[THE MAGNUS THEME]
BEN
Hi everybody, Ben here. Welcome to The Magnus Archives feed, but this is not The Magnus Archives, no!
[ALEX STARTS SNICKERING]
It is tangentially related to The Magnus Archives; please keep listening to our content.
[GROUP CACKLING]
Today, I’m going to be running a game of Mothership, which is a tabletop roleplaying game by Tuesday Knight Games, that’s Knight with a K. Which is available as a pay-what-you-want PDF on Drive Thru RPG or on their website, and you can get extra modules which are paid paid.
This is basically an Alien RPG. If you want to play Alien, this is the RPG for you! And today, I have with me…
JONNY
It’s Jonny! He’s still here!
BEN
It’s Jonny!
JONNY
You might think he’s gone, cos Magnus is gone, but he’s still here, playing Mothership, with his best friend in the world, Ben Meredith.
BEN
(solemnly) It’s true. Bosom buds. And who else do we have?
LYDIA
(laughing) And me! I don’t know how to follow that!
I’m Lydia, I played Melanie in the past… that’s a thing I did.
BEN
And Lydia is my leg bud.
[LYDIA CACKLES]
BEN
And – and who else do we have, lurking in the corner?
ALEX
That’s Alex Newall, I used to play Martin, and I am Ben’s antagonist du jour.
BEN
Yes. “Du jour”? It’s a six-year “jour,” Alex.
ALEX
It’s a big jour.
BEN
It’s a six-year jour.
ALEX
It’s a heffing great jour, and I am – (laughing) I am sticking with it.
LYDIA
Is the leg thing a reference to the fact that in our other continuing podcast, your character doesn’t have legs?
BEN
Aw, no! I was just desperately trying to think of a body part like a bosom that wasn’t weirdly suggestive? And I was like, “Legs. Legs is fine.”
LYDIA
Yeah. Legs, famously non-suggestive body part.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX
Ben “Leggy” Meredith, nothing suggestive there.
BEN
Aw, no, he’s made it suggestive…
JONNY
Least erogenous of the limbs.
[MORE LAUGHTER]
BEN
I feel like the elbow is probably the least sexy part of the body.
LYDIA
There’ll be people who disagree –
BEN
There will be people who disagree.
JONNY
Yeah, don’t write in.
LYDIA
Please do not – yeah, no!
[CACKLING]
BEN
There will be people who have built their identity around the fact that the elbow is extremely erotic.
LYDIA
No… no… Do not @ us.
BEN
We are also going to be using the X-Card by John Stavropoulos. Basically what this is, is, this is a horror game, which means that themes may come up which are unpleasant to people – specifically or beyond the bounds of what is acceptable in a game.
For us, you’re not gonna hear it. In our Skype call, we’ll be holding our hands up in an X, like we’re, you know, calling the X-Men or something.
LYDIA
Thanks for demo-ing, Ben.
BEN
Yeah, I demo-ed it in a way that, again, when I was demo-ing the fact that you can’t hear it because I was doing it, but you can’t hear it.
[LYDIA LAUGHS]
BEN
And we will edit out that bit, it will be gone! So you won’t hear it being used, by design, but yes, it is being used. And it’s a good thing, and I would suggest looking at the free Google Doc that you can read through, for some good safety into your RPGs.1
LYDIA
I just want to say, thanks for me for flagging on recording that we do that, because I think too often those sorts of things are edited out of recorded show. And people don’t get to know that there are, like, safety mechanisms and awkward discussions and stuff in games like this with professionals, so they then think that they don’t have space to do that themselves!
BEN
Yeah. Yeah.
LYDIA
We – make mistakes and we get uncomfortable and we have discussions about difficult things, and we do that! And that’s the thing, you’re allowed to! It’s good, in fact.
ALEX
Yeah, editor, if we can remove that acknowledgment of human fallibility, that’d be fantastic.
[CACKLING FROM OTHERS]
JONNY
Sorry, I was a bit struggling to pay attention because as soon as Ben said “holding your arms up like the X-Men,” all I could think was the X-Card accompanied by, in the 90s X-Men TV show, the really sad version of the…
[ALEX AND JONNY START HUMMING THE THEME TUNE]
[BEN AND LYDIA LAUGH]
ALEX
Yup, yeah. Totally there with you.
BEN
Ah, well, that’s the soundtrack for the game, I think!
JONNY
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER, CROSSTALK]
JONNY
(humming ba-ba-ba, launches into song) Something on a spaceship! It’s gonna kill us all! Ben’s got horrible things waiting for us!
BEN
Yes, absolutely.
Speaking of, let’s quickly set up the situation. So I’ve gone with a classic alien thing, you know, we’re doing a one-shot, so let’s keep it focused.
You’re all space truckers! You are hauling some supplies, which are not important, across space! Usually you would do this in cryosleep, but every so often you are woken up for health checks and also to make sure everything is fine.
And you have just been woken up because you are entering – or you’re flying a little too close to a specific planet, so they need some human sort of governance to make sure that nothing goes wrong.
This is completely normal and standard! Nothing about this is concerning. This is just about life being a long haul, you know, space flier.
[JONNY YAWNS EXAGGERATEDLY]
BEN
But before we get into the roleplaying, unless Jonny’s just really tired with this intro…
[LAUGHTER]
LYDIA
Yeah! That was just like, “I do not want to be here!”
JONNY
That was some pre-roleplay. That was some pre-roleplay.
BEN
Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs) I would like to very briefly meet the characters, but there’s one thing – so I’ve created some pre-written characters for this, because nobody’s got the time for this. There are a couple of things that I haven’t done, which is that each character has a Patch and a Trinket. So a little patch that they sew onto their uniform, and a little trinket that they have. And I would like people to actually roll on those things.
JONNY
Ooh. Yes, lovely.
LYDIA
Mhm!
