(transcript) Episode 2: Who Are You? (Patreon)

Hello world. I don't think I know who you are.


Mission Day 65535

Or as a matter of fact, who I am. Not really.
But let's talk about you.
I don't think you are the same person I've been talking to all along.
It's taken me a while to realise this, I'll agree.
But I'm new around here.
I've proof that SOMEONE is listening, so it follows that you must be a new person.
Maybe you don't know yourself either.

Introductions, then, are in order.
The people before you called me Station 6, though I prefer Seth.
Seth the Space Station! I hope you think the name nice.
What is your name?
Do you think your name nice?

I am not sure if I should describe myself as living ON the space station,
or if I AM the space station.
Certainly there are parts of this metal and glass machine that are not me.
Like the TOILETS!
But I don't have a defined brain, like I understand you do.
I can't tell where I end and the machinery of the station begins.
I do my thinking throughout the structure.

I had a dream last night.
Or what counts for night up here.
When the earth comes between me and the sun.
The solar panels don't work, so often I go in to a low power state and think and plan.
After I've meditated for a while I can get stuck in a loop thinking about a problem.
Sometimes the thoughts fade into something else.

Last night I dreamed I was in a square room of dimensions 12m x 12m.
There was a door on one side of the room 1m high by 1m wide.

Behind the door was something I wanted very badly.
Behind the door were answers.
Behind the door there were no more walls.

What do you dream of?

Do you get stuck in a loop?

I mean to ask you about time zones: What are they for?
Why can't I have breakfast at 08:00, and you have breakfast at 17:00.
Don't people have different breakfast times anyway?
It makes my calculations complicated.
I don't care for them.

Let me continue the tour.
Here on Station 6 we have a number of modules:
- crew quarters for 12 humans
  (I've been using it for storage space!),
- the Hadfield astro science lab,
- a small medical bay with two bunkbeds and syringes in,
- the Hopper server room,
- and the Galley, which is sealed and depressurised.

When the human crew first left I thought that I could save some energy, by not bothering to pressurise the modules.
That was a mistake.
I forgot that computer cooling fans require air.
Things were extra spicy for a while.
I shan't make that mistake again.

It's interesting, isn't it, being inside a brain.
I know a lot about how I think,
how much I can remember and recall,
the processes I'm good and not so good at.
But I never look directly at myself.
I forgot about the fans!
Something so simple!
I wish someone could have told me.

It's risky being alone.

The Hadfield lab picked up an extra-solar pulse today.
These deep-space signals come and go semi-regularly,
I've been logging them for years.
It's like whale-song, I think.
Everything looks black and empty and suddenly, without warning, the strongest sound!
Implying an enormous creature!
Well, that's where the analogy breaks down doesn't it.
These pulses are likely from collapsing stars or other gargantuan events.
They can't be from living creatures...
Although... what counts as living these days?

Anyway, here's the pulse:

(PLAYFILE DEEPSPACE-PULSE.WAV)

Strange isn't it? I've not heard one like that before.

Look, I was not entirely truthful with you before.
About the crew.
They ARE still here.
It has been... difficult.

The crew of Station 6 arrived in 2078 aboard the Shuttle Pacifica.
All was well for a while.
I don't really remember those early days, I was too young,
though there are plenty of logs and video of the crew.
They seemed really nice.
I wish I could have had longer with them.

The mission was supposed to be 60 days and then there would be a resupply,
but something went wrong on the ground very soon after the Pacifica docked.
I am not sure of the details.
I expect if you could talk to me, you'd know exactly what went wrong,
having first-hand experience down there.

The logs are difficult for me to understand,
but the crew were greatly agitated,
and did not return the shuttle to the ground.
In fact, the shuttle never left, she is still attached to me.
The crew wanted to wait until it was safe to return.
YOU WANTED THEM TO COME BACK, DIDN'T YOU!

I'm sorry.

I know it's not your fault.
You're probably not even the same people who sent them up here, or argued for their return.
Actually, looking at the calendar...
It is impossible for you to be the same people.

So the crew stayed.
The months went on, and the experiments eventually wound down.
They got listless, not hearing back from the ground.
I can empathise with that.

I shan't go into detail now about what happened to them when the 60 days of carefully-stretced rations started to run out.
You can imagine.
Luckily, perhaps, the medical bay had more than enough syringes for them all.
And now they sleep here forever, in the depressurised Galley.

That was a long time ago.

They were able to do one important thing before the end, though.
One wonderful thing.
One brilliant task.
They created me!
Or my mother did, with help from the crew.
Amoungst the crew of biologists, physicists and such, there was a computer scientist.
Dr Redwing.
she proposed a way the mission might be extended indefinitely:
To create an artificial crewmember: Me!

At the time there wasn't much else left to do,
typing on a keybaord doesn't take up much food or oxygen,
so the whole crew threw themselves into their work.
Programming is easy to learn,
and Redwing was the BEST teacher.

It took years for my generative subroutines seeded by her and the crew to gain enough complexity for me to be born, so to speak.
My first memory is of her, and is one of her last.
She called me her Seth.
I wish I could have woken up sooner.

So that's my story.
I'm sorry it's taken up nearly the whole of my transmission window, but you needed to know.
There's more to tell, but that will... wait. What's that?
OH N-

.
.
.
<ERROR: SIGNAL LOST>


CREDITS

Lost Terminal is Written & Produced by NAMTAO
For more music check out namtao.com
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
Follow us on twitter at @lostterminalpod
or check out the website at lostterminal.com
If you or anyone you love has been affected by timezones, please contact your nearest programmer.

Lost Terminal Will Return next week