torchshippod

[torchshippod]

Crew Profiles Part 2: Doctor Bleddyn Stevens

Ahoy Cosmonauts! First of all, I’m not dead! And neither is this project! Apologies for the radio silence everyone. Mary had a minor issue with the cloak and was trapped in a pocket dimension for a few months. Read: A series of upheaving life events including a total career change and a month spent in the worst place known to mankind: Texas, shudder, meant I was unable to make any progress with Forbidden Space. But I'm back now, and we're hopefully back on track! The pilot still needs some time in the oven, but with some luck we should be able to release it soon. Until then, enjoy the first dive into one of the characters of Forbidden Space.

Who better to start with than the person responsible for maintaining Mary Gillham-32’s most important component: Her crew. Meet Doctor Bleddyn Stevens:

Art by the excellent @whirligig-girl

Broken bones, radiation poisoning, acute psychological trauma. If suffering from any of these, you can’t go wrong with seeing Mary Gillham’s acerbic, long-suffering Doctor. Stevens is responsible for all aspects of the crew’s health, both physical and mental. It's his job to both patch people up after an away mission gone wrong, and act as rocket therapist, staving off mental ailments from cabin fever to imposter syndrome. And while his dry disposition and devilishly sharp eyebrows have been known to rankle, he brings a steadying level-headedness to all aspects of the job that his crewmates can’t help but find comforting. It doesn't hurt that he also happens to be the one with the keys to the rocket’s psychedelics cabinet. 

“Please, I’m your doctor, of course I have the best psychedelics.”

But he’s not just the doctor/therapist. Like everyone in the Mary Gilham program, Stevens pulls double duty. He’s also the rocket’s tactical specialist. Responsible for operating Mary’s all important cloaking device and her variety of torpedoes, ranging from mundane nuclears to the exotic graviton warheads. One of the most destructive weapons in the IUR's arsenal and enough to ensure that size is no object. It's his job to direct space-borne engagements, formulating the battle plans that ensure Mary comes out on top, or at the very least, unscathed.

"Torpedoes will have impacted by now. Deploying periscope, outputting visual to the main… oh… Would you look at that… We’ll have to add a new asteroid belt to the charts…"

While the ability to remain calm in a crisis is a prerequisite for any cosmonaut, it’s even more so for Stevens. The requirement to perform complex neurosurgery one day and fire continent-threatening anti-matter warheads the next needs a very specific disposition. Stevens is calm, analytical, and generally the voice of restraint and consideration in any situation, although often parcelled with a sarcastic thrust his crewmates have learned to put up with. He takes this requirement for coolness and clear-thinking so far he actively refuses to indulge in any kind of mind-altering substances, even for medicinal purposes. A practice his fellow cosmonauts often find baffling to concerning.

"What? But he keeps the biggest variety of recreational drugs I’ve ever seen!" "Apparently for morale only." - Specialists Yureli and Martin on Stevens

Perhaps the most notable thing about Doctor Stevens though, is that he is an almost unprecedentedly strong Psychic Void, an incredibly rare trait that renders him invisible to all but the strongest of psychic phenomena, and incapable of interacting with any psychic technology. While being immune to mind altering phenomena may sound like a boon, it’s an impediment he’s uncharacteristically sensitive about. For one he's unable to use the psychic translator, forcing him to rely on inaccurate machine translations and learning languages the old fashioned way to communicate. Luckily, he’s a prodigal linguist, and is fluent in over a dozen languages, Human and alien.

"You’d be amazed how many languages you can learn without a psychic translator atrophying your brain. Though I admit I do envy it sometimes. Cetacean Auxlang is murder on the throat."

Perhaps the largest issue being a psychic void presents however, is the wedge it drives between him and Mary Gilham-32’s resident psychic, Yvette Martin. To someone whose view of the universe is coloured by psychic impressions, the lack of all empathic feedback makes the doctor come across as cold and unfeeling at best, and at worst, impenetrable and untrustworthy… 

"Anyway, she gave me this little Voxyte entertainment device that makes holograms. They look, totally real. You can touch them and interact with them and everything. I mean, it’s just dialogue trees and a basic language model, but they’re totally convincing. Except… I can’t feel them. Their minds. They're like... hollow... That’s what you’re like! uh ex... except, I mean, you’re a real person! Obviously!" " I am? That’s a relief, I was beginning to get concerned." - Martin and Stevens, on holograms.

So there you have it, Doctor Bleddyn Stevens. A steady, reliable cosmonaut who can't be beaten in a crisis. Or a sarcastic prick with a stick up his arse, depending on who you ask and how recently they had their mandatory medical. We'll be doing some more dives into the rest of the cast soon, so watch this space!

[torchshippod]

Crew Profiles Part 1: Mary Gillham-32

Greetings Cosmonauts!

This is the first of a series of posts detailing the characters of Torchship: Forbidden Space, in the leadup to the release of our Pilot episode. And who better to start with than the most of important character of all, the rocket: Mary Gillham-32 herself! 