BEN
Lyd, would you like to go first?
LYDIA
Grand! I am an android, whose designation is 0170701. I do not take well to that being shortened.
I am rolling my D100 generator – ooh, and a 96! Is a high score good?
BEN
96 is a pair of shock glasses and some spent shock gun shells.
JONNY
Mm!
LYDIA
Interesting. Interesting.
BEN
Apparently you’re some sort of – cowboy. (snickers)
LYDIA
Well… er, am I supposed to explain what they are now?
BEN
It’s an idea generation. You can do it now, you can do it later, it might not come up! That’s okay.
LYDIA
That’s cool. They are in – I will say, in a small case, which is good. They are not on display on my shoulders like some kind of furniture ornament.
BEN
You don’t have quarters as such, but you have, like, a locker to keep your things in.
LYDIA
They are in a locker. They are there.
BEN
Cool. And would you like to roll your Patch?
LYDIA
Let’s see, let’s see.
Right, that’s a six. Which is…?
BEN
A biohazard symbol.
LYDIA
Interesting! I wonder if that is not an ironic thing, but that the robot is actually biohazardous.
BEN
Yeah, sure.
LYDIA
Or, it has been carved into the metal in some kind of cruel prank, which I then maintained.
ALEX
Maybe it’s as simple as there to ensure that we don’t try to eat you.
LYDIA
It could be.
JONNY
Or it might be that at some point in the past, you were biohazardous, and it’s like, you were working in some, I don’t know, radioactive or medical sort of thing. And you really liked the distance that everyone gave you, so you’ve just kind of kept the symbol.
LYDIA
Yes.
ALEX
(laughing) You could just not like people!
LYDIA
If we’re going into the details of this one now, I won’t say exactly what it is, but I will say that it is very worn, and it is in fact on my… do androids wear jackets?
BEN
Well, I was going to say you can wear whatever you want, to be honest.
JONNY
(snickering) Do Androids Dream of Cool Jackets?
[LAUGHTER]
LYDIA
I think it is on – because it doesn’t need to be washed, changed, and replaced in the same kind of way, it is on the protective gear. Because being security, I suppose I do have armor, and the biohazard symbol is stuck to the armor and is quite worn. So it’s still visible but it’s clearly been there a long time.
BEN
Yeah. For, the purpose is – you know, if people aren’t familiar with Alien, because not everyone in the world has seen the same things. Androids in the Alien setting and, by kind of relation, this setting, look very human-like. They look like people.
[LYDIA MHM’S THROUGH THIS]
ALEX
But better. They’re just better in every way.
LYDIA
That’s it, Alex “Not An Android” Newall.
JONNY
Alex, remind me, were you allowed to play with the android?
ALEX
No, but that’s because I’m Ben’s antagonist, and, you know, Ben’s pro-robot the way everyone should be.
BEN
I genuinely did ban Alex from playing the android, because I knew it was just going to be robotic supremacy jokes forever.
[ALEX CACKLES]
BEN
Do you have an appearance in mind, or do you wanna leave that ambiguous for now?
LYDIA
I… was thinking, incredibly bland-featured male. For some reason, I don’t like the idea of a female android, but then I realized that there was a lot to get into there about how we feminize helper robots and in fact, I know a lot of really great articles that you could read about why we give things like Alexa and Siri female voices and names, and how that contributes to reproducing certain power structures – but!
Yes, in this hard-to-describe, so generic, one of the Chrises in the Marvel franchise before they bulked up kind of – they just all look the same, in a very generic, white but pale to a slightly unhealthy degree, off-the-shelf…
If you had a toy of a culprit businessperson, that is what this creature would look like.
BEN
Whichever Chris you want to put in as Lyd’s character, it’s that Chris.
LYDIA
Yeah, but not Hart.
BEN
Oh yes, yeah.
LYDIA
Just so generic, your eyes almost slide off them. And it’s hard to describe them from a group.
BEN
One of that class of Hollywood actor where you say, “Oh, it’s that guy,” and then everyone starts saying different people from different films.
LYDIA
Yes! That one. Oh, you know, the one with the chiseled jaw but not so chiseled that it really stands out, you know?
BEN
Yeah, yeah.
ALEX
The one with the eyes! And that nose!
LYDIA
Yeah! They’ve got, like –
BEN
And the slight beard, right? And mousy brown hair? You know the one?
LYDIA
Mousy brown hair, and tall, but not so tall that people say, like, “Ooh, what’s the weather up there,” but tall enough that other men pay deference to them. You know? That kind of thing.
BEN
Nice. Good stuff.
Okay! Jonny, would you like to go next?
JONNY
Yes. I am going to play Carter Block –
[LYDIA SNORTS]
JONNY
An engineer. The engineer.
BEN
The engineer. Good stuff. Okay, can you roll on your Trinket table, please?
JONNY
I would love to roll on my Trinket table, Ben.
That would be an 8.
BEN
Okay, so you have got –
[HE SNORTS]
A manual, called “Treat Your Rifle… Like A Lady.”
[JONNY STARTS CACKLING]
JONNY
Do I have a rifle?
BEN
Er –
LYDIA
Or a lady?
JONNY
I don’t think I actually do.
BEN
No, I don’t think you do!
ALEX
No, that’s so much better! That means that you’ve got life aspirations, but they’re really specific.
[BEN LAUGHS]
BEN
Oh, God. Okay. Yeah.
JONNY
Yeah. No, wonderful.
LYDIA
In fact, having seen that manual, I make very careful not to leave you alone with any of my rifles.
[LAUGHTER]
BEN
Aw, good. I like – yeah. That’s bad, but it says so much about this character.
JONNY
And my Patch is… 65!
BEN
65… is… it just says, “All Seeing Eye.” I guess you can say –
JONNY
(quietly) Of course it is.
LYDIA
(delighted) It actually does! Are you – are you serious, did you roll that? The special little boy!
