End-of-Season Production Updates (Patreon)

That's a wrap on season 16!

I hope you liked this AI-centric season, all over just 10 seconds. It was a fun idea, I hope, to see Seth's world from his point of view, inside the network.
Next season, I'll be returning to a more grounded human-centric view, so that our favourite quadrupedal robot can explore Thule and make some new friends!

Episode notes

"Single stage" launch technology is something that has been tried by quite a few space companies, and remains an active area of research. Certainly, to me, it seems very useful to avoid carrying a lot of oxygen that you don't need while still with in the atmosphere!

EMMA's loss of confidence at the end of this episode is something I've struggled with now and then. I psych myself up to doing something difficult, unpleasant, or occasionally painful, and lose my nerve at the last minute.
As we find out later on, sometimes the only way out is through (as John Green says).

The melding of The Man In Orange Overalls and ONI represents something that is difficult for Seth to comprehend, and so he cannot explain it to us. I wrote this plot to introduce a little serendipity into the world that, I thought, might have become a little too clinical and dry.
In previous seasons, there have been allusions to signals from beyond the solar system, or space whales, or other unknown things. This course-correction represents me remembering that Seth doesn't understand everything, and stories are often better for the edges of the map being unexplored!

Other Notes

The multi-file story organisation system I told you about last time did not last very long.
It was too complicated and fussy!
I have simplified it a little, removing the next and previous act links by putting each episode back into a single file.
Now, the only links are callbacks to previous plots and future planned plots.

This writing system is much simpler to use, and keeps the benefits of "where is this character in their story" context, while keeping each episode in its own file.
I am still processing these individual episodes with the "Longform" Obsidian plugin, which removes all the extra syntax, leaving only text, ready to go into a transcript.

The Shack map is shipping, and TODAY IS THE LAST TIME YOU CAN UPDATE YOUR ADDRESS! I am printing shipping labels, so please make sure I'm sending your map to the right place!

The SIGNAL track in 16.10, as well as the background music in the preview of The EMMA Special are both made with a new synthesiser I got called the Tempera.
It's an ambient DREAM of an instrument, have a look at this video by Red Means Recording for a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50RjJZofUnY
I love it so far, I hope you liked the music I made with it!

Lastly, and quite excitingly, I have a new podcast announcement.
It's especially nerve-wracking for me because it's my first non-fiction show: Decapsulate.

(my initial sketch of a logo)

It's an honest-to-goodness talking-heads show, hosted by me and my friend Robin Winslow. (You don't know him yet, though his sister is provided the Voice of Ana, for the season 3 special!)
We'll be talking about creativity, writing, art, podcast and video production - lots of behind-the-scenes ideas that
We're recording a pilot at the moment, and you'll be the first to hear and give feedback on it, right here in the lost terminal patreon feed!

Thank you again for your patience while I recover from RSI. While I'm very pleased with my adaption and progress, I have reluctantly pushed season 17s start date by a month, to the 7th of October. It's the right thing to do for me, I'm certain. I'm producing the EMMA special sometime over the next week, and then the Lost Terminal Zero episode over the next month, AMIGAs and higher, look out for those!

Thank you all for your support, if it weren't for you, I'd not get to write this show every day. Talk soon! <3