SHIP'S LOG:

Ventura

Olivia Diaz 7/23/2018 8:47pm

It's so satisfying to have one's theories proven true. If only there was some way to share it with the people back home!

And by home, of course, I mean Earth.

We were prepared for this, and had been transmitting data back to HQ up till the very last minute. No doubt the last of it got a bit garbled in some interesting ways, but hopefully they'll find something useful in it.

But the fact remains that our theories about the Brane were correct--that by reuniting it with its entangled partner on the moon we could create a space-time topology where they could return to their native universe.

Trouble is, I'm afraid we don't have any theories about getting back.

Hartwell ELEC III 6/30/2018 11:43pm

The Ventura's always been a marvel, with its all-electric design and transparent xenomaterial bubble, but I never thought I'd be traveling space in it. I'm sure I wasn't alone thinking we were done for once the, well, the Transference Event happened. That's what Dr. Diaz calls it. Me and the rest of the crew, we're just lucky we didn't go completely crazy, everything stretching out like taffy, and swirlin' inside out. But when it was all over, and everything was still in one piece, I had the strangest feeling of well-being, like everything was right in the world. And I'm not the only one. Even Chief Engineer got off his high horse and slapped me on the back like we were best friends. "Looks like you treated that brain real well, Mr. Hartwell."

The brain in the jar seems strangely quiet, though. Not that a brain in a jar has a lot of room to move, but it seems less... agitated, and the EEG is real smooth. Dr. Diaz says not to worry, that it was just a little bit of a bigger consciousness that was in the brain, and now it's been reunited with its kin and gone home. It's still tied into all the ship's systems, but it's more a control mechanism now than an active personality. I'm not sure what she means by that, but I've still got this rosy feeling inside so I guess it's fine with me.

The whole crew's been spending more time on the observation deck, looking out at this new world. I'd never known space was so purple, with so many rainbows and auroras and what not. And the jellyfish--the giant space jellyfish. What are those, anyway? That's not something I'd heard about before.

Biowave 9 6/9/2018 10:55pm

MOON RIVER TIDAL FLOW IS ENGAGED
SPACE IS ABOUT TO GET VERY REAL

LOCKING... LOCKING...
ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL
RELEASE LAUNCH VEHICLE
LAUNCH RELEASE VEHICLE

VEHICLE RELEASE

NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS ARE OBTAINED USING A BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEM SOLVER
LAYER FLOW NETWORK EFFECT OF
STRETCHING i've never stretched out like this before

CHECK STATUS...
CHECK STATUS...
A ONE AND A TWO

RIEMANN SYMMETRY DETECTED
SURFACES EVERLASTING
AHOY MATEY

Violet Bailey 5/21/2018 9:14pm

Ensign Violet Bailey here. Is anybody else picking up weird signals when they're in the head? I don't even need my transistor anymore, I just walk in there and ohmygoditshappeningagain--
BIOWAVE MANIFOLD TELEMETRY REPORT
itsfillingmyhead--
SWIMMING ELECTRICITY STEAM
LOTUS MANIFESTATION IS GREEN
itssolouditsbreakingmyears
MOON ANGEL 1 REPORTING
MOON ANGEL 1 REPORTING
I CANT BELIEVE ITS HAPPENING
icantbelieveitshappening

The floor is soft.

Olivia Diaz 5/3/2018 9:46pm

Our breaking maneuvers are almost complete, and soon we'll enter into our moon-locked orbit. We're only at about 42,000 km, and it'll be hard to maintain orbit moving so slowly, but the massive new plasma engines should be up to the job. The Level 3 electrical engineer we work with (still the only contact we've got on the crew) says he can't understand how those engines are so efficient--it's like no design he's ever seen. We're documenting as much of it as we can. Some of it we understand, and the rest we're taking pictures of--great nests of tubes that look more like they've been grown than built. That documentation gets beamed back to HQ 24/7, since who knows--it could all blow up at any minute! Just joking. We don't believe that. But there's still a good chance we won't be able to return with it, not if the rest of the mission goes like we've projected.

Hartwell ELEC III 4/16/2018 7:22pm

Just when I was sure the brain wasn’t insane, it turns out it is. All these modifications it’s been ordering—it IS trying to take us into space. Reinforcing the hull and the air locks, hermetically sealing the HVAC and oxygen generation units, building freakin plasma jet engines and argon stills...it all adds up to insertion orbit if you ask me. Trouble is the only thing Chief Engineer is asking me is “Have you checked the serotonin levels on the brain in the aquarium today?” and “Do you have enough flakes, Mr. Hartwell?”

Olivia Diaz 4/3/2018 8:53am

I admit I’ve become rather attached to the Brane. Ha! Of course we’re all “attached” to the Brane (a running joke in the xenomorphic mathematics dept), but this little lumpy piece of it has a personality of its own. It’s just a relatively small, hyper-localized hernia of spacetime—but when it was first discovered it was obviously in pain. Pain from being pinched and pulled out through a tiny hemorrhage in our worldvolume, but also in pain from emotional separation. It took us a while to figure out there even were emotional variables involved—much less their value—but once we did then it all made sense. That’s when we understood how important the moon was.

Violet Bailey 3/17/2018 10:23pm

Ensign Violet Bailey here. When I'm off duty I like to listen to my little transistor radio, but lately all I'm getting is some oldies station. Fly Me to the Moon, Old Devil Moon, Blue Moon, How High the Moon, Shine on Harvest Moon, Moonlight Becomes You, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Moon River, It's Only a Paper Moon (though I kind of like that one). Is anybody else having this problem?

Olivia Diaz 3/1/2018 2:24pm

I've never been made to feel welcome on the Ventura. Part of the problem is that, as representatives of the Fukaya Corp, we're only allowed minimal contact with the crew. We have a whole science lab to ourselves, sit apart in the lunchroom, and don't even make eye contact with crew members on deck. The Level 3 electrical engineer who does the routine maintenance on the Brane is the only member we've had direct contact with.

There's a misconception about our project. It's not a "brain," although it does look like one. It's a Brane. A higher dimension point particle. We're helping it get home.

Hartwell ELEC III 2/19/2018 8:14pm

I never thought I'd be happy to take orders from a brain in a jar. But an airship needs a chain of command to operate smoothly, and after Captain Michael Peters left on one of his mysterious excursions, there was an ensuing free-for-all that could have ruined a lesser ship. But not the Ventura! This electrical marvel demands better, and if that means a consciousness barely contained in a kilo or two of biomass and an enormous electrical field, then so be it.

At least the brain isn't completely mad. With this obsession about the moon, I was worried it would try and fly us straight through the stratosphere and into space! Naturally the blades couldn't get any traction with the air that thin, but who knows what kind of trouble it might get us in.

For now it's not altitude that's on the brain's mind. Instead, it's charted a course intended to keep the moon in view at all times. I've done the calculations, and those aren't speeds the Ventura was built for. But we keep heading in the moon's direction, and the brain keeps sending its signals.

It might be a fool's journey, but it gives us all something to do, Chief Engineer say's its above my pay grade to worry about, and "Isn't that brain hungry for its flakes just about now, Mr. Hartwell?"