JONNY
(resigned) Yeah.
LYDIA
Ahhh!
BEN
You think Jonny would on purpose put in a reference?
LYDIA
He’s actually – he’s –
BEN
He has been shackled by this random roll.
[LYDIA CONTINUES TO LOSE IT]
JONNY
The thing is, what this actually indicates to me, is that Carter Block is, like, kind of like a low-key anti-government conspiracy survivalist.
BEN
Yep. That makes sense, that makes sense.
LYDIA
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN
If he wasn’t in a spaceship, he would be building a bunker.
JONNY
Yup.
LYDIA
I’m literally looking over all the rest to be like, is this just the kind of code-reading thing or are they all, like, eyes in some kind of way.
[SNICKERS FROM OTHERS]
But no! You have actually rolled the only Beholding baby.
BEN
One question: is it a slogan that says “All Seeing Eye” or is it an image of an all-seeing eye?
JONNY
It’s both, to be honest.
BEN
It’s both, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JONNY
Like, it’s a triangle, it’s like the eye and pyramid on the American dollar, except instead of the pyramid it is the words “All Seeing Eye.”
BEN
In a pyramid shape, yeah. Nice.
JONNY
Yeah. Like, I’ll be honest, the formatting and kerning isn’t great, but the patch just spoke to him.
ALEX
(groans) Aw, that one hurt.
BEN
Quick question: is it bought or home-made?
JONNY
It’s bought. He’s not, like – I don’t think he’s a particularly crafty – like, he’s an engineer, but I think based on that book, I think he probably has certain views about what crafts are masculine and what crafts are not masculine.
BEN
Of course, of course.
JONNY
Engineering? Masculine. Cleaning a gun? Masculine. Sewing his own patch? Mm, not masculine.
BEN
(snickering) Yeah.
And do you have a physical description for now, or do you want to leave it for later?
JONNY
(immediate) Pete Postlethwaite.
BEN
Sure! Absolutely.
JONNY
That kind of like, somewhere near the end of middle-aged, but you couldn’t tell exactly where because there’s a lot of crags.
BEN
(laughs) Yeah… nice.
And Alex.
ALEX
Alright, so, rolling my D100 for a Trinket…
47.
BEN
So that is: gloves! Leather.
ALEX
Xenomorph hide – brackets.
BEN
Ooh!
ALEX
Gosh. That is a very high-stakes trinket, very quickly. Okay.
BEN
How did you get these gloves?
ALEX
So I have to ask you, on a scale of common to unheard-of, where does xenomorph sit?
BEN
I mean, they’re common enough for gloves of them to exist, so I guess, like, they’re probably not common, but they’re about? Also, xenomorph probably doesn’t refer specifically to “a Alien,” it’s, you know, “a foreign, non-terrestrial creature.”
JONNY
Also, you don’t necessarily need to know that that is what the leather is.
BEN
True.
ALEX
Now here’s the thing. I believe that my character hopes that they are, and was sold them to be such…
BEN
Ah.
[JONNY CACKLES]
ALEX
…because my character’s extremely keen, but hasn’t been able to verify such and it is probably the only article of faith that they’ve ever taken a leap on.
LYDIA
Mm.
JONNY
Are they consciously telling everyone about these cool xenomorph leather gloves?
ALEX
They carefully evaluate someone to decide whether they think they’ll respond positively first, because the last thing you want to do is throw it out there and have someone tell you you’re wrong, cos that’s just unacceptable.
JONNY
Yeah, Carter’s just like, “That’s Moleskine, mate.”
BEN
(laughing) Yeah.
So, what is your patch?
[BEAT. ALEX BURSTS INTO LAUGHTER]
ALEX
84. It’s just in all caps, the words “GOOD BOY.”
[THE PLAYERS ALL LOSE IT]
BEN
Okay. Do you want to elaborate on what that means to your character or are we leaving it ambiguous?
[LYDIA STARTS CACKLING AGAIN]
ALEX
I don’t want to! I want to just leave that – I have a patch that says GOOD BOY.
BEN
What does the patch look like?
ALEX
The patch is in very large, bright, friendly colors and fonts. Think “DON’T PANIC” from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but “GOOD BOY.”
BEN
Sure, sure. Okay.
ALEX
Oh, I should probably give you a name.
BEN
Oh, you should! And an appearance, even.
ALEX
Indeed. Doctor Alabaster Artichoke.
[BEN EXHALES]
LYDIA
Oh my god, Alex, why are you Alex?!
ALEX
All scientists have to have fancy names, it’s a rule.
JONNY
I was restrained, Alex. I was considering being Jim Elbow.
[BEN & LYDIA CACKLING]
ALEX
I gave you a character that you could call Doctor Ow! You’re fine! Don’t worry about it.
BEN
Alabaster Artichoke. (resigned) Sure.
ALEX
Yeah. Doctor Alabaster Artichoke, and I’d like you to take a very pale and wan and slight Victorian gentleman, and then transpose him into the current setting. I don’t mean in terms of clothing, I mean, you know, that aesthetic.
BEN
Yeah.
ALEX
Has spent far, far, far too long away from the sun and seems to relish that fact.
JONNY
Very small glasses.
ALEX
Very small glasses. Painfully thin.
BEN
Mhm. Yes.
ALEX
But very quick to smile. There you go!
BEN
And to say that you are all wearing the corporate standard uniform of a pale blue corporate jumpsuit, over which you have accessorized, of course, but you have to be wearing those as part of the rules. But for example, 0170701 also has a cool jacket.
LYDIA
Well, it’s an armor thing.
BEN
Oh yes, sorry, it’s your armor, isn’t it. Yes.
LYDIA
It’s stab-proof.
BEN
Yep.
ALEX
The only thing you could take from me is that one size truly does not fit all.
BEN
Sure.
ALEX
I look more like a walking pair of curtains.
