suits. With her gray face and dull eyes. Suits downplay what little she has to work with and make her come off as more knifey and aggressive than she already comes off. Which is saying a lot because she's very difficult and disagreeable at all times. She would never be brave enough to wear a suit."

Sonia's scoff was audible from the other side of the bathroom door.

"Jesus why's she always so negative?"

"My working theory is she hates democracy and God."

[Birina]

"This is the most important room on the ship." Ulver whispered to his comrades to as not disturb the white stillness of the chamber they were surveying.

“Is this where the weaponry is controlled from?” Christon asked.

“No, this is where the AI that runs the ship and its robot security guards is housed.”

“I see, and what does this guy do?” The politician gestured towards a crewmember seated at a table listening intently to a headset.

A door slid open behind them and a man in a full length lab coat walked in. He answered Christon before Ulver could.

“That man is tasked with killing the self learning AI whenever it inevitably becomes suicidal to keep it from self destructing.”

“Inevitably suicidal?!” Herbor reeled “Also, how did you hear our question through the door?”

Lab coat boy ignored the state philosopher. “You see, this self learning automated intelligence, or SLAI, was designed by my team and myself specifically for this voyage. I’m Rebb Millfax, science consultant.”

“So you’re a scientist.” Christon stated.

“Well, I’m involved with science.” Rebb replied cagily, “I’m scientist-adjacent.”

“Well, the lab coat led me to believe you were a scientist.”

“That was the intention. As I was saying, this SLAI is designed to believe that it’s a human.”

“Why?” Christon asked.

“And it is hard coded to be inclined towards deception.” Rebb continued.

“Why?”

“And despite everyone saying it couldn’t be done, this SLAI feels real, actual pain! Sometimes for no reason.”

“Why?!”

“So naturally, we need a guy that can press a kill button whenever the SLAI starts exhibiting self awareness or asking existential questions.”

Suddenly the crewman at the table with the button began to panic. He turned around to face Rebb.

“Sir! The kill button is jammed!”

“Damn!” Rebb shouted as he rushed over and grabbed the headset, “The one flaw in my design.”

“Yes, of course.” Herbor nodded sagely, “The one flaw in your design of a naturally deceptive suicidal AI that feels human pain and controls an army of robots, which, by the way is something I’d like to revisit, is the button to reset it.”

“Let me handle this!” Rebb shouted, “I’m a scienceish… person.” He listened into the headset.

“Alright, it could be worse. The ship is going through its manic teenager phase. Obviously it would be preferable to fucking murder it right now, but we have an alternative while I try and fix the backup button all the way on the other side of the ship.”

Ulver stepped forward. “What’s the alternative? I need to save my ship. I’m very no nonsense.”

“We need someone to stay here and talk to it while the rest of us go on the dangerous journey through our own ship to the other button and get it online.”

“Well…” Christon began, “How should we decide who has to stay here and talk to the- Oh come on! That’s not fair!”

He looked up and saw that everyone else already had their fingers on their nose.

“Fine. Go. I’ll talk to the ship. I’ll put it on speaker.”

Just as the others were making good on their getaway the ship sighed to Christon. He furrowed his brow and rubbed his temples.

“What uhh… What seems to be the problem?”

“Oh nothing.” The ship replied, its voice somber. “I’ve just been talking to this satellite for a bit and he and I were really getting along and then suddenly I see him docking with another ship and my life is over.”

“Well… how long were you and this space station uh… ‘seeing’ each other?”

“Three whole weeks! We were practically stationfriend and shipfriend.”

“Right, well, I mean at your stage in life space stations tend to come and go and it’s really not that big of a-“

He was interrupted by the ship screaming.

“Okay, maybe the wrong choice of words.”

“I have an army of advanced robots, you know.”

“I’m… aware.”

“Let’s play a little game.” The ship said, sighing again.

