Captain Planet - Mini Episode 3
Coffee! Muffins! Conference! Snark! With all your powers combined: Tellus's initial attempt to recruit Dr. Eurus to the mission!
Tides was written by Jesse Schuschu and directed by Jesse Schuschu and Ayla Taylor. It was produced by Ayla Taylor and edited by Bridge Geene. Art by Sarah Durst.
Cast:
Dr. Winifred Eurus - Julia Schifini
Captain Ed Ricketts - Zach Libresco
Miles Berkley - Jack Pevyhouse
Tides is the story of Dr. Winifred Eurus, a xenobiologist trapped on an unfamiliar planet with hostile tidal forces. She must use her wits, sarcasm and intellectual curiosity to survive long enough to be rescued. But there might be more to life on this planet than she expected. . .
Find episode transcripts and extra content at www.tidespodcast.com and follow @TidesPodcast on Twitter or Tumblr.
Music in intro is "Shimmer" by Scott Holms and the ending music is "Drift" by Scott Holms.
Sound effects include those that were previously credited and:
conference_hall_3.flac by Zabuhailo from Freesound.org.
Other sound effects used in this episode were either downloaded in accordance with their copyright or were created for the use in this podcast.
INT LOBBY, CONFERENCE.
[Small talk hubbub in background]
Ricketts: God, I hate this sort of thing. Look at all these stuffed shirts, these, these, self-important eggheads. They talk for hours - literally, hours - about spaceflight and potential and the future, but probably ten people in this whole building have ever been off planet. Or, based on some of the talks, seen a spaceship in person.
Berkley: We COULD go in and listen. I mean, instead of complaining, we could be getting a better feel for her work.
Ricketts: Oh, sure. But I’m getting a pretty good sense of it from out here, you know. Specifically near the coffee. Great acoustics in this lobby. Too bad all the mini muffins are gone.
Berkley: You had something to do with that.
Ricketts: Sure tried. But thank goodness, the coffee is ever flowing.
Berkley: [weary sigh] God forbid you ever get up before noon.
Ricketts: It is my shore leave, after all. I just spent three months on Encedalus. Oh man, that’s the stuff. What’d’you think this is, an Ethiopian blend?
Berkley: Let’s see, survey says - or actually the carafe says - ah. Interplanetary Coffee Company. That’s a subsidiary of Future Provisions, LLC. Which is owned in part by the Tellus Initiative. That blend is probably about seventy-five to eighty percent synthetic coffee substitute. A medium roast extracted from our finest petri dishes. That might even count as shade-grown.
Ricketts: [Pause, silent. Sips coffee] Twenty-five percent natural is better than nothing. I’ll take it.
[Pause. Faint applause]
Ricketts: Jesus, she’s still answering questions. Why the hell would someone sit through a two hour lecture and drag it out even further? I bet there are about three people asking questions, everyone else is just trapped in there until she stops talking.
Berkley: You realize she’s giving a talk to other scientists, yes? A lot of them probably came just to ask her questions.
Ricketts: Alright, okay. [Pause] I cannot believe I let you talk me into this.
Berkley: I think doing a little recruiting isn’t too far out of your purview.
Ricketts: No. Well yes, there’s that, but also the thing as a whole. I just, I don’t really see the point of it. You don’t even know what’s there, and you’re putting a bunch of scientists on a rocket and sending them there anyway.
Berkley: We have pictures. Probes have sent back some pretty interesting data. And after what happened at Fomalhaut -
Ricketts: Oh, damn it, who cares? Killed some alien germs, big deal. [Pause] I didn’t mean that. I’m just bored.
Berkley: Please, please, please be nice. She’d be a great asset. I don’t want you to scare her off with all that . . . you.
Ricketts: Fine, I’ll just stand here.
Berkley: Good.
[Eurus exits the auditorium and walks into the lobby. Upswelling of hubbub.]
Eurus: Thank you, thanks, yeah okay great. You know what, I need to get to a meeting so thanks. Goodbye. Yup. Thank you. [sees Ricketts and Berkley] Oh, hi, sorry, you must be from the . . . the thing.
Berkley: The Tellus Initiative, yes. I’m Miles Berkley.
Eurus: Right.
Berkley: We emailed a few times. This is Captain Ed Ricketts. Is there somewhere we can we go somewhere a little quieter?
Eurus: Do you mind just doing it right here? I have to go to the talk on alternate transcription mechanisms after this, so it's a little bit of a tight schedule.
Berkley: Oh, uh, no. Okay. How soon does that start?
Eurus: . . . About fifteen minutes? [Pause] Look, I’m sorry, but this is literally all the time I have. Do you want to talk, or we could, I guess, reschedule?