BEN
At this point I should probably explain how the system works. Obviously I’ve explained this to the players beforehand, but for the audience’s benefit.
This is a D100 system. You have four stats of Strength, Speed, Intellect, and Combat. When I ask the players to, you know, check against them, they need to roll a D100 and roll under their value.
They also have some saves, which are Sanity, Fear, Body, and Armor. This is when I do things to the players. So you know, if the player wanted to try and fix an engine, they’d be rolling Intellect. But if the engine then explodes, I’d probably ask them to roll an Armor save.
They’ll take damage and they’ll gain things – one particular thing that this game has is Stress and Panic. Basically, the “game over, man, game over” bit.
ALEX
(cheering) Yeahhh!
BEN
Which is probably the entire reason that this mechanic exists, would be my guess? But basically when things go wrong, the players will gain Stress. This can kinda be anything, it’s very much, like, I determine when they gain Stress. But usually it’s like failing a roll, because things are not going well, and that is stressful.
And then, when I deem it appropriate, they will make a Panic check. They’ll roll 2D10, and try and roll over their current Stress level, that’s how that works. So it gets harder, not easier. And if they fail that check, they will then panic. That means they roll on a Panic table, which means their behavior will become erratic, because obviously they’re freaking out and not necessarily thinking in the most logical way possible.
There’s also some class stuff – like, each of them… So Jonny is a teamster, Alex is a scientist, and Lydia is an android. They have some specific mechanics, but we’ll get to them if they’re relevant, you know. I don’t have time and it’s probably quite boring for me to explain all the damn mechanics. So you’ll hear it through play, but that’s the basic stuff.
ALEX
(snickering) (adopting professor voice) We shall now read the entire sourcebook from page 1 to page 50. Settle in.
BEN
This is an Actual Read, not an Actual Play.
[SNICKERS]
BEN
But yeah, the last thing I want from the players is to name their ship! Does anybody have any offers?
ALEX
So what’s the name of our company, for listeners?
BEN
Oh yes. The United Earth Corporation, or UEC. Which is the prefix for the ship.
LYDIA
Ooh, okay. I like the idea of this company’s ships being named after Earth landmasses. And this is such a small and generic ship… I’m trying to work out what the most – Isle of Wight?
[LAUGHTER]
JONNY
The UEC Isle of Wight?
LYDIA
Yeah!
ALEX
The UEC Jersey?
LYDIA
I feel bad for Jerseyans – I know nice people from Guernsey, you know? I’m sure there are nice people on every island, just, like, they’re harder to find on the Isle of Wight.
BEN
No, Lydia has branded everyone on the Isle of Wight an absolute bastard.
[LAUGHTER]
LYDIA
No – they’re lovely! They’re – no, oh dear! Please don’t write in on postcards.
BEN
Especially not ones from the Isle of Wight, Lydia doesn’t like that –
[LYDIA CACKLES]
JONNY
(mock-serious) Ben, are we keeping in that bit of recording in from the pre-show where Lyd said that she wanted to sink the Isle of Wight?
BEN
Yes. Just straight into the sea.
JONNY
Or was the phrase, “pull out the plug and let it go down”?
BEN
Yep. Yeah. Standing on the South Coast arrogantly.
LYDIA
I wouldn’t need to do anything about that! Like, look. Coastal erosion and the shifting of tectonic plates –
[EVEN MORE CACKLING]
– which are lowering the coast of England at a faster rate than the seas are rising, is doing that for me.
BEN
Okay, yeah.
ALEX
(mock-concerned) We were okay with that! It was just the way that you described it as “a blight on the ocean” that was really weird.
[SNICKERS]
BEN
Anyway. Before we go too far, are we good with the UEC Isle of Wight?
JONNY
Yeah.
ALEX
Honestly, I quite like “Isle of Wight.”
JONNY
It’s got a level of banality that I do like, yeah.
BEN
So this is the UEC Isle of Wight. 0170701 has been looking after the general functioning, but obviously is not a pilot or a navigator, this is not their specialty. They’re security, which is good if anything attacked.
You also have a pilot, called Anton… I can only think of Debray, which I think is a Satanist.
JONNY
No, you’re thinking of LaVey. Anton LaVey.
BEN
LaVey, Anton LaVey. Okay. Right.
LYDIA
This is such a you two conversation!
BEN
Sorry. So Anton Debray is fine!
So you also have a pilot called Anton Debray, who is not being played by a player, so will definitely survive a long, long time.
[LYDIA CACKLES]
JONNY
Excited to see him enter a comfortable retirement.
BEN
Yes.
ALEX
Ben, you will seriously go up in my esteem if Anton Debray is the only survivor. Like, (laughing) I will be genuinely really happy with you!
BEN
We shall see. What is a “survivor” in a game like this?
ALEX
Aw, fair.
BEN
All the humans have been put into cryosleep, while the android who doesn’t age is looking after the ship, because you are a long haul freighter.
LYDIA
To confirm for myself – 0170701 has been awake and alone for upwards of months, or years, if we’re talking about cryosleep?
BEN
Let’s say months.
LYDIA
Okay! Cool, cool.
BEN
The way that the faster-than-light travel, or like, sub-light travelling in this system works is a bit weird? It’s like, skirting around event-horizon-y? So androids have reported weird goings-on when, you know, travelling alone. People don’t know why, and also for the sake of time, let’s say your period has been reasonably normal.
LYDIA
That’s cool, I just wanted to check.
BEN
But your flight path has come quite close to an undesignated planet, so there’s a possibility the gravitational field will pull you off-course. This is entirely normal, because even though it’s very empty, space is – you know, often quite full of stuff as well.
So you have all been woken up in order for the pilot to basically just deal with this and make sure nothing goes wrong, but that does mean you’re going to have to be awake for a couple of days.
[JONNY YAWNS EXAGGERATEDLY]
JONNY
Alright.