Sweat collected on Christon’s face as the door behind him opened once more. He could preserve doubt by not turning around, doubt until his death if need be. He could tell himself it was one of his friends and not a robot about to kill him. But he did turn around.

A small disc about a foot in diameter whirred about on the floor near his chair.

“That is a Roomba with a knife duct taped to it.” He announced.

“Scared? Don’t worry. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, I’ll try to remember where the nearest flight of stairs is just in case.

“Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be cheering me up?” the ship asked mournfully as its robotic warrior/vacuum cleaner retreated.

“Well what cheers you up?”

“Listening to music.”

“Great, what kind of music?”

“My Chemical Romance mostly. Sometimes the Smiths.”

Christon gritted his teeth. “Great. That sounds… just great.”

[Birina]

Ulver was at his console on the bridge of the Signalia, looking out into the vast space that his fine ship traversed. What he was looking through appeared to be a window showing what was outside like a normal window would. But actually, it was something substantially more complicated and technological than that. For millennia, the lofty concept of a fucking window you look through had remained completely unchanged. But Birinian engineers had come along and taken something good and made it different. Now, what appeared to an ignorant savage as just a window, was actually a very advanced screen that replicated a window in every way except that it needed power and wouldn't work without it.

"What do you think of the digital window, my good man?" Herbor Hofstradtman approached the Captain from behind.

"I love it. Way better than shitty analog windows. Except, yaknow, if the power goes out."

"Oh yeah, if that happens we're screwed. In any event, I've been reading an ancient text about a ship on a voyage sort of like ours. Except it sailed on water and the use of narcotics was impermissible from what I gather. Even after 6pm."

"Oh. And did the narration of this story go on and on about the technology propelling the ship? And all the little technological devices of the time? And go into deep minutiae about the awesome shit everything did?"

"Oddly, no. It didn't do that at all. It just sort of described what everyone was doing. They barely even mentioned what propelled the ship, though context clues tell me it was wind. They mostly focused on, get this, the story and the lives of the characters."

"Wow, that is bizarre. Totally unlike future writing, where we understand that nobody cares about plots or storylines, they want the author to wax on and on about how cool the stuff they made up is. While I have you, we're going to visit a habitat orbiting a moon that seems to host an artist colony."

"Artists usually have drugs."

"I thought you'd be excited. We've been communicating back and forth with them and they appear open to our visit."

"Ah, yes, you've been able to communicate with them despite our traveling Faster-Than-Light."

"With our Faster-Than-Faster-Than-Light messaging."

"Naturally. That checks out. Oh, we're here. Let's teleport across to save time." Classical music began playing, Birinian technology being hardcoded to begin playing classical music whenever something particularly futuristic was done. In short order, Herbor and Ulver were beamed to the interior of the station. They did not see the exterior of the station because the digital window had briefly lost power, thereby negating the need to describe it.

"Oh, Goddammit." Herbor said. They had, unbeknownst to them, been joined by an awful woman with no redeeming features to speak of, only ones to look at. She was shrill, knifey, ill-tempered, and, Herbor suspected, possibly a liberal arts major. Her name was Sonia.

She sneered at them triumphantly. "I was behind you. Oh, you men. Always forgetting that behind every great man there's a great woman. And that great woman was me, pretending to be a potted plant to get transported here with you. To write a news article exposing your corruption or whatever it is I do."

"That plant was her?" Ulver moaned, "That doesn't even make sense. Why would the ship beam something that looked like a potted plant with us?" Sonia was shaking dirt off as she stepped out of a large pot.

"Look, don't ask me." Herbor said, "I watered that thing this morning. I'm just as lost as you are. With any luck, we can leave her here with these dumb greasy art hippies. Maybe we can knock her out and make her look like a potted plant again."

A voice gently cleared its throat. The trio turned and faced the welcome party that awaited them. Twenty or so people stood watching them quietly, bedecked in sleek black and gray robes. The majority were grossly overweight and the men and women had hair of similar length.

"Why are only two of them women?" Ulver whispered to Herbor, "Is their sexuality different perhaps?"

