Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about
solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Seda,
and I'm showcasing multiple possible experiences
of self -paced games by inviting guests to play
them alongside me so I can compile our stories
together. You can support the show financially
at patreon .com slash foliopod or with a one
-off donation at ko -fi .com slash foliopod.
This is episode four of our games, A Farsickness
Landing, a one -page map -making game about rediscovering
an ancient, derelict ship by lonely cryptid media.
The other explorers of crash sites and history
joining me today are Dora Rogers, whose work
you can find at dcity .itch .io and galpalgames
.itch .io, and Mark Major, whose work you can
find at major .com and major .itch .io. Dee also
did some consultation and playtesting for Hocus
Pocus Hyperfocus, a storytelling game about magic
and ADHD, which is crowdfunding now and throughout
most of October. My cat is trying to open a bag
of chips. One moment. Hocus Pocus Hyperfocus
was designed by the fantastic Alison Cole and
Brandy Wright and has these adorable illustrations
from Tiny Witch Co. The day this episode releases,
it's about 80 % funded. Go help push it over
the finish line and then also check out kickstarterunited
.org to find ways you can act in solidarity with
the workers who make such campaigns possible.
That was Gerald shouting in solidarity. Gerald
loves labor. Right, buddy? Briefly, also, thank
you to the people who reached out to celebrate
and commiserate after hearing my somewhat neurotic
approach to acknowledging the 50th episode last
week. Thank you for being part of the little
group of creatives and game dorks who are on
this experimental ride with me. I really appreciate
it. Being behind on editing is unnerving, but
the one -day delay at the moment means that this
episode is coming out on the one -year anniversary
of the first episode. And that is really cool.
Isn't that a weird thing about how calendars
work? That it's, like, the show always released
on Fridays, but because I'm releasing it on a
Saturday, I'm releasing it on the same day as
a Friday? Is that interesting? I know it is interesting.
The room's 9, 10, and 11, which is what we're
gonna hear this week, and then next week we're
gonna wrap it up with our last two rooms. I used
making my characters take a break to, um, I used
that to remind me to do the same thing. Is this
bleed? Is this what they mean when they say bleed?
Section nine. This is another hexagonal area
on the untouched or less touched side of the
ship sticking out further. Let's find room nine.
The room type is cavernous. Destroyed. Technical.
The room modifier is scientific. Oops. No, it's
on the floor. Powerful. I will respect the role.
Occupied. The item is a weapon. First time we've
seen that. Relic. Book. And the vibe is uplifting.
Mysterious. Peaceful. Interesting. I think that
this is, this was the galley, the kitchen. And
the thing is that it is so thoroughly trashed
that she just has no idea, right? It's kind of
blank. I think that there was like something
blew up here, maybe not even to do with the fighting
or anything like that. But there was, you know,
there was like, there were relatively volatile
things in here because you have to generate.
generate a bunch of heat to cook things. So something
sort of like blew up here and there's really
not much left. What do your senses tell you about
this? It's very simple. Her senses tell her that
this room was just destroyed in a way that nothing
else she's seen so far has been. Like this was
trashed before the crash. And I think she actually
draws a false conclusion here. I don't think
that what happened here was the result of violence
per se. It was the result of, like, neglect and
everything going crazy. This may have even happened
after the ship was abandoned. And, you know,
something went wrong, right? Like, something
shorted when it wasn't supposed to, whatever.
So she actually kind of draws the wrong conclusion.
And to her, this is just another sign of the
violence that went on here. She assumes that,
like, she can't think of what it might have been.
Maybe it was, like, an armory, right? Or maybe
there was a firefight here. These are incorrect
interpretations, but she doesn't know that. Cavernous.
Ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
This room was not built cavernous. This is a
room with the exact footprint of the lab. The
third room, the first lab that we walked into.
But the hall has been opened? into like the cave
system into a cave system or something that like
is underground essentially this ship it seems
like was somehow already underground maybe it
got trapped under a landslide or something i'm
not sure and they broke through the hall to like
create a living situation in the caverns beyond
it So this doesn't answer where they were sleeping
when they were traveling on the ship, but I think
this is uplifting and cool because this is the
first place they settled. Like, when the ship
landed here or crashed here, for whatever reason,
whatever happened, they didn't go far. They just
nestled the ship underground, broke through one
of the walls to start living in the cave system
here. And that's awesome. This is the first place
that we, our ancestors, lived on this planet.
