Title: Internal comms back Author: Shift 3 of the Liberty Eagle /* vim: set syntax=fountain: */ Series: Shipping Containers: Liberty Eagle (Shift 3) Episode: 101 Contact: Copyright © 2018 S.W. Black Notes: Those who want to put on an audio or visual production of this reality show in your local region of space and time will probably want to first make sure you follow your local procedure to claim copyright. ==== ~ In our shipping containers you can find ~ distant kin, perhaps nice or kind. ~ Guiding the ship: Dirk is smart but rude; ~ Mandy loves first; Sal can be crude; ~ Ty does what he wants; The Captain ~ guides the friends, while R just captions. .Within the ship (preface) R. ANNOUNCER We missed the excitement of the shift-change, but we're broadcasting now! I am the dedicated system tasked with transcribing the voices and actions of the crew for the QEC audience. I also have the responsibility of monitoring their behavior and deciding what is relevant to share. What have they been up to ...? .On the BRIDGE (0065-W10-5 08:28) R. ANNOUNCER Because the Liberty Eagle is a settlement ship, each station on the bridge is designed to be broken down for parts once it lands. There are four stations against walls of a small room, and in the middle in sits the captain's chair. The CAPTAIN has a 24 hour day, while the four other members of the crew have a 28 hour day. It is currently time when SAL's bridge duty overlaps with the CAPTAIN. While recommended hair styles do prefer styles that are short enough to never touch their eyes, SAL has shaved her head. We will get back to this later. SAL Captain, I got the internal comms working again. CAPTAIN Good. That will help when someone goes to clean out the mess in food tank two. R. ANNOUNCER There's a discrepancy with the CAPTAIN's age in the system. His voice print is degraded compared to what it should be. Suit monitors are offline, so unable to double-check with that data. SAL There's something else. I noticed when I got them back online, one of the systems restarted and is now continuously monitoring them. CAPTAIN What? Shut it down. We don't need it. SAL I think we do. It's tied pretty deep in to the comm system. It's possible that it was an attempt to shut this system down that killed our comms. CAPTAIN Are we going to get prompts and stuff? It's the "R. Announcer" system. You know, from the show we signed on for when we got the job. Did you at least kill the prompts? R. ANNOUNCER SAL shrugged. SAL I didn't think it had prompts. It was never designed for gimmicks, just to record us. I mean, it'll roll in interview and stuff from before we left, but it was never one of those things that could do physical stunts with us. .In a booth before launching (no timestamp) SAL I love my hair. I've been told I can be a bit intimidating, but I think my hair helps me be friendly and approachable. If I really wanted to be intimidating, I think I'd have to shave my head. It's really one of the things I'm worried about when it comes to the 20 year shifts, you know? I'm worried that when we land and I'm finally around men with testicles instead of just implanted testosterone factories, that I'll be old enough that my hair may have fallen out. At least they expect folks to get a little action on the trip, and with permanent birth control applied to the men! It could be really fun! I'm hoping that the folks I trained with that are slated to be in my shift make it through the process alright. Some of them seem nice. I know most of our passengers are formerly homeless who, through the Homeless Storage Sugar program have been dried out, but if something goes wrong, you're looking at a piece of your brain sticking to your skull and tearing itself off, and I don't care how safe they say it is, it feels really dangerous. .On the Bridge: (0065-W10-5 Present) CAPTAIN Do you know if those old interviews are still in the system, or whether they got deleted? SAL What? I don't know. .In a booth before launching (no timestamp) R. ANNOUNCER There are some discrepancies with the records. I am unsure of Captain's surname, though he is associated with these transcriptions and I know that he's a murdering bastard who will die too quickly for justice, if he doesn't doom us all first. CAPTAIN What do you mean, none of my church's books or study materials will be available? They've been around for fifty years or more. The Bible they're based on was one of the first books ever published. Sure, I get that the King James Version is going to be available, but the language in that was archaic even when it was first published. I need my church's material! Are you serious? I don't believe this. How can these ships really have no books on them except from 1923 Old Earth Common Era and earlier? .Within the ship R. ANNOUNCER From the Handbook, "Our ship was launched to colonize far-away places. Those that paid for it knew the folly of trying to maintain copyright without instantaneous banking. "While the QEC may provide instantaneous communication, banking requires a level technological playing field for the encryption to work. A ship traveling for 100 years becomes an archaic piece of technology before it even lands, and it won't be able to handle modern encryption at best, and a world-computer designed to break the colonization encryption protocols before landing at worst. While we don't expect any of those problems to happen on *your* vessels, it is still better to send ships with only public domain material. "Don't let it bring you down. After all, you and any surviving friends or family members get to browse from the complete library of on-board media and play with it even before you take off. And all legally, too! No prisons for media pirates on your new planet!" .In her bunk: (0065-W10-5 18:12) SAL We've been at our shift for five years and we're still trying to figure out the mess the previous shifts made. I also know something is off with the Captain. He pretends like he has no idea about what happened around here, but I also know that he captained the previous shift. He should have a really good idea as to what happened in some cases. I mean, the body tainting food tank two, right? I refuse to believe he doesn't know whose it was. I really wouldn't be surprised if he hauled his saggy butt down there personally, just so he could make sure there was no lingering evidence. .Within the ship (addendum) R. ANNOUNCER Join our crew as they manage the boredom of the middle of a five-shift 100 year mission.