SHIP'S LOG:

The Mephitis

Katz Spindle 11/13/2025 11:52pm

These airshipmen didn't look like they were here on vacation. But they did all claim to be captains.

"That's why you're the key to this, Captain," said the burly one to @Captain Pirate IX. "They're using you like a battery, sealed up in that concrete cell, cycling and magnifying the Droste Effect."

@Captain Pirate IX leaned back in the big wicker chair and gestured with his margarita in hand.

"Funny," he said. "I don't feel... how did you describe it? Sealed up? In a tomb?"

"Part of the power of the Droste effect is translocation," said the female captain. "When the waveform collapses, you emerge as a new captain. You ought to separate entirely from your predecessor at that point. But because of they've done the binding in the tomb, you're actually sustained in two places at once. That's what generates the power they're after."

"And it has a dangerous side effect," the burly one said. "That tension that they're creating to generate that power--it's not sustainable. It's going to blow. We're going to blow. If it snaps, all of us snap with it. And not just us, but the worlds we live in too. Poof."

"It's already starting to drive some of us mad. Like our original. Captain Pirate I."

"@Captain Pirate?" said the one with the bruised face.

"As well as Captain Pirate IV, Captain Pirate VI, potentially Captain Pirate VIII," said the burly one. "We haven't run into Captain Pirate VII."

@Captain Pirate IX threw back the last of his drink and set it down hard on the table.

"Well, I always felt my life was too good to be true," he said, standing up. "I guess it's time I woke myself up!"

Captain Pirate II 7/19/2025 10:05pm

"We're here to meet our party," Captain Pirate III told the maitre d'.

We were in the waiting area of a fancy restaurant. At a resort. It was very warm.

"Ah, I see him!." Captain Pirate V said. "We'll seat ourselves. Thank you."

Everyone in the restaurant was dressed. Casually, but nicely. My face was puffy and bleeding, and my uniform torn. Captain Pirate V and Captain Pirate III looked better, but we didn't fit in at all. It was like we'd all come straight from the aerodrome doing maintenance. And fighting.

"Captain Pirate IX?" asked Captain Pirate V.

It was another member of this new Captain Pirate family I'd discovered. Like the reflections in the flying saucer. This one was by far the most dashing, in his dress blues but with the collar undone, holding a big blue drink with an umbrella in it. There was a crewman with him, looking nervous.

"Ah! Wonderful! Join us, please. Waiter! More chairs!"

"He doesn't look like he needs liberating," I said.

"Oh, but I do!," said Captain Pirate IX. "Everybody needs liberating. Hungry? Waiter! Three more menus please."

Captain Pirate IX 3/27/2025 9:45pm

On top of the wonderful atmosphere, Chichen Itza has fine dining.

"Don't worry, their vegan menu is fantastic," I told @Katz Spindle.

"Are we dining, uh, alone?" Katz asked.

"Oh, no, not at all, I don't think. Can't say I've met them yet," I said.

Katz was still suspicious of all this.

"You know," I said, "the limestone used to build Chichen Itza is over 60 million years old. That's like 800,000 lifetimes lived in a row. Or all the lifetimes in San Francisco lived all at once."

Katz didn't look up.

"You don't say," she said.

Katz Spindle 12/2/2024 5:11pm

I spent some time roaming the grounds before dinner. The grass was trimmed, the pyramid tall. A few children with balloons and cotton candy wandering around. Where were their parents?

9 was a little late for dinner for me, and the corn-on-a-stick was looking like just the thing.

"ELOTE en stick" the vendor corrected me.

"How much?" I asked. "¿Cuánto?"

"Free! Todo incluido," said the vendor.

Perhaps @Captain Pirate IX had purchased us passes? I wasn't wearing a bracelet or anything.

I wandered back out to get a view of the pyramid, eating my corn. The sun was just about set, and I watched some vultures picking at a trash can.

"Whoo!" I heard. From the jungle?

"Whoo! Whoo!"

They have jungle owls?

"Whoooo is joining me for dinner?"

I turned, and it was Captain Pirate IX.

Captain Pirate IX 8/8/2024 11:59pm

Ah, Chichen Itza. Terminal Classic style. My favorite kind of pyramid.

It's one of my favorite places to come and unwind. My own Fortress of Solitude. I come here a lot. And it's time I brought someone to share it with.

"It does feel oddly... familiar, " @Katz Spindle said.