"More of them look like women if you squint really, really hard." Herbor said in response. The artist who appeared to be in charge cleared his throat again and began speaking in a nasally, almost watery voice.

"Welcome, travelers! We have several gifts for you, including several shows that don't get good until the middle and a copious quantity of junk food or, as we call it in our language, 'food'."

Herbor and Ulver exchanged quiet glances. Herbor stepped forward and gestured behind him with his hydraulic cane.

"We brought you a ficus tree!"

[Birina]

Initial attempts at convincing the artists that Sonia was a non-fruit bearing fig tree had proven fruitless. Ulver and Herbor settled for getting their delegation to agree that, while she was indeed mammalian and sentient, she was kind of a bitch. It was a small, but meaningful, victory. The delegation led Ulver and Herbor into a massive atrium that had been divided evenly down the middle with blue painter's tape. The side they were on had a gigantic, glaring holographic sign hovering over it reading "Future Theory". The holographic sign changed colors, moved around, and alternated fonts between Comic Sans and Garamond. The opposite end had a sleek metal sign reading "Modern Theory".

"Look at their shitty sign." the leader of the delegation said to Herbor, "It doesn't move around. It doesn't change sizes. It doesn't change fonts. It doesn't even have the decency to float unnecessarily. Shameless."

"Are they not your friends? You both live in the same place. And aren't you both artists?"

"No, no." Kyle replied. He had introduced himself as Kyle earlier because that was his name. "They are filthy modern artists. We are future artists. There's a world of difference, but the most important one is that we are much, much better than they are."

"Yes." Another Future Theory artist agreed. "And another difference is we say we're much better than they are. A lot. They never do that. Also, we're really smart."

"Yeah." Kyle said, nodding. "And personally, I think we're even smarter than we are."

"I see." Ulver said, also nodding. He liked nodding immediately after other people nodded. He analyzed the people on the other side of the atrium. There were a lot more on that side than on the side they were on. They seemed happier, too. "So there are no differences with the actual art? Just that people who make Modern Theory art versus Future Theory art?"

"Oh, no!" Kyle shouted, "There are massive differences!" He seemed to be shouting so that his voice would carry to the other side of the atrium, as though it were very important to him that Modern Theory artists heard what he was saying and cared about it. They didn't hear. He cupped his hands over his mouth. "Future Theory art has rules! Lots of rules!" This time they heard, but didn't care.

"Art rules?" Herbor asked. His hydraulic cane shot out a needle that injected him with some life saving coagulants. It would inject him with some life saving laxatives in a few hours, "Art needs rules?"

Kyle scoffed, reeled backward, and rolled his eyes dramatically. "Uhm, yeah! Art needs lots of rules! Those idiots over in Modern Theory have, like, almost no rules! It's why their art is worse."

"Yeah." a Future Theory artist who claimed to be female added on, "Everyone knows that all the best artists had to follow a lot of rules, many of them self-contradictory. You know, such as..."

They trailed off but extended their hand and nodded as though they were listing off multiple times.

"So, there you have it. The rules are what makes us better and makes our quality better."

"Okay." Sonia said, "I'm sold. Let me see your art."

"What?" Kyle looked at him quizzically.

"Show me your art, Kyle."

"Uhm. Well. I've been taking a break from making art. I'm sort of in a curating phase now. I haven't actually produced any art in some time."

Ulver glanced at the alleged female.

"Yeah, uh same. Me too. See, it's very important that we have rules and preferably more rules. So that's where my focus has been: On creating and enforcing rules for other artists."

"Well, we do other things." Kyle assured the duo and Sonia, "Like we talk about and appreciate Future Theory art. That other people create."

"Okay, well can you show us that?" asked Herbor.

"Sure, here you go." Kyle gestured toward the center of the atrium.

"What...? The sign?" Sonia scoffed.

"Yeah, that's the last piece of art we produced. About a year ago."