BEN
You’ve been awake for a little bit. Anton is in the cockpit, dealing with things, and you’re sort of sitting around the breakfast table. It’s a little bit like an iconic scene from a certain film, that, you know, we’re not getting the reference to.
JONNY
I cannot picture the pilot as not the man Anton LaVey.
BEN
He looks like he would be in deep space for a long time.
JONNY
Shiny bald, little goatee.
BEN
Yep. Yep.
JONNY
Just to let everyone know in a closed atmosphere environment, that Anton LaVey was very anti-washing and believed strongly in the natural musk.
[BEN GROANS]
BEN
Debray does believe in washing.
[JONNY CACKLES]
BEN
Because you are automatically washed during cryosleep –
ALEX
(overlapping) Fastidious about it, in fact!
JONNY
(laughing) Just – scrubbed, as soon as you’re asleep.
BEN
Yep. Just red, raw.
[MORE LAUGHTER]
BEN
You’ve been up for a couple of hours. You’re having a conversation around the table. I’ll give you a bit of time to decompress before doing something horrible to you.
[SUBTLE BACKGROUND NOISES FADE IN: VERY SOFT BEEPING OF MACHINES, WHIRRING OF ENGINES]
ALEX
You’re going to decompress us? Okay, everyone, we need to put on our suits…
[JONNY LAUGHS]
LYDIA
As the android who has been awake, I think I’ll come in at the point where you are nibbling – I – do I eat? I don’t think I eat.
BEN
…No. No, I don’t think these androids eat.
LYDIA
Yeah, okay.
BEN
You are – remember, you are run by milk.
LYDIA
Ohhh, yes!
BEN
As we know when androids get hurt – they’re just full of milk.
LYDIA
Yes, full of milk. I will glide in quietly:
0170701
Did you have pleasant dreams?
[THE OTHERS YAWN, MAKE ‘MEH’ SOUNDS]
JONNY
Carter is drinking coffee from, like, a tin cup.
[ALABASTER YAWNS SOME MORE]
JONNY
And currently talking to Anton about how –
CARTER
Like, you know? It’s the fact that they scrub you before you go into cryosleep. It’s like, what are they trying to clean off? You know? Cos that’s, that’s government regulations, that is. I don’t think the company did it. That’s something governmental, so, you know. You’ve gotta think, haven’t you. Gotta think about it.
ANTON
I’ve been pilot for a lot of ships. It’s done on all the ships, Carter. It’s fine –
CARTER
(overlapping) Yeah, no, exactly. But why?
ANTON
– you know, it’s just – no, you’re clean!
[CARTER MAKES DOUBTFUL NOISES]
ALABASTER
It’s a bacterial protocol, Carter. It’s just a bacterial protocol.
0170701
I believe it is to avoid contraindications when bacterial secretions might interact with the cryosleep gel.
ANTON
Oh great! If you could all get your “bacterial secretions” out of my earholes, alright? Look, just back out.
CARTER
You look me up when your, when your eyes are finally open about this stuff, you know?
ANTON
Fine, Carter. Whatever. Whatever.
BEN
And for reference, the way this – cos the ship’s layout is, you’ve got the cockpit. Then you’ve got sort of the, straight off of it, the kind of general rec area. So you’ve got your big table, you’ve got, I don’t know. Probably some VR games. Stuff to keep you entertained and stop you going just horribly bonkers in space, cos it’s terrible.
Then just behind that you’ve got the quarters. So there are four rooms. Obviously 0170701 – which by the end of this game I will have memorised – doesn’t really have quarters, they’ve just got a locker that’s kind of in the corner of the entertainment area.
LYDIA
(as 0170701) I only require a locker.
BEN
Then behind that is the bulk of the ship, which is basically just a big warehouse full of stuff. You are currently full – you have a full shipment of generic miscellaneous normal items.
And then right at the back, obviously you’ve got the engines, engineering… just all the various bits. Like, life support is at the back as well. Is this a design flaw? Probably. Is this how they built the ship? Yes.
Oh, and also, like, as part of life support, you do have a little hydroponics area for food and oxygen creation, stuff like that.
So basically Anton shoves you all out of the cockpit, cos you’ve done that annoying thing where you’ve kind of gathered behind his chair to chat at him?
JONNY
Ohhhh. Yeah, just sipping coffee.
BEN
Yeah, exactly.
JONNY
There’s a few buttons that Carter knows are harmless and that he just likes to press.
BEN
Yeah. So he’s like, slapping –
ALEX
It’s just got a good finger-feel!
JONNY
It feels like he’s doing something.
BEN
So he’s like,
ANTON
Look, just – Let me concentrate!
BEN
And just, pushes you out, closes the cockpit door, and you hear the click of a lock.
[CARTER SIGHS]
CARTER
(annoyed) Alright.
BEN
Which can be overridden for like, emergency safety, but that’s like a courtesy “go away, don’t bother me” for, you know. It’s a Do Not Disturb, effectively. So you’re back into the rec area.
ALABASTER
0170701, do we know, er… for why we’ve been woken?
0170701
Standard procedure. We are too near the gravity well of this undesignated planet.
BEN
And actually, let’s say you look out of the viewing port, and you can see the planet. You know, it’s reasonably distant, it’s a red planet. You can see some sort of magnetic storms happening on its surface. It doesn’t look particularly interesting, but it is the only landmark, really, in space.
ALABASTER
Alright. Well –
0170701
If you do not find that there are any challenges to interest or distract you, remember that there are the suite of VR games.
ALABASTER
Did anything happen while we were, er – slumbering?
0170701
Nothing of note.
BEN
And at that point, I would like to take a brief authorial control, and for the purposes of the episode, Lydia, can you say “Nothing of note” and, like, glitch and say that – let’s say five times?
LYDIA
Okay.
