First the short version. Your dear friend Suzie–hypergenius and former Rhymer Enterprises technomage, fired for being insufficiently evil–has built a small starship, ship’s company of thirty-four. She has also located about 144 earthlike planets in various star systems and is planning to go on a two-year exploration trek, and is now recruiting officers and crew. You’re offered the second mate’s job; if you have an SO, you can bring him or her along as a deckie (assuming she or he isn’t already qualified to be ship’s surgeon or something). Do you take this opportunity?
Them’s the basics; you can answer the poll just from that. Persons who want more details can read the spoiler box.
Let’s say that, on a snowy winter day, you’re driving home on a lonely road when you blow out a tire. Stepping out to survey the damage, you’re accosted by two unsavory men with eensy weensy dicks and compensatingly large handguns. They tell you not to worry about the flat tire, as they’ll take care of it. They will also be taking your wallet, phone, shoes, and clothes, leaving you to walk home naked while they take your car in the other direction. Before you can decide whether to beg for mercy or try to fight, lightning bolts strike both thugs down.
No, it’s not Jesus, or even Thor. It’s your dear friend Suzie on her flying motorcycle, which has electrolasers mounted on it for just such occasions. She lands, hugs you, and kicks each thug twice in the nads just to hear them groan; then she tells you to get behind her on the skycycle, so she can give you a ride (and your car a tow) home. You persuade her to take the thugs to the hospital first; she does so only because you ask, as showing mercy to people who just tried to kill her friend would simply never have occurred to her.
“Where’ve you been, Suzanne?” you say once y’all are back in the air. “It’s been five years! And how you’d show up just when I needed help?”
“I was coming to see you anyway,” Suzie replies, “but I cast a spell years back to zap me to your side if you were ever in immediate mortal peril. Works as long as we’re both on the same planet, which brings me to your other question. Five years back, I had an epiphany about quantum theory and relativity that showed me how to generate artificial gravity. From that I figured how to to do tractor beams, which led to inertial dampeners, then force shields, then tesseracts, then–well, the point is, I built me a starship. More than one, actually. The first one was a two-woman gig; I took it to Proxima Centauri and back by myself, then to Barnard’s Star with my cousin Al, the merchant marine. But for serious exploration, I’m gonna need a bigger boat.”
Y’all land, and you realize that Suzie hasn’t taken you home yet, but rather to a large hanger, inside which is her shiny new starship. She gives you the nickel tour. The ship has two warp nacelles, either of which is sufficient by itself to cover a thousand light years in six months; aboard are the spare parts to build a third from scratch. Using her philosopher’s stone (the only magical part of this enterprise), Suzie is in the midst of synthesizing enough anti-matter fuel for a four thousand light-year trek, twice the distance planned for the maiden voyage. Sublight travel, life support, and sundries are powered by the four fusion reactors, any two of which would be adequate. Using her hyperspace telescope she has identified 144 earthlike planets she wants to survey. After taking you through all this, Suzie continues:
“So that’s the Dawn Treader, which will need an actual ship’s company. Thirty-four to be specific. I of course will be captain. Five officers: first mate, second mate, third mate, chief engineer, and surgeon. Twenty-nine crew: eight bridge, eight engineers, ten deckies; a master-at-arms and assistant; and of course the cook. The ship’s fully constructed, but it’ll be three months before I have all the anti-matter fuel synthesized, 'cause nobody but me can use the philosopher’s stone and even I can’t keep that sucker running more than two hours at a pop. By then we’ll have all the stores aboard, and everybody will have had the technical knowledge they need implanted via that quick-learning gizmo of mine–you remember, the one you used to master Arabic. Each officer gets private quarters; everybody else is in the dorms. Al is gonna be chief mate, but the second mate’s job is yours if you want it; if you prefer another job, let me know. You can bring your SO if they want a deckie job, but no pets. What do you say?”
Now you’ve known Suzie for years. She’s as smart as Reed Richards and as honest as Immanuel Kant; if she says she can do all this stuff, you believe her. So are you up for a star trek?
Poll in a moment, but don’t let that slow you down.