Hell yeah. I think what's scientific about it
is just various systems. Like, they lived here
long enough that they were clearly setting up,
like, irrigation systems and a little farm and
just various, like, they were really, maybe even,
like... power like a small power grid and that
kind of thing they were they were building a
little society here and i think i'll bring the
item in the weapon that i rolled as an explanation
as to why they didn't live here anymore i think
there's just the obvious remnants of a huge fight
with i think creatures that are known to us like
there's a reason that that we haven't discovered
this stuff before and that we're even doing a
dig here is a big deal. I think there's just
these, uh, these big fucking cave creatures.
And they'll getcha. They will straight up getcha.
They're very dangerous. And maybe they migrate,
but on a really long time scale. Like, it's every,
like, few hundred years or something. I don't
know. Or, or, ooh, or they go, they don't go
to a whole different area, but they go deeper.
Or something. Maybe it's like, oh my god, maybe
they're like cicadas. Yes. But huge and fucked
up with big teeth and a little reptilian. But
they lay dormant for a very long time. And then,
until very recently, it was unpredictable to
us when they would emerge and just start doing
violence. But I think we had some sort of breakthrough
where we realized that it's like, You know, there's
a sun near us and then there's a couple of moons.
And when they are in alignment in a certain way,
I think that I'm tying it together a little bit,
very loosely thematically with the thing of like,
you know, the plant trapping radiation. I think
that it's the kind of thing where like, it's
imperceptible to us, but to these creatures,
when there are certain cosmic bodies in alignment,
this wakes them up. And they just start tearing
shit apart if they find it. And I think we needed
to test this for a long time. This took like
decades and decades of tracking to see, to like
prove this because it just, oh boy, wasn't worth
the risk if we were wrong. And so over the course
of like decades or maybe even hundreds of years,
several generations of scientists tracked this
and proved this to be true. And we are now so
confident in it that we're like, yeah, we can
start digging around in the, caves now because
we know when they won't be here and that's why
we're discovering this for the first time because
it just became accessible to us but this was
not known to our ancestors they didn't even know
that these creatures would be here they probably
weren't for quite a while like they they got
enough time they were given enough time to start
to really build infrastructure in these caves
again i rolled cavernous for the room type it's
huge they were built they were building A civilization
in this whole system of caves. And they did quite
a bit of it. And then those creatures woke up.
Those cosmic bodies aligned. And the bloodshed
began probably almost immediately. And so we
see the evidence of that. We see the discarded
weapons. Probably still the bloodstains. I don't
think there are bodies. I was thinking through
that for a moment. I was trying to think, like,
was it so scary and unpredictable that they left
the bodies here? Well, the creatures probably
ate the bodies. So never mind. Yeah. I do think
that what I've established so far is that they
are the type who would probably come in to try
and reclaim the bodies to dispose of them properly,
despite the threat. But I think that they didn't
have the opportunity to because I think they
got eaten. Yeah. So retroactively, I think that
probably one of the reasons a bunch of the ways
to get up to the second floor were destroyed
was to stop them from getting into the ship.
And I don't know. Or maybe they did, actually.
I think, yeah, that's maybe what a bunch of the
destruction in the main dome is, that a bunch
of these creatures did get in and just fucked
stuff up, threw stuff around. They're a menace.
And very logically, this happening once was enough
for our ancestors to go, okay, let's go find
somewhere else to live instead. Probably. That's
probably what turned them out into the world.
This, yeah, clearly this is the computer core,
right? This is the computer core. What was the
name of the ship's computer? The name of the
ship's computer was SOLID, right? All caps. What
does it stand for? Ship Operating... Something
D. Yeah, SOLID was the ship's computer core AI
keeping everything... going and powerful book.
Peaceful, yeah. Also, you know, the ship's repository
of knowledge. Not physical, actual books, but
the, you know, if it's digital, maybe copies
were taken and the originals were left here.
Imagine the colony ship was intended to be kind
of like the hub of the first city or whatever,
and because of the damage, it wasn't so. Copies
were taken, but what's here is here. And although...
10 ,000 years again, a long time. Knowledge changes.