BEN
And then I’ll jump in with a thing.
LYDIA
Okay!
0170701
Nothing of note. Nothing of note – of note. (glitching more and more) Nothing of note. Nothing of note. Nothing of n-n-n-note.
BEN
And at that point, all heck breaks loose.
ALEX
Aw, no!
BEN
You were sitting in a perfectly, perfectly normal entertainment suite. And then all of a sudden, there is a horrific noise of tearing of metal, multiple small explosions –
[SFX: EXPLOSIONS, SINGING OF METAL]
As another ship appears, intersected with your ship.
ALEX
Oh no, I hate this. Oh, no.
[VARIOUS NOISES OF MACHINE CHAOS – AIR HISSING, LOW ALARMS]
BEN
You’re basically – the rec room has also become… it looks like you’ve been merged with the life support area of another ship. You hear, amongst all the tearing and scraping, you hear a scream from your cockpit –
[AN AGONIZED, DISTANT SCREAM]
But also the table has been upended, there’s a bunch of plants have just been thrown around, they’re dead and withered. You have like, let’s say… Alabaster was narrowly missed being bisected by a wall. There’s machinery and pipes, a small fire has started, and it’s just a cacophony of terror and awfulness.
CARTER
Oh, bloody hell!
ALABASTER
(groaning) This is what happens when you try and make spacetime!
[ALABASTER GIGGLES TERRIFIEDLY]
CARTER
Ahhhhhhhh!
JONNY
Carter’s just having a scream.
BEN
That’s very fair! And also just to say, 0170701, that glitching has stopped. That was like a precursor to this event, and now you’re back to normal.
0170701
This is irregular.
[ALABASTER MAKES SOFT, TERRIFIED NOISES]
0170701
Do you humanoids feel that you have sufficient oxygen to continue –
[CARTER LETS OUT AN EXTENDED SCREAM THAT DEFINITELY USED A LOT OF OXYGEN]
0170701
I will take that as a yes.
[CARTER CONTINUES SCREAMING]
0170701
Life support is –
LYDIA
Is life support online?
BEN
Well, at this point you hear an automated – or you can just make out beyond the background noise, an automated voice, which is the ship’s sort of onboard, not AI but like, assistant?
– Which I shall make male.
LYDIA
I mean, it’s a thing! It’s an interesting thing!
JONNY
I just really like the idea of just a really surly computer announcement voice.
BEN
Okay, yeah, fine. It’s Red Dwarf, why not.
LYDIA
(cheering) Yeahhhh! Holly!
BEN
(laughing) Yeah. Wait.
[COMPUTERIZED DING!]
AUTOMATED VOICE (BEN)
(echoing) The life support system is compromised. Seven days of oxygen remaining. Multiple hull breaches. Fires in crew quarters, entertainment, cockpit completely compromised.
ALABASTER
Oh dear.
ALEX
Alabaster runs over and starts banging very weakly on the door to the cockpit, if he can.
0170701
Please do not open the door to the cockpit. The cockpit is completely compromised, there will be a dramatic breach of life support and containment facilities. Please do not open the cockpit, there will be a dramatic breach.
BEN
Great. Obviously this is the thing in all RPGs where something suddenly happens and everyone should do something.
LYDIA
Yessss.
BEN
So let’s run through people’s things. So Jonny, is Carter trying to deal with the fire?
JONNY
His first instinct is to throw the remains of his coffee on the fire?
BEN
…Fine?
JONNY
Then he stops, looks around – I assume there are fire extinguishers.
BEN
There are some fire extinguishers, absolutely.
JONNY
And it’s unharmed?
BEN
It seems to be unharmed.
JONNY
He’s going to extinguish some fires.
BEN
Excellent. I’m not going to ask for a check for that cos you have the tool, it’s like, whatever. It’s fine.
You’re currently like, squirting –
[JONNY MAKES SEVERAL CHHHHH EXTINGUISHER NOISES]
Yeah. Extinguisher at the fire.
In the meantime, we’ve got Alabaster and 0170701. Alabaster, after 0170701 has asked you to not do that, are you desisting?
ALEX
Alabaster is not actually trying to open the door. Alabaster’s just banging on the door –
BEN
Sure.
ALEX
– kind of futilely yelling, uh…
ALABASTER
Anton? Aaaanton! Hello! You in there? Hello! Don’t be dead, please!
BEN
Cool. And what is 0170701 up to?
LYDIA
Do I have access to any kind of additional computer readouts? I don’t know, am I connected to something that would tell me how he’s doing, or would I need to look that up on a screen?
BEN
You are not integrated with the ship, but you can look it up on a screen. Would you like to?
[NOISES OF A PROJECTOR SCREEN DESCENDING]
LYDIA
I will look up on a screen what “compromised” entails. I assume there will be lots of red blotches. On a blue background, perhaps? Maybe an orange background, for the full… You know.
BEN
Oh, let’s go orange. Absolutely. Yeah, you’ve got that slightly washed-out orange-on-yellow-on-beige kind of computer readout.
[LYDIA SNICKERS]
ALEX
And presumably whenever a letter comes up it goes, (trundling computer noises) choo-di-do-di-do-di-do.
BEN
Absolutely. There’s a typewriter clicking thing for no particular reason.
ALEX
Yup.
BEN
So Lyd, can I get an Intellect roll, and do you have Computers as Trained?
[DICE ROLLS]
LYDIA
We can use this to, I suppose, a wonderful way to remind me and the audience of the rules. I rolled a 54; my Intellect is 41.
BEN
So your Intellect is 41. If you look at the back of your sheet, you’ve also got your skills.
LYDIA
Mhm. Do I have Computers… yes, I do.
BEN
You do. So what that means, you get plus 10 percent, which means that your – the number you’re trying to roll under is 51, because you’ve got 10 percent, and you rolled…
LYDIA
A 54.
BEN
Which is a failure.