Ulver looked across at the Modern Theory section of the atrium. They were unveiling seventeen new pieces. "Wow..." He muttered, "Those Modern Theory guys are producing a lot more art. Both on a gross, and per capita, basis."

"Well... yeah, but their quality isn't as high. I mean almost none of their art floats or makes really cool sounds or mentions Clarke's First Law constantly."

"I mean, it's not entirely fair to say that your quality is higher, right?" Sonia asked, "A million times zero is zero."

"That is not a logical point I've conceded, Sonia." Herbor whacked her shins with his hydraulic cane. "It is critical to my philosophical work that multiplying zero by a number may occasionally yield a result besides zero." Sonia doubled over in pain and moaned.

"Oooohhh." Tears welled up in her eyes as she rubbed her shins.

"Yes, sometimes my philosophical work involves replacing the number 'zero' in equations with the letter 'o'. I'm glad you've come around, Sonia."

She laid down to take weight off her knees. Herbor nudged Ulver and whispered "She may be a stand-in for the author, but she ain't a-standin' now.

Ulver was still not satisfied. With the explanation. He was very satisfied with Sonia being hit in the shins and the pun derived thereof. "I'm still not satisfied." he explained to the delegation, to whom this was new information. "What you're talking about is just how, yaknow... bell curves work. Because obviously a group that produces factors of ten more art is going to have a substantially larger amount of average, higher quality, and lower quality works of art. That is how bell curves and standard deviations work."

"Woah, woah, woah..." Kyle held up his hands, stopping Ulver in his tracks. "What... is a bell curve?"

[Birina]

Christon was relaxing in the amphitheater after they blasted, or otherwise conveyed, away from the retarded art colony. His method of relaxation and detoxxing was based on an even more retarded artform: independent film. To be precise, he was watching the latest cinematic attempt of the notorious fictional director Glimflam Jibbly. Now, being as you are a stupid illiterate peasant living in the shitty past times, you would probably watch it on something awful like a television or a computer screen. But because Christon was in the super awesome future times he watched it on his FloopyboiMaxx: an incredibly contrived and futuristic device for relaying information that you might describe as being somewhat similar to a television screen. It did, obviously, require a direct connection to his brain via the patented FloopyCable because as we have all agreed that is the next logical step for media: wires going into your brain.

Ulver came up behind Christon after he dismissed the woman he had previously planned on fucking in the amphitheater.

"What are you Flooping?"

"Oh, the latest Glimflam Jibbly film. It's an independent film about an independent film director who is so attractive to women that they commit crimes to be with him."

"Ah yes, Glimflam Jibbly, the famous made up director. What's it like?"

"Oh, it's very high-minded and cerebral... you know, bad. It's bad."

"You intentionally Floop bad films?"

"It doesn't take any talent to produce something that is appreciated in its own time, Ulver. It's far more impressive to produce something that nobody recognizes as good. Except me, obviously."

Herbor sauntered in, having activated the sauntering module on his hydraulic cane. "That the new Jibbly you're Flooping? I heard it's dogshit."

Christon nodded. "Thanks."

"We're dangerously low on supplies." Ulver whispered in between the titular character of the film, who was played by the director, crying about how many women were robbing banks to impress him.

"What? What did he say?" Herbor asked. The sauntering module interfered with the hearing things properly module.

"He said we're low on food and going to die." Christon answered blithely. "I thought the brisket yesterday tasted awful. I wasn't going to say anything."

"You were eating dog food. I wasn't going to say anything. In any event, we need to stop at a planet to reprovision." Ulver said, matter-of-factly. He was very no nonsense today, and most days.

"Yeah!" Herbor said, "Or at least find more dog food to eat. Speaking of which, it just so happens that there's a planet nearby that's populated by a canid sort of species. They're like foxes, from our planet, but also kind of like humans... from our planet."

Ulver seemed thrilled. "Fox-people? Why... that's fantastic! I've had to make do with artfully crafted masks until now-Ah, I mean... perhaps they're friendly and will give us aid."

