Part 1

This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.

Yoli’s head throbbed. Their eyelids struggled to remain open as they stared at the glowing comp-screen, the words blurring together in a mash of nouns and verbs. It was garbage, all of it. They wanted so desperately to trash the whole file and start again — properly, this time — but they had a deadline, and important things were happening. It didn’t take Yoli’s usual clever nose for news to smell that.

Tethys Station was one of the most important Megastations from the old era. Its history was fascinating, its culture complex, and its daily life a drudgery of monotonous ritual. There was good reason for that; Megastations were carefully balanced ecosystems. All stations were, but the Megastations were at a crucial tipping point: not so robust that they could withstand sustained damage, nor so fragile that they couldn’t support untrained personnel.

Yoli flipped to the top of their notes. There were five-hundred and forty-nine people onboard Megastation Tethys, and only two-hundred of them were devoted to station maintenance, repair, and function. There were sixty or seventy different kinds of jobs, but they were all officially nicknamed the Lifeboat Corp. Unofficially, they were called Smarties, after one of the most common jobs; the Station Management and Repair Technician. They maintained the temperature, kept the gravity stable, ensured the greenhouse was producing enough to feed the population, and made sure all the air-filters were functioning perfectly. Without the Lifeboat Corp, no one would be able to live on Tethys.

Yoli kept flipping. There was the Station Defense force, of course; Earth wasn’t about to spend unfathomable amounts of money without ensuring the whole project was held together by a suitable supply of physical violence. Yoli rubbed their tired eyes; that wasn’t fair. The Station Defense force wasn’t a group of thugs, they were highly trained and well suited to Megastation duty. They knew how to defuse situations before they got violent, and how to maintain law and order without throwing their weight around too much. At least, that was how it seemed to Yoli.

The Gleaners: now there was an interesting quirk of Megastation Tethys. As an exo-biological extraction station, Tethys’ main function was the collection and cultivation of Red-wheat; an alien plant-like organism that thrived on the surface of the planet below. The Gleaners was the informal name for the employees hired by the two private corporations that monopolized the industry, but most people used the word to refer to the three families that legally owned all rights to the harvesting and cultivating technology the station used. Technically, they were nothing more than a tight-knit conglomerate of xeno-farmers. Practically, they were a kind of blue-collar elite, with the entire Megastation constructed around them and their purpose.

Of course, it wasn’t just the Gleaners that the Megastation existed for: there was a sizable contingent of scientists and xeno-biologists who spent their days studying the planet’s impressive ecosystem. Yoli grimaced at the thought; the planet looked like a sea of Red-wheat to them, but the scientists insisted there was a whole host of incredible micro-organisms and extremophiles that thrived within the Red-wheat’s feathers.

Yoli stood up from their chair and walked to the pantry. Sliding the door open, they scanned the small containers and packages; there was anemic variety, and Yoli wasn’t even hungry, but somehow the simple act of looking for a snack helped recenter Yoli’s mind. Things looked smaller when they were further away, and half-focusing on something else made the impossible task of writing a comprehensive dispatch feel possible.

After several minutes, Yoli grabbed a small cold-can of protein-cream — a strange tasting alternative to milk — and returned to their chair. The glowing comp-screen was still there, glaring like an infernal demon.

Breathing a deep sigh, Yoli cracked the can open, releasing a hiss of gas. Instantly, the can began to warm in their hands from freezing to merely cold. Taking a drink of the thick liquid, Yoli rubbed their eyes before placed their hands on the keyboard.

Dispatch: Stolen Research Ensnares Science into Political Conflict.

Tethys Station: Lifeboat Corp Liaisons revealed today that they had received preliminary results from Xenobiologist studies into the Red-wheat. According to these studies, Red-wheat and its micro-biomes exhibit behaviors that suggest a more complex organism than a mere plant crop.

Demands for transparency have been answered by Provlan Holss, Elected Chairfolk of the Gleaners and Regional-CEO of Fresh-Co. Holss will be holding a press-release in the coming week to report and explain these findings and the Gleaners’ actions moving forward. This event will be colored by the recent refusal of Homestation Defense to acquiesce to the new Gleaner rationing quotas, claiming they would be unable to effectively perform their vital duties with lowered rations.

Yoli stared at the screen for a minute before slowly continuing:

The identity of the Xenobiologist Whistle-blower is currently unknown.

Yoli leaned back in their chair. It was a mess, and about to get messier. Everyone was scared, now. Homeland Defense’s refusal to accept the rationing adjustments put the idea of famine in everyone’s mind. They wanted security, and when there were whiffs of a conspiracy between scientists and Gleaners, they called for transparency.

Yoli had seen it before; something as simple as the patience of an uncertain politician or the reasoned judgment of a disconnected expert could suddenly turn a public good into a controlled commodity. The commons could be turned into bargaining chips and political assets as fast as gossip.

Yoli finished the dispatch with date and bylines before uploading it to the Megastation’s External-Comms. It would be sent back to Earth at the end of the year on the regular communications probe, to be read by anyone who cared decades after the event.

Yoli stood up from their chair and flopped on their tiny bed. They weren’t a journalist, they were a historian.