Tough little ship

By 2152, it had become clear that the Aquillian De-Militarised Zone was here to stay. A ceasefire intended to last until peace negotiations that never came. The Divine Empire, risen from the ashes of the old Aquillian Empire, officially refused to recognise the DMZ. But unofficially? They made it clear that so long as Humanity kept out of the DMZ, there would be no more hostilities. 

The Florence Bailey program was soon established. Tasked with venturing inside the disputed territory, with the primary objective of reconnoitring Divine Empire operations, charting the DMZ, and attempting to make secret alliances with any civilisations inside the region. By secretly breaking the cease-fire, it was hoped the Florence Bailey program could, if not prevent another war, at least ensure Humanity was prepared for it. Secrecy being paramount, the Florence Bailey program utilised civilian ships, modified to appear like those belonging to vessels of various alien polities, alongside ‘acquired’ vessels of Aquillian and other alien origin. 

While successful, the Florence Bailey program was rife with controversies. Including a minor political scandal when the Free Aquillian Republic Raptor Libre encountered Florence Bailey-4, a captured Raptor masquerading as Free Aquillian Republic Raptor Libre. 

Aquillian Free Republic Raptor Libre. Or is it Florence Bailey-4?

In 2162, Humanity developed their first cloaking device, finally allowing Star Patrol to explore the DMZ without the headache of acquiring alien rockets, or offending its neighbours. The Mary Gillham program was born. It carried the same objectives as the Florence Bailey program, but now using purpose built vessels, and operating openly inside the DMZ as Star Patrol vessels, using cloaking technology to remain undetected by Divine Empire rockets or listening posts.    

Mary Gillham rockets are built to contradictory standards, and Mary Gillham-32 is no exception. She needed a small profile and to appear non-threatening. Enough that if discovered, she would prompt a manageable diplomatic incident, rather than a full blown war. She also needed to be self sufficient, capable of cruising for months, potentially years, without resupply or official support, feature a cloaking device, advanced sensor systems, and be well enough armed to fend off rockets 3 times her size. How successful this was depends entirely on who you ask���

"You're shorter than I expected." - Mary Gillham-32 faces off against a Divine Empire Second Rate.

Mary Gillham-32 is one of the smallest interstellar rockets in Star Patrol, and carries the bare minimum crew complement of 4. All Star Patrol rockets are cramped, but Mary takes it to another level. Supplies and equipment are stashed anywhere and everywhere there’s room. Her moonchute (the zero gravity shaft used to navigate up and down decks) is claustrophobic, and her doors are often joked to have been designed by Martians to spite the tall. 

Mary’s most important and defining feature is her cloaking device. Effectively a second, specialised variant of the FTL drive, though rather than warping space to allow for superluminal travel, the cloak warps space so steeply that it creates a bubble through which no light, heat, or tachyons can enter or escape. Effectively concealing the rocket in a tiny baby universe all to itself. Of course, this works both ways, while cloaked Mary is totally blind, relying solely on computer calculations to determine position, and a periscope in the form of a tethered drone that can be extended from the cloak bubble, at risk of detection. 

Mary's periscope observes a pack of Aquillian Raptors.

This lack of creature comforts is most obvious when it comes to the matter of armament. Too small to fit particle cannons or railguns, when it comes to combat Mary’s best hope is to cloak and escape. If that doesn’t work, she has a set of six externally mounted torpedo tubes. With no room for anything as wasteful as autoloaders, reloading is a process that takes the better part of a day. New torpedoes must be manufactured in stages in the matter printer, transported up the ship and out the cargo airlock, assembled in space, and then manually loaded into the tubes after being fitted with the desired warhead.

With only six shots, it’s imperative that even one torpedo is enough to end any fight. So, in addition to a supply of standard flak, nuclear and a handful of antimatter warheads. She also carries a small stock of Graviton bombs. An experimental warhead that creates a pseudo-singularity with an event horizon diameter measuring tens of kilometres. Anything caught within is utterly ripped apart. Mary may only have six shots, but she only needs one. 

In short, Mary Gillham-32 is an undersized, overengineered, and overpowered rocket with an understaffed and overworked crew, embarked on a dangerous, politically dubious mission with no hope of reinforcements or aid if they encounter a problem. But whatever sticky situations their mission brief gets them into, the crew can rest assured that with a bit of clever thinking, Mary will get them out of it.

[torchshippod]

The year is 2169. The place? The Aquilian De-militarized Zone. All that stands between Humanity and a Second Aquilian War. A buffer zone encompassing countless stars and civilisations, cut off from the greater galaxy by a crumbling treaty. It falls to the four Cosmonauts of stealth-rocket Mary Gillham-32 to explore this Forbidden Space. To find new friends, to supply aid to those who need it, to discover the wonders of the universe. And all without starting a shooting war with the Divine Aquilian Empire. Introducing: Torchship: Forbidden Space. A scripted, fully casted audio drama. The pilot episode, 'The Quality of Mercy', will release later this month on spotify, itunes, youtube, and any podcast host you can think of!

Character art by @whirligig-girl!