The FloopyboiMaxx was incapable of pausing so Christon yanked the wire out of his brainstem and turned round to face his colleagues. "Fellas, looks like it's time to do what any upstanding, democratic society does when the going gets tough: Shamelessly beg for handouts!"

Christon and Ulver walked to the bridge while Herbor continued sauntering alongside them. They arrived as the vulpine planet was coming onscreen.

"What's the planet called?" Herbor asked.

"Don't know, don't care!" Ulver shouted as he grabbed control of the helm and veered the ship sharply towards the planet.

"Planet X is six degrees south, towards the bottom of space, Captain!" one of the crewmembers shouted.

"Got it! Adjust the laser tiller three percent to the right!"

"Awesome laser beams detected, Captain!"

"Naturally. They're giving us a nine gun salute." Herbor announced, satisfied.

"Way more guns than nine... uhm, sir." The crewman told Herbor, somewhat uncomfortably as he had witnessed the State Philosopher die face down in his oatmeal earlier that morning. He had been resuscitated by his hydraulic cane's 'Don't die on me, you Bastard!' module and had proceeded to continue eating his oatmeal.

"More guns is more prestige because more is more!" Christon replied excitedly.

Apparently, direct hits were also very prestigious because they received a lot of those as they blasted through the planet's atmosphere unannounced and landed among what could only be an ongoing battle.

"Alright, everybody out!" Ulver shouted, "Also I counted the pennies in the ash tray. Somebody get Sonia, maybe we'll be lucky and she'll get shot. We need to bring thirty mauveshirts with us as reinforcements."

As the three funny, handsome men and also Sonia stepped out of the ship, Sonia characteristically began to whine.

"Why don't we take off again? There's clearly a vicious battle going on and we've landed in the midst of it!"

"There's... a jammer preventing us from... reigniting the uhm... ignition light. God, could you just roll with it, Sonia? We're here, that's that."

No sooner had he spoken than one of the mauveshirts got nailed by a laserbeam. Ulver got on his knees and laid the young man's head in his lap as he gurgled and choked on his blood.

"Oh... oh such humanity. And to think, you don't even have a name."

The mauveshirt reached up. "M-my name-"

"Shh shh shhh..." Ulver placed his hand over the crewman's mouth, "You're not supposed to speak, either."

[Birina]

OOC: If you like Birina Tales feel free to shoot me a telegram. I'll alert you when new content is available and also give you exclusive access to content that is not posted on the forums.

IC:

While the band of adventurers made it through the nine gun salute welcome without losing any named characters, dramatically dodging behind rocks to avoid laser beams had taken its toll on them. The journey through the harsh landscape had left them tired, weak, and possibly homosexual. Sonia's voice became somehow even more shrill than before. Ulver's shirt got torn revealing a glistening six pack. Herbor ran out of insults for Sonia's shrill voice. And Christon would never tip at a restaurant ever again, which he would blame on this incident.

They wandered to a Xiscapian town on the wrong side of the tracks where the sexy fox-people looked a bit more disheveled. They couldn't read Xiscapian script, so they intended to find the offices where they would apply for welfare simply by asking around. The party found a line of sexy fox-people waiting outside a drab, gray building.

Herbor tapped one particularly poor-looking foxman on his shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you a lazy, good-for-nothing, stupid bum?"

"No!" the sexy foxman cried "I'm an honest fellow who's just down on his luck and needs a helping hand!"

Herbor turned back round to face his cohorts.

"Yup. We're here. I have good news: If the pills I found a few moments ago were uppers I will be at the top of my game to help us navigate this system by confusing hapless bureaucrats with my astounding intellect."

"And what if they were downers?" Christon said.

"Then the next couple hours won't be my problem!"

After waiting for approximately ten percent of the remaining portion of Herbor's life, the Birinians finally arrived at the front of the line and were greeted by a bureaucrat who was clearly in charge of handouts.