So maybe what we know now, you know, is developed
on all that copies of copies of copies and evolution
of knowledge. It'll be interesting to cross -reference
the original sources here. I think the minimal
power keeping things going here is not enough
for the full solid experience. And so I think
part of the excavation and restoration project
is getting power down here, running conduit.
Try to get solid back online to kind of find
out more about what happened. What do my senses
tell me about this? I mean, it's quiet. This
is another one of those kind of domey kind of
structures. I'm seeing kind of like a central
area in the middle, surrounded by like walls
of like white machines with blinking lights.
And for some reason, it feels like it's insulated
from the rest of the ship. So where there might
have been whatever kind of noise, you go in here
and it is eerily quiet. You can kind of get lost
a little bit just sitting there. Yeah. What is
safe here? I think this is probably the safest
place on the ship. I think clearly more than
even the people who were brought here. The knowledge
that's in this core module is probably the most
valuable thing. So even if nobody made it, somebody
in the future could find this and our society
would continue. And one, two, three, four. How
does this relate to past, present, and future?
This is our past. This is the direct line we
have to the society that sent us here. The 10th
room. Section 10. I'm rolling badly, like physically.
Like my dice are getting trapped and hitting
things. Oh god, and I'm throwing them? Hello?
Five, one, four, three. It's cramped. Cavernous.
Yet again, cavernous. The modifier is alive.
Occupied. Powerful. The item is a trinket. Trinket.
We've got communicators. And the vibe is uplifting.
And melancholy again. And mysterious. I mean,
there's a lot of mystery here. We haven't had
any mysterious yet, have we? Do I want to swap
any of those? Yeah. So I'm going to swap the
one which gave me cavernous. I haven't had book
from the item list yet. So I'm going to swap
with the three from item. And so the room type
is technical. So my room is technical. Alive
is a book. The vibe is uplifting. Great. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Okay. I do have to mention the playthrough
that I did on the live stream. There's a VOD
on YouTube or edited audio only version on the
bonus feed, which you can get for any level of
supporting the Patreon, including not supporting
it financially at all for free as a member, free
member, bonus feed. It's on there. It's really
good. It's a really good episode. Books played
a very important role in that narrative. They
were sort of the the central thing that everything
rotated around, if I recall correctly. Zigzagging
back down the ship. We're back on the port side.
This is the back half of the ship that's kind
of tilted down. It's a little bit more wrecked,
but still okay. It's still okay. So she bypasses,
or she doesn't go into the kitchen yet, or the
dining area, rather, yet. She goes into engineering.
This was the engineering section, the reactor,
the propulsion center. Which is... Probably the
second most cavernous space on the ship. It's
cramped again because the walls are crushed in.
There's been cave -ins. And this is where the
power is coming from. This is... Like the little
fusion core. I mean, I think this is the fusion
reactor, for one thing, that powered the whole
ship. That's still trickling out metal power.
It knows it has been damaged. It knows it has
been running for a long time. And it's got to
keep itself going on metal power to keep going
at all. And it is occupied in the sense that
it is full of big machines. Like, she walks in
and she's like, this is a... Wow, like, what
are all of these things, right? Because there's...
Whole other systems here, right? Like life support
systems, a ton of computers. This was the technical
heart of the ship. There are terminals here of
whatever they look like from 10 ,000 years ago,
but they're communicating the power status. We're
at 36 % power right now. It could probably last
for another 5 ,000 or 6 ,000 years, but it's
good that we found it when we did because who
knows? And the melancholy feeling comes from
knowing that this wasn't forever, right? There
is a timer on this, and we were lucky to find
it when we did. If we had let it go for another
10 ,000 years, this would be a dead ship, 100%.
