You are listening to Lost Ship, a weekly podcast written and
published by Daniel Aronson, performed and produced by Bobbi
Garrison. Episode 14 Into the Abyss
Captain's Log. The Odysseus is still lost in
the Andromeda Galaxy 1,000,000 light years from home we've
arrived, but another alien world in this distant Galaxy.
Every planet we explore is stranger than the last.
This is an ocean world, a huge sphere of water floating through
space. We don't know what's in the
oceans, but we're going to find out.
We need food, we need water, we need fuel, and we need to catch
a fish to feed a very naughty cat.
But before our mission underwater, my science officer
and his wife have asked to meet me in my ready room.
Captain Thorne Loudmila and I wanted to show you our
discovery. Wow, a plan to get home to the
Milky Way. You found it.
You found a way to travel from Andromeda back to the Milky Way.
My wife Ludmila discovered it only thanks to your groundwork.
My dear. My groundwork was nothing.
I was your keen insight into the mission variable of randomness
that paved the way to solution. You're both geniuses.
Now tell me how we get home. Do you remember my experiment
with Schrodinger, Captain? The experiment that made
Ledbetter's cat sentient. The same cat that's now crawling
through our ducks, threatening to blow up the ship?
No, I completely forgot all about it.
Do you want to hear about my discovery, or do you want to
just keep being sarcastic? Well, either way, let me just
continue. Captain.
The experiment I conducted depicts wild possibilities
unleashed by quantum mechanics. It is proven the multiverse
theory. Every decision, every action we
take branches us off into billions of universes.
Even the most bizarre events you can imagine, like a cat becoming
sentient, exist somewhere in these multiverse.
That is what I proved. So how does that get us home?
Well, first you must understand how we got here.
It was middle of battle. Great battle for Earth.
Fleets of Hydrian pods clashed against human warships.
Yeah, I was there. Turov, do you want to tell me
about your discovery, or do you want to keep telling the old
battle stories? Huh.
Point taken. Anyways, the cat did it.
He scrambled our naive system. The Hydrian bombs did rest the
navigation algorithms spun out of control, but I've been able
to reverse them with enough energy.
We could make jump back to Milky Way, but it involves an element
of randomness. That is what Lumidla discovered,
my brilliant wife. It was nothing darling.
To fly back home, we must introduce a quantum split to
shuffle the deck as it were, to choose card of reality.
In some universes we will careen off into the depths of
intergalactic space. In other universes we will die,
but in some our naive algorithms will find the exact way home.
So we just tossed the dice and hopefully get the right outcome.
Well, yes and no, Captain. When we introduce randomness
into our equation, that means all those universes, all those
possibilities will become true at once in parallel universes.
So in some universes we'll be dead and others lost, but in
some we'll find our way home. Precisely.
So you mean we'll split into many copies of ourselves?
There'll be a Jack Thorn who makes it home, the Jack Thorn
who dies and a Jack Thorn who's lost.
And many. Others.
One who mutates in the giant octopus.
For all I know, they will all be come through, all of them,
everywhere at once. Which one will be us?
I mean, with our consciousness inside them?
Which thorn will be me? Like I said, Captain, all of
them, everywhere at once. Well, I can't say I like this
solution. Sure, one of my clones will make
it home, but the others? I don't really relish the
thought of every one of me turning into an octopus.
Well, it would be useful for mission like today's going.
Underwater, granted, but still. No, I don't like it.
I don't like that thought at all.
No more quantum experiments. Dr. Turov, one of your
experiments created that mutant cat in our walls.
That's bad enough as it is. If you run that experiment on
something as large as the Starship Odysseus, who knows how
many bizarre, surreal universes you'll create?
Yes, perhaps that is wise, Captain.
But if we toss out this idea, then what do we do next?
How we get home? There is a way somewhere in this
Galaxy. Remember what Hubert the
telescope fish told us? He's been on Earth and a Guinea
Mead. That's not him lying, Ledbetter
said. He actually saw him back home.
Somehow Hubert is able to transport himself between the
Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.
We need to find that telescope fish and question.
Him. Oh, imagine the science he could
teach us the advanced mathematics.
OK, if we catch them, you 2 can question them.
But for now, we need to catch another fish, a goldfish.
It's the only way to appease Schroedinger.
That little critter threatened to blow up our core.
He's already managed to scramble our NAV system to RIP out our
engine to blow up our hole. I don't underestimate the horror
your experiment unleashed her of.
They're going to keep blaming me forever, aren't you, captain?