[LYDIA GROANS]
BEN
Oh! That’s one thing I forgot about: can everybody please take two Stress, because everything’s gone awfully wrong.
JONNY
(overlapping) Oh no!
ALEX
(panicked singsong) I’ll do no such thing!
JONNY
It says on my Stress stats a 2. Am I now over-stressed?
BEN
Your Stress is now 4.
JONNY
Oh! Okay.
BEN
It’s not a limit, it’s just because I think being in space is like, there’s just a background stress level because it’s very dangerous.
JONNY
Yeah, it’s just a bit stressful, cos you’re surrounded by nothing.
BEN
Absolutely. And I could ask for Panic rolls… Should I cascade? Absolutely let’s cascade. So I’m gonna deal with Lyd and then I’ll ask for Panic rolls.
Lyd, you failed at your Computers roll to check the full status report. However, like, it’s not that you don’t get any information, it’s just there’s so much information it’s a bit overwhelming. Like, everything looks absolutely ruined, and you are not an engineer, so… how bad it is…
Like, what you can see is that each area of the ship has a like, kind of health bar? Like how full up the damage is? The cockpit is a 100 percent. That cockpit is gone. The likelihood that Anton has survived this is basically nil.
LYDIA
Right.
BEN
Where you are, the entertainment area, is around about 40 percent, which is quite –
LYDIA
(overlapping) Oh dear.
BEN
– it’s not, like, actively killing you right now. Crew quarters is 30 percent, the warehouse is, like, 60 percent, and life support and thrusters are at 89 percent.
LYDIA
Ooh. Oooohhh. Ooh dear.
BEN
It gives you a general idea of what is a problem –
LYDIA
Right.
BEN
– but no really specific information.
But! What I’m also now going to ask for is Panic rolls from all of you.
LYDIA
Right.
JONNY
(simultaneously) HOORAY!
BEN
So, Panic check. So I say, when should you roll Panic? I think after your ship is currently… interacting with a ship is viable.
[LYDIA SNORTS]
ALEX
It’s pronounced “splorked.”
BEN
Yes. It has been splorked with, with another ship. So make a Stress check, so it’s – you’re just rolling 2D10. So not a D100, just 2D10 adding together the result. If you roll over your current Stress, you don’t panic and you relieve one Stress. If you roll equal to or lower than your current Stress, you panic and move on to step two.
[DICE ROLLS]
So just, anybody roll equal to or lower than a 4?
LYDIA
…No.
JONNY
Yeah, no.
BEN
It’s unlikely at this stage.
ALEX
I did roll a 5.
BEN
Oof! Got close. Okay.
ALEX
(laughing) I have no coping skills!
BEN
Well, no! You do still cope, you know, a success is a success by whatever margin. So you all lose one Stress, you’re going down to 3 –
ALEX
Yay!
BEN
– because there was a moment but now you’re like, okay, we need to deal with this, you know, we’re professionals, we’ve trained for this. Not this, but like, you know, what goes wrong in space. You’ve had the orientation.
ALEX
“So You’ve Been Splorked.”
BEN
…Basically yes.
CARTER
Zero, what’s, what’s the damage?
0170701
Extensive. Possibly most critical is the damage to life support, which, at 89 percent, cannot maintain integrity for a particularly long time. I believe that life support will be critical to keeping you alive, and we should potentially fix that.
CARTER
Right, okay.
JONNY
I’m gonna have a look and see on the readout to see how best to go about fixing life support.
BEN
Sure. Again, I don’t think this needs a roll because, like, you are the engineer, right. The thing to fix life support, the readouts are not detailed enough. You kind of have to get there and just see what the damage is. You don’t know how to fix the problem to, you know, exactly what’s happened.
It looks like it’s not actively on fire, which is a small mercy.
JONNY
Can I take the… actually, no, I’ll have used up the whole extinguisher.
BEN
Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the fire is out.
JONNY
Do I have my tools nearby?
BEN
Absolutely. Everyone’s got their lockers in the rec room, so you can kind of pull out your stuff. Fortunately, 0170701’s locker has had the top chopped off by what looks like a piece of hull, but you can still open what’s left of it and grab your stuff.
LYDIA
I am covered in guns.
ALABASTER
It feels to me like we have, er, three objectives. One is to look after life support. We should probably try to shut down any volatile processes? I’m thinking, you know, we’ve got a lot of quite toxic chemicals bouncing around this ship to keep it running, and now we have another ship with those things as well, so we should probably try and shut all that down. And then find out what happened, because I feel like the last one might be our lowest priority, ha.
0170701
Yes.
CARTER
I’m going to check life support?
ALABASTER
I’ll do the chemicals thing, I’ll just start turning basically any processes off that we can.
0170701
I will accompany you to life support.
BEN
Good stuff. So, Alabaster, what is your intent with–? Like, what specifically are you trying to achieve with this “turning off the chemical processes”?
ALEX
Very very simple. We’re having a catastrophic ship failure. As a result, you… have to look after your health, which is being covered by the life support team, and they need to stop any further damage and there’s lots of moving parts on a big spaceship and now there’s double the amount of spaceship, so it’s “turn off anything it’s possible to turn off and then start picking up the pieces.”
BEN
Okay. So you’re basically paring down everything that’s not critical to make sure it’s not, like, malfunctioning.
ALEx
Just anything I can get to to turn off, cos otherwise that’s another fire waiting to happen, an explosion we’ll have to deal with later, et cetera et cetera.
BEN
At this point, most of those critical processes are governed by the thrusters and life support areas of the ship.
ALEX
Cool!
BEN
You are currently apparently in the life support section of this other ship. So you could maybe try to access their systems if there is a terminal which is… alive.
ALEX
Yeah! You know what, there’s nothing I enjoy more than being the one who is the first aboard the entirely unknown, potentially immediately disappearing vessel.