What do I feel here? I feel lucky, relieved that
something's still working, and that whoever did
this, whoever put this mission together. You
know, you can't make anything run forever, but
you can do the best that you can. And knowing
that it is running, it's relief, right? That
it's still going. What do my senses tell me about
this? I think, you know, it is on the wrecked
side of the ship. You know, it's not just the
smell of like the little ozone, a little sharp
smell. I think there is like almost like the
hairs standing on end feeling. I think something
is. more wrong than appears here. I think this
is going to need attention. Yeah, I think the
senses in my gut is telling me something more
is going on here. What is dangerous here? Now
you'll overcome it. Yeah, I think the danger
is that this part was wrecked. This is a delicate
piece of essential equipment. It's a fusion core,
and we're lucky it hasn't gone up already. It's
been stable for 10 ,000 years and looks like
it will be for a good long time. However, a messed
up ship's core is a concern. And I think the
danger is if we explore or poke into it uncautiously,
there's going to be a lot bigger problem. This
was a buzzing place of activity. It was always
hot. you know back in the day because there's
all these systems working so people would like
you know strip down to uh to like a tank top
when they came in here and uh i think it's relatively
intact because everything was built to be very
sturdy obviously you don't want anything going
wrong with your fusion reactor and i think the
fusion reactor the fusion reactor is inert like
it it whatever made it active whatever made it
dangerous is is gone over the last 10 000 years
so it's just this big monolithic structure that
she doesn't really understand and she will look
this up in the archives and she'll she'll understand
what it was and be pretty amazed by that but
on this first exploration um it's just a big
inert structure that interests her she finds
another trinket here i think she's not going
to take this trinket just because i think that's
interesting she just finds it and i think that
the trinket Hmm. Okay. There was a man who worked
here who was married. He was married to somebody
who wasn't on the crew. I think somebody who
was part of the cargo, right? Somebody who was
in cryo sleep. And he took off his wedding ring.
He had a spot here where he would stash it whenever
he was working, right? Because he was going into
engines and machines and he didn't want to get
dirty or damaged. And she finds his wedding ring
because... Whatever happened, something happened
at the end where he was not able to retrieve
it. Yeah, I can almost picture like the Prestige
series version of this being, you know, we see
this flashback and it's not important, right?
We just see that this man, maybe an alarm's going
off. Maybe they're shooting somewhere nearby,
right? Something like this. And somebody's saying
like, we have to go, we have to go and hurrying
him out. And he turns to grab the ring and they
just, they are pulling him along and he doesn't
get it. And then we cut to our girl, you know,
in this ruined space, finding this little shiny
thing in sort of like a little cup and being
like, wow, this is so beautiful. And not understanding
it. But I think that she, for whatever reason,
she decides to leave this, even where she's taken.
She took the wings and she took the pentagram.
But this, she decides to leave, right? And I
think that she will later. When she looks up
what a golden ring might mean, she will like
that she made that decision. It'll feel right.
But right now, it's just an instinct. So I think
we carefully make our way over to, like, the
cavern entrance that we were just in was over
top of third room, the chip lab. We're going
to make our way to the room that is over top
of the fifth room, which was the seed experiments
lab. Technical Alive book uplifting. Huh. Okay.
I think we're closing a bit of a loop here. One
of the questions on the list is something like
connecting to other rooms, right? How does this
relate to a previous room or discovery? Yeah.
So in the room below this one, we were finding
those experiments, and we're not going to answer
everything about it because one of the big, the
mysteries that they were left with still was
like... Where did these robots come from? Where
did we come from? Whatever. And I don't think
we're going to solve that. Even if they did,
I don't think that information is here. I think
it's been removed by somebody if it existed.
And I think that isn't going to be the central
focus of what we figure out here. I think what
we find here is some of the results of the experiments
they were running on the seeds. And in part,
they were doing that to be like, maybe if we
figure out more about... the fact that you can
run on this seed stuff, we'll figure out more
about you. But I think that they also realized
that like, they could make the extraction of
energy from the seeds more efficient. And I think
this was something that the humans specifically
developed. Like, yeah, we do get, we get a little
bit of a lore dump because we find, the book
we find is one of the other sets of, one from
the missing set. notes that basically explains,
like, okay, I think we do learn how the humans
first met the robots, which is there was, like,
they're on another, they're from another planet,
and their power grid ran off of a similar thing
to what the engines do. Essentially big nuclear
plants, right? But I just don't think this is
exactly nuclear radiation. It's some other thing.
I don't know why that matters, except that I
just think it's fun. And it also means that it
can behave differently. And I have somewhat inherited
from a friend who's annoyed by bad portrayals
of radiation in fiction. I feel similarly. And
so I want to be able to like play with the fictional
portrayal of radiation without actually saying
that's how nuclear radiation works. Does this
matter? To me? Yes, very deeply. Anyway, on their
home planet, they had these big power plants
that were run by this specific type of radiation.