"Your place is down plaza to the left," I said. "Dinner at 9!"

Katz Spindle 4/17/2024 10:38pm

The Captain's always had a special interest in me, and it makes me uncomfortable.

Not in a creepy way. Not like that. It's just weird in terms of my relationship to the rest of the crew when he singles me out.

"Mask?" The captain and I are in the airlock.

"Yes, of course," I answer.

He opens the mask cabinet, which is filled with an array of theater masks from greek plays, Javanese theater, Noh plays, festival masks from Mauritania, cheap 20th century Halloween masks...

Sure, I was top of my class. But you don't want that to follow you around your whole life.

"Excellent choice," says the Captain. He always says that.

"Ready then. On three. One... two...."

The Captain pulls the lever on the airlock door.

Engineer Bernard 12/27/2023 11:55pm

"Heading, Captain?" I ask.

@Captain Pirate IX looks lost in thought. As he does more and more these days. Chalk it up to his enigmatic charm. We'd just dropped out of the wave and were coming in over the long curve of a shoreline. There was a mildly tropical forest of palms just beyond.

The Captain stretches. "Well, I suppose it's time to meet our destiny," he says. It's one of this signature lines. "To the pyramid."

"Aye aye, to the pyramid, Captain!"

"And call up Katz Spindle to join me on the ground for an excursion."

"Aye sir."

Captain Pirate IX 9/11/2023 9:29pm

Riding the Waveform is one of the best parts of the job. Not only does it look AMAZING from the inside, but it creates a subtle vibration throughout The Mephitis that is both wonderfully relaxing and stimulating at the same time. Plus, really not much to do during the ride -- no steering, no loading, no unloading. We're out of radio contact for the duration, so no pesky calls or distractions. Nothing to do but keep an eye on the instruments and enjoy the ride.

Purple and green auroras spill over the bow of the ship. The background radiation shimmers. The ship hums.

For all my fame an notoriety, is it wrong that THIS is when I'm happiest?

Engineer Bernard 6/14/2023 10:57pm

"Ready to initiate harmonic release, Captain."

"Hold steady, Engineer."

"Holding sir."

Outside the windscreen the night sky spins past. This part always makes me dizzy, even though the ship doesn't feel like its moving at all.

"And.... now, Engineer."

"Harmonic release initiated."

"Retract the docking crystals."

"Retracting crystals"

There you could feel something. A little bump. A little free fall.

"Now give her the juice. Slowly."

"Giving her the juice, Captain."

And that's where you feel that agreeable acceleration deep down in your belly.

The point of the maneuver is to ride the knob torque from a Quick Station boost up into a nearby waveform current, then match the the amplitude with a little bit of juice. If you do it right, you can ride the frequency for as far as you like with hardly any energy expenditure at all.

"And, matching.... now. We're riding the wave, sir"

"Well done, Engineer."

All I did was push the buttons. It's the Captain who invented the maneuver, so if anybody knows how to do it right it's him.

The infamous @Captain Pirate IX.

Doctor Argosa 2/24/2023 11:59pm

SUBJECT: @Captain Pirate IX

The subject sits on his cot reading a book. Later, he will likely spend an hour stretching and working out on the exercise bike, then prepare a small microwave dinner in the kitchenette.

Viewing hours end at 8pm, at which time the CCTV screen is deactivated, and the subject leaves the small cell to return to his family for the night.

This is because the subject in the mock Droste containment chamber is not Captain Pirate IX. Naturally, no one can view Captain Pirate IX without being subject to the Droste Effect, contained and controlled as it is in the real Droste containment chamber. This subject is on display for informational purposes only.

The real Captain Pirate IX exists in concrete constraints at the center of the real Droste containment chamber, straining against the maddening effects of his eigenstate looping at the speed of thought from one reality to another and back again to ours, spinning, spinning, jiggling in a bottle like a radioactive jumping bean, the fulcrum point of the grinding crush where realities meet, allowing us to generate enormous amounts of power.

Or at least that's how he was described, in the original blueprints. Naturally, no one can view Captain Pirate IX without being subject to the Droste Effect. The original engineers sealed themselves within the Droste containment chamber in order to maintain the power couplings, and ensure that Captain Pirate IX remain restrained.

It is believed that continuous exposure to the Droste Effect will leave both Captain Pirate IX and the engineers effectively immortal.