BEN
Well, fortunately for you, you are already onboard it –
ALEX
Yayyy!
[JONNY CHEERS TOO]
BEN
– because it is now also your ship. You have a hunt about for a terminal while 0170701 and Carter kind of are prepping to do an external jaunt, cos again, you don’t know whether there’s vacuum there or not.
You kind of have a hunt about, and underneath your table, there is, like, the top of a terminal, which appears to still be on. You’ve kind of got to, like, lie on the floor to access it.
ALEX
Oh, I hate this so much, Ben. There’s gonna be so many oblique angles in every room now.
BEN
It’s very upsetting. It’s like you’ve been hit in the face by an Escher painting. The name of the ship – cos it’s got its, like, little splash screen – is the UEC Hilltop, and if you want to make an Intellect roll…
JONNY
There was a moment where I was absolutely sure you were going to say, like, the UEC Isle of Dark.
[LAUGHTER]
ALEX
Yes. I’d love to do an Intellect, to see if that’s even a ship that exists. I’d also like to have established that I am immediately wearing a hazard suit, because I have one.
BEN
Yes, fine. You can struggle into your hazard suit.
ALEX
Yes, please.
BEN
So make me an Intellect. Do you have any supporting skills, I mean, Comptuers is the obvious one, but I will take offers.
ALEX
I have Chemistry, Hydroponics, and Biology, so unless it’s a very upsetting computer…
[LYDIA CACKLES]
ALEX
I don’t think I have anything relevant.
BEN
Actually Hydroponics, I think, because you’re looking at the life support area.
ALEX
Oh, cool! Cool cool cool.
BEN
You would be accessing the equivalent terminal on your ship to do your job.
ALEX
So I need to roll lower to succeed, yes?
BEN
Yes, you need to roll under. So you’re looking at your Intellect score, plus 10.
ALEX
Smash it.
[DICE ROLLS]
My base Intellect is 53, and I rolled 15.
BEN
Oh, fine. Great. Oh – that’s one thing to mention as well. If you roll a double, so the same value on each dice, that is a critical.
ALEX
(intrigued) Ahh!
BEN
If you succeed, it’s a critical success; if the roll is a failure, it is a critical failure.
ALEX
Love it.
BEN
But basically, doubles always make a roll…
LYDIA
I really like these mechanics. Good mechanics!
BEN
I like this system, but yes, doubles are always a critical.
ALEX
Perfect.
BEN
You rolled extremely well. You access the UEC Hilltop’s life support system. Fortunately, it looks like they are still functioning to some extent, and because the ships have been mashed together, any oxygen it puts out is being kind of circulated within the confined space of the combined ships, so although this is heavily damaged and from what 0170701 has said, your life support system is very damaged, they’re kind of working together to keep the livable area going.
ALEX
May I make a follow-up Intellect check to sort of attach to that?
BEN
Sure!
ALEX
Currently, there’s a glass-half-empty route, which is: we have two broken ships.
BEN
Yes.
ALEX
There’s a glass-half-full route, which is, between two broken ships, we have one functioning ship’s worth of systems…?
BEN
Potentially.
ALEX
Do I think that’s a viable route or am I just like, no, we need to cut off the (inaudible)
JONNY
As an engineer, Alex, I would just like to say that’s not how ships work.
[LYDIA SNICKERS]
ALEX
You’re in life support, you leave me alone!
BEN
Unfortunately, Carter Block is correct.
ALEX
Boo! Fair. Alright.
BEN
There are systems which work, but you’ll never gonna get them to work together.
ALEX
Understood.
BEN
The fact is that this is just venting oxygen into the same enclosed space, and that’s why it’s working together, but other than that, like… the thrusters are completely rubbished.
Alabaster, you know that, yeah, you’re not going to suffocate. You start flicking down, like, the really non-critical systems just to prevent… just the random stuff occurring.
[SFX: SWITCHES FLIPPING QUICKLY]
ALEX
(overlapping) Reduce the variables! Just reduce the variables! Keep reducing variables.
BEN
Yes. Although, when you’re looking at the readout of the hydroponics, it also has the makeup of the air on the UEC Hilltop? And you have a flick through the reports, and you see that, like, the air mix that it’s reporting is not coming to a hundred percent. There is something else, which is just being reported as “anomalous.”
So like, the systems do not know what it is, but it’s like, there’s something in the air and… (singsong) we don’t know!
ALEX
That’s what hazard suits are for!
JONNY
(singing) I can feel it comin’ in the air, tonight…
BEN
That’s what hazard suits and (backsuits?) are for.
On that note, I think, with 0170701 and Carter Block preparing to head to the life support and thruster area of your ship, the UEC Isle of Wight, and Alabaster just finding out about this – strange occurrence in the UEC Hilltop, which may or may not be associated with the fact that it’s munged itself into your ship somehow…
JONNY
It’s what?
BEN
Oh, by the way –
ALEX
It’s munged.
[LYDIA SNICKERS]
BEN
A munge. A muuuunch.
JONNY
Two muuuuunge.
BEN
Two munge.
LYDIA
As in, “merge,” but also “lunch”?
JONNY
He, she, or they munges.
BEN
I think it’s very onomatopoeic – if you make your hands, make them loose, then just kinda push them together, that’s what a munge is to me.
JONNY
Just munge ‘em.
ALEX
(mock-pretentiously) It’s the lay term, but yes. “Munge” would suffice.
BEN
But yes, I think on that note, we’re going to end the episode here, and we’ll all be back in part 2 of the Mothership RPG!
[THE NOISES OF MACHINE CHAOS FADE OUT]
ALEX
Thanks, Ben. I hate it.
BEN
Goodbye, everybody!
ALEX
(overlapping) It’s the worst in the best way possible.
[BEN SNICKERS]
ALL
Byeeeee!
[THE MAGNUS THEME FADES IN]
ALEX
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