And one of them had a huge accident. And I think
very similarly to how we have come to how we
first discovered these robots, where they were
like these statues just sort of dotting the horizon.
I think a bunch of them just popped up around
the factory, like drawn towards the radiation.
And I think like... They're almost, they were
almost filter feeders. They were able to just,
they were around. And I think it was awesome
for us because we were like, fuck, this is a
huge meltdown. We have to contain this. And in
part, it was contained by a bunch of these robots
appearing. And they were able to like absorb
a bunch of the radiation and then they use it
as energy. And I think they showed us. These
plants, the plants that like absorb the radiation,
they were like, oh, you should plant a bunch
of these around your factory. And so any leaks,
any accidents, but even just like the discard
that happens regularly in the generation of energy,
these will just absorb it. And then we use the
seeds to power ourselves. And I think that these
notes describe the robots like crushing the seeds
into... into a powder basically and like inhaling
them in the same way that they could inhale the
radiation out of the air and i think that the
the the robots have not allowed any like they
they haven't allowed themselves they're not letting
any humans like dissect them or anything like
they they are not like really readily offering
how we work which i think is like fair like a
fair They're willing to be allies, but I think
they have a little bit of a distrust just with
seeing, like, what people are doing with technology.
They don't want to be tools, you know? They are
robots, it seems like, but, and maybe, maybe
there's a long history of whatever, oh god, fucking,
uh, what was the Becky Chambers book that I read
at the beginning of this year that I desperately
needed to read that I cried single beautiful
tears at? psalm for the wild built robots being
rewilded being wilded essentially a fucking beautiful
book you should read it especially if you have
a tendency to push yourself too hard to achieve
things and be hashtag productive all the time
to the detriment of your own health you should
check it out what was i talking about the robots
don't want to become tools for the humans and
so they are resistant to a certain amount of
complex technical understanding But they will
allow the humans to like, like this person was
this person or maybe a team of people was like,
I think that we can figure out a way to break
down these seeds to be used more efficiently.
And so they'll last longer. And so you'll be
able to like hold power for longer, just maximizing
the energy extraction from them. And like, because
the robots wouldn't allow. themselves to be directly
studied. It was a little bit more of a process
of like, okay, we think that we've made something
you can use. Try this. Did that do anything?
No? Okay, we'll try something else. But they
were, they were happy and willing to do that.
And I think they skip over, there's a little
bit of a yada yada -ing over some parts that
we would find helpful to not be yada yada -ed
over. Like this journal, journal slash scientific
note, amalgamation talks about like how we met
the beginning of our relationship and then we
left and after we left all of this and we're
like why did you leave what are you talking about
yeah okay and i think that they did find out
how to make a more efficient like fuel from these
seeds and started producing it one of the things
i ruled was alive and so i think what's gonna
happen here As we're investigating this room,
we're reading these notes. Somebody finds, not
a gas can, but essentially, right? Somebody finds,
or they find the equipment that these seeds were
processed through. And there is like a container
attached and it has just a few drops. It's the
kind of thing you wouldn't even think of. It's
the couple remaining drops of oat milk you rinse
out of the container before you recycle it. And
we're going to bring it to the robot that is
still sitting in that room on the main floor.
The one who looked up at us and gestured, asked
for something. I think that we're starting to
theorize that a lot of these robots are on low
power mode, essentially, like they are conserving
energy. They're very dramatically hibernating.
And maybe being near this radiation leak of this
one broken engine has left that one robot with
enough energy to, like, gesture when we came
in. But not much more. Gonna go give that robot
some of this fuel. And it's gonna wake up. And
I don't know that it's gonna, I don't know that
we're gonna put on screen what happens. Because
our job is to keep exploring rooms. And we probably
also have to, like, you know, we want to do this.
But we will have to get approval from a bunch
of people. It has to be passed up the chain at
the dig site before it can actually happen. And
so it's not happening immediately. We're going
to keep exploring. But that is the plan. And
I can narratively say, it's going to work. It's
going to work. And we will be able to try and
figure out how to communicate with that robot.
Maybe learn some shit. That'll be great. But
while we're getting permission to do that...
We got to go check out room 11. 11. This is the
flip side from the power core on the less damaged
side of the ship, but we're still in the tipped
down section. So still not in the best situation.