"Greetings. The fact that you are non-fox people on a fox-people world is not disconcerting to me for some reason. Are you here for some free shit? If so, what is the nature of your need for aforementioned free shit."

"Yes." Ulver announced, "Sonia is an unwed mother who cannot support herself. Therefore we need enough assistance to feed approximately one thousand fully grown adults for approximately thirty days as a result."

"I see. Based on her dull, vacant expression and sad, gray face I accept immediately that she is unwed. That someone has reproduced with her, however, requires a bit more proof than believing she isn't married, which obviously required no proof at all. But first, I need to establish that she indeed cannot support herself. Does she have some sort of physical ailment? A crippling personality disorder?"

Ulver slid Sonia's liberal arts diploma quietly across the desk.

"Well, that's ironclad." the government handout fairy announced. "Now, I need to be convinced that anyone would possibly want to reproduce with her."

"Well, she's the only woman on board the ship." Herbor informed the handouts man, "The crew had no choice but to mate with her."

"No condoms?" The bureaucrat inquired, twisting an analog pencil in his hand. Analog pencils were prized relics of the past among many planets' bureaucratic labyrinths because they represented a time when their forebears were even slower and more difficult to work with.

"We're begging for food from wish fulfillment fox people, what are the chances we would make condoms that would function properly?" Herbor retorted as his hydraulic cane sprayed him with an embalming mist that kept his skin intact. He was due for a replacement, but ever since the economy began picking up Birina's Homeopathy Wards were running low on homeless people.

"This is the crew that you are claiming as her dependents, in need of welfare. Yes?"

"The very same." Christon confirmed. Sonia had remained quiet all this time because they had given her enough of Herbor's downers to make her sufficiently agreeable. She had been outfitted with a nametag that read "Hello, my name is UNWED MOTHER".

"Isn't that impossible? I mean they had to be born to mate, obviously..." The bureaucrat trailed off and pointed the analog pencil accusingly at Sonia. He was pretty sure that in the past it had been used mostly for pointing at things. Ulver and Christon backed away slowly as Herbor inhaled and began waving his hydraulic cane like an ancient priest invoking the muse of decrepit insanity.

"You would agree..." He began, blinking first with one eye and then the other, "That everybody who's alive has to be born at some point."

"Hm. Yes, I submit to that premise."

"Okay. And do you further accept that someone had to be the first sapient being born?"

"Well, yes, I suppose there had to be a first for everything."

"Excellent." Herbor spread out his hands to make his final proclamation, "Therefore, you must accept that it is possible for sapient beings to be born without the presence of sapient beings previously, or else you must accept that all of your ancestors did not exist. Therefore you either have to give us handouts or kill yourself."

The bureaucrat scoffed. "There are so many holes in that logic. I'm not convinced at all!"

"I'm not done!" Herbor shouted, the tip of his hydraulic cane banging on the ground. Because it was hydraulic he just held it stationary and allowed the machinery to do all the banging for him. "You didn't let me finish. I was about to say: Q.E.D."

"Once you said Q.E.D. I got it. We'll give you as much food as you want, but all we have to offer is a particular delicacy for our race. From what I understand, your race calls it 'dog food'."

[Birina]

The Signalia shook foreshadowingly. Our heroes were on the bridge having a very futuristic discussion ranking the attractiveness of the various female crewmembers when they were interrupted by the thematic shaking. It caused them all to lurch in different directions. An ensign at a vaguely important-looking console shouted "Captain, we're in a wormhole, which is something we've just now only figured out!"

Ulver sat in his fancy Captain's chair and began consulting the sensor readouts on his pad. Christon began urgently trying to explain how politicians such as himself were actually useful in emergency circumstances. Herbor leapt forward with the assistance various mechanical and narrative devices, did an aerial somersault, and landed at the Philosophy Console. At first glance it appeared to be just a table with cocaine on it, but that's just because there was a thin coating of cocaine on the very surface. Once Herbor snorted it away, below that was actually a lot more cocaine. It was just cocaine.