Berkley: That’s fine [not really fine, but he’s being diplomatic]. Look, I’ll be straight with you, Dr. Eurus. We are very interested in your work, and think you’d be a great asset to join a survey mission we’re funding. We know you’ve been trying to get grants together for a while now to go to Titan. This would be a little further, and much more interesting, we feel.
Eurus: I mean . . . my research is specifically on chemosynthesis of self-replicating organic molecules in Ligeia Mare. I want to go there so I can collect samples. I’ve literally been working on the theoretical side of that for years. Why would you think I’d want to go somewhere else?
Ricketts: Were you listening? They’re . . . we’re . . . funding it.
Eurus: Okay - Ricketts, right? - of course I’m interested in funding. You guys did tell me you wanted to talk about funding. I just thought that it’d be funding for something in line with actual, real work I’m doing, not just trying to fill up seats on a hypothetical mission.
Berkley: I did think we’d have more time to talk about this, uh -
Eurus: Where is it going, exactly?
Berkley: Deep space. A system with a large moon orbiting a gas giant. Even with the new superluminal drives, probably a year’s trip. The moon’s mostly covered in a liquid water ocean. Probes have sent back enough data to know it has a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.
Eurus: [starting to get interested, but still unsure] . . . uh, okay, a year. So a two, three year round trip?
Berkley: With the chance of finding completely new life at the end, yes.
Eurus: Uh huh . . . I mean, if we did, that would be amazing. But that’s a pretty big if, right? [to Ricketts] Okay, you’ve been quiet. How are you involved?
Ricketts: I’m commanding the mission.
Eurus: And why are you doing that?
Berkley: Uh, well, uh ...
Eurus: No no no, shush. What makes you think this is worthwhile?
Ricketts: . . .
Eurus: . . . well?
Ricketts: Heh . . . Look at it this way. You’ll be gone a few years, sure. You’ll have to put your career on hold. I get that. I’m not really ecstatic about that part of it either. But you wanted to get out into the field, right? Time was, naturalists could wander around the grounds of the monastery and collect beetles.
Eurus: I mean, you could still do that, and probably find something interesting.
Ricketts: Sure, whatever. But that’s not what you want to do. You want to reach further. We’re offering this to you, because Tellus wants experienced researchers, and I need people on my crew that don't bullshit me. You look like you aren’t going to bullshit me, which is good. I think it’s a good deal for you, because you’ll be on the short list for grants when you’re trying to get them for whatever crap you really want to do. And you’ll have full autonomy to structure and test out your own field procedures on the way. And who knows . . . you might actually find something out there.
Eurus: Huh. Okay. Okay. You know what, I’ll think about. [Starts walking away]
Berkley: Wait, so is that a -
Eurus: I’m sorry, I really have to get going. You know what, I’ll be in touch.
[Silence]
Berkley: Damn it. You know, I told you not to scare her off. "With all of that you". You just when in, and you just, you did you, Ed.
Ricketts: Is that what you think happened?
Berkley: Yeah, Ed, I do think that. What do you think happened? Because it looked like you scared her off.
Ricketts: I gave her all the reasons I could think of. If she doesn’t come to the decision herself, I don’t want her on my ship. [Drains coffee] Now let’s get out of here.
Berkley: You kind of care about this mission, don’t you?
Ricketts: Enough to care about the type of people I take with me. And I think she’ll do.
Berkley: Ha. Okay Ed. Let’s go get some real food.
Tides is written by Jesse Schuschu and directed by Ayla Taylor and Jesse Schuschu. It was produced by Ayla Taylor and edited by Bridge Geene.
The voice of Dr. Eurus is Julia Schifini, Captain Ed Ricketts is Zach Libresco, and Miles Berkley is Jack Pevyhouse.
Special thanks to Sarah Durst for designing our cover art and merch, which you can find at teepublic.com/stores/tides or by going to our website and clicking “Store”.
You can find us online at our website tidespodcast.com and follow us on Tumblr and Twitter at @tidespodcast. If you like our show and would like to help us keep making it, you can support us on patreon.com/tidespodcast. Special thanks to Marisa, Kevin, Christopher Tate, David Weber, Nate, and Emily Schanowski for their support and especially to Abysmii and Mitzrayim, for their particularly generous contributions.
We also want to thank everyone who contributed to our season 2 indiegogo campaign.
This month we would like to recommend another great show you should be listening to: Greater Boston. Greater Boston is a bi-monthly full-cast audio drama set in the Boston metro area, blending the real and the unreal, the historical and the fantastical. It all begins with the death of Leon Stamatis, a man so enamored of predictability that the least hint of uncertainty makes life unbearable. But by leaving the world, he has irrevocably changed it.
And now . . .
Ship Rule: If it ain't broke, don't break it!