Cramped, powerful, seed, peaceful. Labyrinthian
spiritual trinket and melancholy. Cavernous,
occupied, relic, melancholy. Melancholy, melancholy,
melancholy. Let me see if there's a... more personally
intriguing distribution of those dice. What else
is there on a ship? All right, I have arranged
my dice to give me organic, powerful, a trinket,
and the vibe is unsettling. Now, I certainly
have a direction that I would generally go when
it comes to something that is organic and unsettling,
and it is powerful in some way. And it involves
meat. It involves meat batteries. Let's find
a different direction to go because that hasn't
been the vibe so far. Hmm. I wonder if something
has changed. Because this is so close to the
damaged power core, this part of the ship has...
Again, this is the less damaged part of the ship.
It's still... And the broken back half of it.
But I think maybe it has... There's something
different about it. Where the metal and plastic
of the corridors and the walls have kind of crystallized
and kind of branched out. Almost as if the power
leakage has catalyzed some sort of organic growth.
reacted with minerals nearby and sort of meshed
with the ship in a way. Whatever kind of magic
science fiction radiation caused the rock and
the titanium or whatever of the ship to kind
of fuse and grow together. From this... mechanical
or maintenance or cargo area into this kind of
like fractal crystal maze that leads into the
surrounding strata. Why is this melancholy? I
don't think there's anything like this on the
surface or near where we've seen before. And
maybe it's this sort of like, you know, we've
been on this planet for 10 ,000 years. We are
an advanced civilization. We know a lot of things.
We think we're pretty great. But there's still
so much, even just on this planet, that we don't
understand. And this was an accident, right?
This was our ship reacting with the rock around
it. What else don't we know? Yeah, I kind of
get lost in here thinking about it again. Not
opposite way, but like a side long way from the
computer core room. It's another sort of meditative
experience. This little crystal maze. Crystal
maze. Questions. How does this relate to a previous
room or discovery? It relates to the power core,
right? And maybe, you know, maybe what power
the ship is not the same kind of stuff we use
these days. And this method of generating power
like is, has, you know, maybe we have lost a
lot as a society. Maybe there's, you know, not
magic, but definitely, there's definitely something
lost. And that's a little bit sad. What do I
feel here? You know, I know these crystals aren't
alive. Maybe, probably. But there's a weird connection.
There's a feeling of like the society that has
grown up out of this. seed ship. You know, what
we brought here has interacted with the world
in a way that has produced the people exploring
the ship now, us, kind of in the same way that
whatever is happening to the ship and the rock
here has created this new third thing. I don't
know if that answers the question. What other
questions do I have here? Is this okay? Is this
going to Spread? Is this contagious? Are we going
to be affected by this? What happens if we bring
some of it out? Will it stop or continue growing?
What will happen if we can't figure out why this
is going on? What if we can't shut down the power?
This is new. This is new stuff. Lots of questions.
Lots of questions. Organic could be... what the
humans were eating, like an old farm. Ooh, okay.
I think for this, actually, we're gonna go back
underneath the dome. We found another engine
room. I'll have to work my way to the trinket,
but again, powerful is the fact that this is
an engine that powers the ship, but the other
thing that's happening here, tying together the
organic and unsettling factors, that plant that
we saw. growing. It's big. The stem is big, the
flower is big, the seed is big, but it's conceivable
as, like, essentially a flower or a bush or something,
you know? The thing that is down here looks like
what happens when those plants get a little out
of control. There was a plant in this engine
room, presumably absorbing the energy, right?
Oh, and I think the way I'll tie the trinket
in is that it was, like, in a personalized container,
like, Somebody was growing this plant and they'd
like written their, they painted the pot or something.
Maybe they were doing something special with
it or it was a gift or something. Or maybe they
just were getting to the point where they were
having fun personalizing the pots and stuff.
I don't know. But there is, there is like a hand
-painted pot in here and the plant that's in
it has, has, has wilted and died. But before
it did that, it spread spores or something. Because
the engine down here is completely choked by
a huge, thick vine version of this plant. It's
just coiling all the way through the engine.
And I think it's also dead. It, like, just sucked
all of the energy out of this engine until there
was nothing left to draw. And it died. I guess
we're kind of building, I'm building a little
bit of a ecosystem here where the plants feed
off of this radiation and then the plants are
kept in check by the robots using them as fuel.