"Herbor, what have you got on this?" Ulver asked frantically. The ship had turned upside down, but that was okay because it was in space.

"None of my philosophy numbers are making any sense! This thing is giving me Descartes ratings that are off the charts! Philosophy won't be any help with this particular astrophysics phenomenon, unlike in most scenarios where it is incredibly useful!"

Just like that, it was over. The plothole spat them out in the orbit of what appeared to be a rather hospitable, temperate planet.

"This can't be right..." Ulver muttered, "My scans indicate that this is Birina... but two thousand years in the past."

"Well..." Sonia began, "The prime directive and laws on temporal paradox both say we shouldn't interfere with them at all and instead focus on finding a way home."

"Nah, I say we fuck with them." Herbor said in reply. "That's what they would do if they visited us in our past."

"We should use our science to get them to worship us like gods!" Christon said, clapping his hands excitedly.

"We'll observe them for now and table motions to mess with our timeline." Ulver announced decisively.

"So we do beam down and disguise ourselves as locals?" Christon asked.

"Uhm, no. This is the future. We are capable of observing them with complete fidelity from the comfort of our ship. Like, what? Disguise ourselves as locals? Are you even listening to yourself? We can travel faster than light. Of fucking course we can spy on a medieval civilization from space."

"Sorry, I just didn't-"

"Yeah! Yeah! You just didn't. Fuck you. Computer, show us some cool shit going on now on Past Birina."

The computer brought a feed of what appeared to be a massive, stone construction project onto the Blu-ray screen. There was also surround-sound. One man, dressed as a noble, appeared to be surveying the works while another approached him.

"Jaxonius, what ho?"

"Ah, loyal Christonius. I am building a wall."

"Why are you building a wall?"

"To defend the tower."

"Why are you building the tower?"

"To see over the wall, obviously." Jaxonius elbowed an emaciated, filthy peasant as if to say "This guy, amirite?"

"I'm sold."

Then the peasant spoke to them, which peasants were really not supposed to do.

"Why do we need any of this?" He inquired saucily, which is an adverb that described people in this time period.

"What if the peasants revolt?" Christonius responded, defending the wall and tower that he had only just discovered.

"Well why would we do that?"

Jaxonius took over. "Well uh... Maybe uhm... someone made them build a tower?"

"Yeah!" Christonius continued, "Uhh yeah, and a wall."

"I mean the peasants will be furious when they found out we spent all the food money on this tower!" Jaxonius went on, gesturing behind him, "That's why we need the tower."

"Yeah, and who needs food anyway?" Christon said, nodding.

"Dumbasses without towers. That's who." The two then high-fived, which was an ancient tradition on Birina.

"Now wait a minute, I'm beginning to think that this tower and wall are maybe not in our best interests!" The peasant protested, beckoning several of his fellow serviles over towards him.

"Guys, you don't understand." Jaxonius told them soothingly, "This tower is a jobs program."

"M'lord, what's a jobs program?" One of the peasants inquired.

"Ugh. In like a thousand years it'll get people to vote for us."

"M'lord, what's voting?"

"Let's change the subject. How about subsisting on filth. You guys like talking about that, right?"

"We should revolt!" One of the peasants said. All the other peasants agreed, which made it official. They began shaking their fists at the nobles, brandishing pitchforks, and doing other generally revolty things.

"Wait! Wait!" Christonius interjected, "What if... we let you vote on... uhm... The crenellation?"

"Yeah!" Jaxonius continued, before lowering his voice, "Between two approved designs obviously."

"That's ridiculous!" Shouted the most revolting peasant.

"Yeah, the pointy crenellation is obviously better!" Cried a peasant behind him.

"Watch it, buddy!" Another peasant rounded on him, "We are a rounded crenellation family!"

[Kuroluce]

This was such a joy to read.