Probably, but you also happen to be my friend, so I guess I
forgive you. Now take command of the ship for
a while. I'm going deep sea diving.
Welcome Welcome gentlemen to Frankie Gadget Stories blue chip
limousine service. Step right into your own private
shuttle craft. We feature ripped fabric seats,
an entertainment system called Looking out the Window, and
whatever snacks you can find between the questions.
Only the best here for my customers at Frankie Limos.
Frankie, are you going to keep this spiel up the entire flight?
Well, I was going to, but if it's going to be a big deal,
I'll just do it until we take off.
We better take off quickly. I'm buckled up.
Ledbetter get in here. Ah, the good old shuttle
Persephone. I remember standing on a roof
battling the flying reptiles of Pushkin.
Yeah, don't remind me we still got your footprints up there.
Well, more like indentations in the metal hall.
Well, that. Dinosaur was heavy.
Strap in lad, we're taking off, ladies and gentlemen.
This is your. Captain speaking, we've taken
off from the Starship Odysseus. If you look out your window,
you'll see the beautiful nameless ocean.
World and. I'd like to remind you.
There's no smoking. On this flight.
I thought you said you'd quit this whole limousine spiel after
we took off. Wait, why can't I smoke?
Lad, seriously, you can't smoke in here.
It's a Ginny war pipe. We always smoke them before
battle. You've never smoked one before?
I've never fought an underwater battle before.
Ginny Customs Rd. Guardian warfare are ancient and
complex. How a warrior prepares for
battle depends on the terrain. You've only seen me prepare for
war in space before. So all your normal hollering and
chest pumping is a ritual. Of course, Sir, as is this pipe
you see, Captain, on Ganymede, the oceans are subterranean.
They're not mild oceans like on Earth.
They are vast chasms full of pitch black water and vicious
predators. In the past, only the bravest
Gany warriors would dare dive underwater to fight.
Before their underwater battles, they smoked bees.
These pipes are said to give a man courage.
All right, I'm sold. I'll try a puff.
Holy moly, what's in this thing? Captain, it's mostly back guano.
Just kidding, Captain. Ha ha, your face.
No, it's not guano. It's just a local gani Moss.
Normally toxic, but when burned at just the right heat, it
imbues a man with great courage. Yes, I've seen Gani courage in
the war. I seem to recall it involves
many kamikaze attacks. Ah yes, kamikaze pilots always
smoke war Moss before a battle. If you smoke enough, you realize
the glory of death in battle, how sweet it seems.
You know, I think one puff is enough for me.
Here, take your pipe back. Don't worry, Captain, this isn't
no suicide mission. I'm here to protect you.
I'll bring you back alive. Thanks LED.
I mean, I might not be a Gany warrior, but I've been in a
battle or two and I'm looking after you too.
Ah, ain't you, boy. Sweet.
Now get out of my shuttle. We're low enough over the water.
You jump from here. All right lad, ready to jump?
For Danny Meade. I have a feeling I'm going to
regret this. See you later, boys.
Ledbetter, Ledbetter, you there, I'm.
Here, Captain. There you are.
I I think I can see you. Hey, wait for me.
Yep, that's you. It's completely murky down here.
Full of what is this seaweed? Looks like some sort of kelp.
Strange ocean on Ganymede and no plants grow underwater.
Those oceans are purely predatory.
Everyone is eating everyone. Else so like the rest of
Ganymede. Yeah, just wet.
Look led, I see fish. So there are fish down here.
Wow, convergent evolution. Turaf was right, we just need to
find a gold 1. Those just look blue.
Well, you know what they say, there's plenty of fish in the
sea. All right, never mind.
Let's keep moving, you know, maybe it's the war pipe talking,
but it's not that bad down here. It's almost pretty.
This might be an ocean world, but there are forests
underwater, full of life. It's certainly nicer than
Ganymede's oceans. Those are hellish dark places
full of ghosts. You know, lead nobody forced you
to live on Ganymede. You could have moved to.
Earth. No.
Never. My people fought Earth.
We were few but strong. We defeated Earthling armies
that outnumbered us 1000 to one. We bled and died.
For Ganymede, it's a cold, harsh rock full of toxic rivers, acid
rain, and underground oceans of terror.
But those oceans and radioactive fields are still red with our
blood. We would never abandoned our
home, not even for the comforts of Earth.
Earth might not be much more hospitable than Ganymede right
now, not under Hydrian occupation.
Both our worlds are gone now. I will find a new world LED, a
world for our crew and our refugees.