And when the robots aren't around to use them
as fuel or they aren't maintained, they can just
kill the source of energy completely. And I guess,
like, there's something interesting about that.
Like, I mean, is this a... form of energy that
was created by people? Or is this the type of
thing where like that just happens to be the
most attractive energy to this type of plant?
Or the thing that they grow on the best? Or could
you theoretically like kill a sun or a star by
letting a plant, letting these plants just choke
it out? Maybe. I don't know. There's experiments
to be done. But yeah, there's just something.
There's something so grotesque about it. It just
like looking at this engine and just this vine
is like constricted on it. It's somehow punctured
through some of the metal. It just has this visceral
feeling of like having choked something to death.
But it is a plant that has choked out an engine,
which... I think often, in a story that I'm telling
especially, would probably be a little bit of
a triumph of reclamation of something industrial.
But there's just a sense here that this is something
that is unbalanced. This is not how it's supposed
to be. Both of these things are supposed to be
able to keep living, but the thing that allows
that balance to be maintained was not here anymore.
Is there anything else? Do I want to learn more
about... what happened? Like if this caused a
crash or something? No, but I think that I will
say in my timeline, I think that the person whose
body we found in room eight with the necklace
was on guard here alone and died. Oh yeah, and
they were maintaining the ship. Like it's hard
to do single -handed, but it's small enough that
one person can do a lot of the routine maintenance
if they like Just do a little bit of one thing
every day on a routine, you know? And then they
died. Unexpectedly, I guess. Like, not necessarily
of, like, old age. Not maybe naturally in that
they waited here for so long. Like, maybe they
died unexpectedly. And so, something started
to happen. Like, one of the engines started to
melt down. And, oh, this was their plant. This
was their plant. Yeah. This was, this was, uh...
like a personal plant that they were maintaining.
And they left down here and then died unexpectedly
in the time that they were away from it. They
meant to come back and collect it, but they didn't.
And so it ate this engine. And then I think another
engine started failing and the radiation leaking
from that pulled the robots back. They'd left
maybe with the humans, which I think is interesting.
I wonder like... If we'd been thinking like,
oh, I bet the robots stayed here while the humans
left, but it seems like they all left together.
And then the robot, a few robots got pulled back
because of this radiation signal, just like they
were pulled to that first power plant when they
first made contact with our ancestors on their
home planet. And they started maintaining things
a little bit again, but I think they're just,
something was just out of whack. They didn't
have the ability to keep making these plants
and this fuel. Or at least doing it safely or
something. That's when they went into hibernation.
But that robot who we have seen, that first robot
that we saw in the cramped room who looked at
us, came back here after that human died to keep
up the watch. I'm guessing they didn't need a
communicator because the robots can already talk
to each other over long distances or something.
The communicator was a backup for the chip failing.
I'm over -justifying. I'm trying to say, like,
it was notable that the human had a communicator
with them, but the robot didn't. Doesn't actually
matter. The robots have other systems of communication.
It's totally fine. Yeah. Ooh, yucky. I don't
know why this specific visual of this plant is
genuinely chilling to me. Maybe it's just because
I just rewatched Little Shop of Horrors for the
billionth time, and so I'm on high alert for
plant behavior. I don't know. I don't know, but
it's a good, it's, I like that one. I'm glad
that I spooked myself. That's ideal. Hmm. Okay.
Um, she goes into the kitchen next, um, or sorry,
the dining room. Um, number five, there's just
a big table here. It's very utilitarian. Um,
it's sort of got, uh, it had, it was stainless
steel. It had stainless steel chairs or like
whatever low grade steel. rusted away it's kind
of like barely recognizable for what it was um
the ship itself must be made of whatever it's
made of a fancy alloy that doesn't doesn't break
down these were this was like cheaper worse stuff
and uh it's it's broken down a great deal in
10 000 years probably actually a lot of that
in the last hundred years i got exposed to moisture
and oxygen and all of that stuff but she's able
to tell like yeah this was this was a table i
think And I think that there's a hologram here.
This is the powerful thing. There's another hologram,
but it's not a hologram like any of the others
she's seen so far. It is a static image, and
it's the crew. It's the crew. And it springs
to life as she walks into the room. It's a fucking
snapshot, right? It's like a family portrait.
that they took um i think the way that it worked
is that they they took it in this room and then
it became a permanent fixture of this room right
like at some point during their their journey
it just shows them where they were they're all
sort of lined up against one wall everybody's
smiling this is before there was any conflict
uh before the weapons came out um years before
and people look happy and um she just studies
them right like I think she doesn't assume that's
what it is. I think that this is a point she
stops again and she pulls out her computer. There's
not explanatory text, but there's a computer
that's doing this, right? Like there's some sort
of computer projecting the hologram. And she
is able to get her system to talk to it and is
able to figure out that this is the crew. And
obviously that's amazing, right? I mean, gosh,
just imagine that, actually, right? Like, think
of that for a sec. So there's a famous story
that I mentioned. I was a classical sibs minor.
There's this famous story that, like, God, what
is that jackass? He was a early modern... Oh,
I think I found him. He was an amateur psychologist.
An early modern amateur psychologist. Excuse
me, I said psychologist. I meant archaeologist.
He was an early modern archaeologist. Heinrich
Schliemann. Not 100 % sure I'm saying that right.
He was very famous because he found Troy. He
found what he believed to be the city of Troy
from the Trojan War, which was... You know, which
was a big deal because it was considered to be
completely fictional. Right. And now there's
some belief that it was a it was a historical
place. Right. Like leaving everything else aside.
There's a story that I heard from one of my professors
about him who I should be clear, was not saying
that this was like a good thing. Kind of. He
was one of these early archaeologists. Right.
He. was a very romantic figure at the time. And
now we look back and are like, actually, he was
very destructive in a lot of ways. He was a real
piece of work in a lot of ways. And he was very
good at self -promotion. But anyway, the story
is that he excavated a tomb at Mycenae, which
was one of the major sites of Bronze Age Greece.
He excavated a tomb. And he found the human remains
and there was a funerary mask on the corpse.
He took the mask off and he just saw like a human
face, right? Like just a human face that looked
like it had been laid down yesterday. And then
it sort of like it was exposed to air for the
first time and it like it sort of dried out.
almost immediately right like in front of him
like it became what we would think of as a mummy
in front in front of his eyes and then he said
about that experience i've seen the face of agamemnon
and like what an ass right like for a few different
reasons there but um like imagine if you could
do that without being destructive right like
that is what our girl is experiencing now she's
seen it's like she's seen a lineup of all the
heroes of the trojan war or she's seen like a
uh like like gilgamesh or cleopatra or julius
caesar or um any of these ancient figures just
spring to life in front of her eyes and they're
real and they're there and i think that the other
thing is that she notes that they look happy
she documents this very well by the way she takes
90 million images of this into each of their
faces because like who knows this could all stop
working in theory um and she yeah like this is
way too precious to have that happen i don't
know how well holograms actually photograph but
she can do it she's got she's got future tech
um so she she she documents this very well and
um i think that she reflects that it seems like
something must have happened to these people
that caused all of these weapons to be out and
caused all of this destruction on the ship. And
that makes her really sad because they look happy
in the hologram. They look like friends. This
has been Folio, an actual play podcast about
solo and epistolary TTRPGs. You can find transcripts,
games, statistics, and more at foliopod .site.
You can help pay for hosting costs, game purchases,
and maybe eventually a bit of my production labor
at patreon .com slash foliopod or ko -fi .com
slash foliopod. You can find Dora on Blue Sky
at Queen Regnant. She has games at dcity .itch
.io and games she makes with her wife at galpalgames
.itch .io. Like I said at the top, the Kickstarter
for Hocus Pocus Hyperfocus, my god, the Kickstarter
for Hocus Pocus Hyperfocus is in its first week.
Go secure a copy of this cozy story game about
an absent -minded witch with a very important
thing to do and a lot of little distractions
stealing her focus. You can find Mark at major
.com and major .itch .io. You can find Seda,
that's me, on BlueSky at besedachips .gaygothvibes
.online and my work generally at gaygothvibes
.online. Next week, Dora and Mark and I will
continue our games of Farsickness Landing by
Lonely Cryptid Media. Everything I mentioned
here is linked in the show notes. Thanks so much
for listening, and take care out there.