Hopefully one back in the Milky Way along with the rest of the
fleet. Maybe, you know, maybe with my
family we can I'll move to a new world.
I know they're probably dead, but I still hope.
As do I, friend. I pray the gods of war that
Elizabeth and Julian are still alive.
You know it it hurts to hear their names spoken aloud, the
names of my wife and son, and not to know if they're even
alive or dead. You'll see them again, Captain,
in this life or the next, as I will see my darsa again and Thal
the rock. The world beyond.
There are. It's the knees.
Any universes? Huh?
Well, you sound like Turov. In our own ways, we're both men
of faith. He believes what the math shows
him. I believe in the stories of my
people. There is a prophecy in gaming
made that in the end of days, science and faith will lead all
men to the same place, to the world beyond this one.
So heaven is just a parallel universe?
I guess So is hell then. That's why I don't like
tinkering with the multiverse. It's how we ended up here in the
first place. Look, Captain, down there I see
colors. It looks like.
What is that? I've never seen such a thing
like jewels spread across the seabed.
Wow, it's a it's a coral reef. I've actually heard of those.
We used to have them on earth back in the day.
You can still see some in the museum but you never get to see
how beautiful you are till you see it in person and it's full
of fish. Hurry, let's see if we can find
a Gold 1. Well I see a lot of fish, not
gold ones though. Are you sure your cat wouldn't
accept a blue fish? I don't know.
Captain Schrodinger is very picky about his food.
Look, look over there. Is that?
Oh my goodness, it is. It's a goldfish after it.
It's a fast one. The goldfish is heading to that
cave. We got to swim faster.
Lead, come on. Horse Pucky he got away he swam
into that cave we'll. Enter The Cave after him I.
Don't know about that lead. It looks like a deep dark cave,
too dark for the simple lights of our space suits.
Ha, scared captain. Ha yes, Earthlings fear the
dark, but I am a warrior of Ganymede.
I was raised in dark caves. Underwater ones.
Yes. You liar.
In any case, I'll swim into The Cave.
I'll complete the quest. You can stay out here in safety,
Captain. No evil dark cave spirits will
hurt you. Fine, fine, I'll go with you.
Otherwise I'll never live it down.
I. Knew you had it in you, Captain.
There, look, it's the goldfish. It's it's swimming deeper.
Let's follow it. I can almost reach the fish.
I got away again. He's over there.
Swim with me, Captain. How deep are these caves?
I can barely see a thing down here.
Lead. Maybe we should turn back.
I can see the goldfish captain right over there down that
tunnel. Ledbetter, I don't like this.
I expected a cave, not a flooded underground labyrinth.
I don't like this one bit. Hurry, let's turn back.
But it's right over there, Captain.
The goldfish. I can almost reach it.
I can, almost. I can.
I got away. Led better.
Let's turn back now. Captain, look, the goldfish I'd
swam right by you. Oh, I see it.
There he is. I can grab him.
I I just need to swim a bit closer.
It almost got him. I got away again.
Maybe it's hopeless. No, I can see him.
I can grab him. He's right over there.
Captain, maybe you're right. Maybe we should turn back.
What are you scared, Ledbetter? You a Ganny warrior?
I don't like that goldfish. There's something about it,
something unnatural. Oh, it's only a fish LED look,
it's right there in that tunnel, cowering, scared.
I'll just grab them and we'll find our way home.
Captain, don't enter that tunnel.
It's all right, Ledbetter. I think it's a dead end.
And I, I, I caught it. I caught the goldfish.
I ah. Captain, I'm coming for you.
Where, Captain? I'm here.
Where are you? I'm here.
I'm Who was that? The poor.
Colas just. Slammed down behind us.
What, like a castle? Welcome, humans.
Welcome into my trap. What?
Who said that? I can barely see you.
Step into the light. Hello, humans.
Remember. Me.
Hubert. It is I Hubert, the telescope.
Fish Emperor of Andromeda I caught.
You you have been listening to Lost Ship, a weekly podcast.
This has been episode 14, Into the Abyss, written and published
by Daniel Aronson, performed and produced by Bobby Garrison.
Please like or thumbs up this episode and follow and subscribe
to the channel Sounds for this episode done by Epidemic Sound
and tonight's music performed by Howard Harper Barnes, Grant
Newman and Amber Globe. Come back next week for another
episode. And if you want more amazing
stories written by Daniel Aronson, please check out Daniel
Aronson at danielaronson.com. And if you want more
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