Popcorn is essential for any entertainment viewing, but it’s especially important if you’re watching an underground fight match. Xianna acquires a bucket of popcorn in Episode 21 to snack on while Tink fights a Wookiee.
This Curry-Carrot Popcorn recipe is perfect for all your death match needs.
Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn is simply popcorn popped in coconut oil that’s then tossed in carrot powder, curry powder, and salt.
So let’s start with the weirdest component of this recipe: the carrot powder. It’s made by taking dehydrated or freeze-dried carrots and putting them in a spice or coffee grinder until they’ve become a fine powder. If you can’t find dried carrots substitute it with extra curry powder and a small sprinkle of sugar.
Next, the curry powder. Storebought curry powders are perfectly fine, but homemade curry powder will pack a bunch of extra flavor. Ours combines coriander, cumin, fenugreek, black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, arbol chilis, turmeric, ginger, and salt. Fenugreek seeds can be found at most Indian grocery stores, but you can substitute mustard seeds if you can’t find them. You can find our recipe after the main popcorn recipe.
For the main event, you’ll heat up coconut oil and 3 kernels in a large saucepan or wok. Once those 3 kernels have popped you know your oil is hot enough. Add the rest of the kernels and cover with a lid. Make sure to shake the pan once the kernels begin popping to prevent burning.
Once the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops remove the pan from the heat. Be careful when removing the lid, sometimes a rogue kernel decides to pop a bit late.
Pour the popcorn into a large bowl or container with a lid and immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.
Underground Fighting Ring Popcorn
4 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1-2 tablespoons curry powder, store bought or homemade (recipe below)
2 tablespoons carrot powder
1 teaspoon salt
Heat the coconut oil in a large heavy saucepan or wok on medium-high heat. Allow the oil to melt.
Add 3 popcorn kernels into the oil. Once all 3 kernels pop add the remaining kernels. Cover the pot immediately.
Once the kernels begin to pop gently shake the pan back and forth to prevent burning.
When the popping slows to 5 or more seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat.
Pour the popcorn into a large bowl. Immediately toss with the curry powder, carrot powder, and salt.
Curry Powder
2 Tbsp coriander seeds
1 Tbsp cumin seeds
2 tsp fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds)
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom seeds
1-2 arbol chilis, deseeded
1 Tbsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp salt
Place the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds (or mustard seeds), black peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom seeds, and arbol chilis in a spice grinder. Grind until fine.
Add the tumeric, ginger, and salt. Grind for 2-3 seconds to combine.
Word document download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor- Tabletop Squadron
PDF download: Episode 9 The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor
Read in browser:
Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 9:
The Wonderful Oracle of Ithor
Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)
Note – When voicing Ithorians, Nick uses an incredibly low, deep, drawn out voice and often pauses in the middle of sentences.
Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”
## Intro
NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.
Not a lot of announcements this week, but I would be remised if I didn’t mention that we’re pretty close to our next review goal. If you write us a review, even a short one, you can help new listeners find the show. When we get to 20 reviews we’ll release a flashback with Karma’s family. It’s a fun adventure, and we’ll release it on off-week so you’ll get double the Tabletop Squadron.
Thanks for reviewing, thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy.
##
NICK: Hello, and welcome to Episode 9 of Tabletop Squadron! I am your host, Nick. I just realized I probably didn’t introduce myself in the last episode, but oh well. I’m Nick. You’re on Episode 9, you should know it by now. We’re gonna go around the table, and also things that you know, we’re going to introduce you to the people that are playing and their characters. We’re gonna start with… Cameron.
CAMERON: Hello. I’m Cameron. I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter.
NICK: Great. Good work. Now we’re gonna go to… Steven.
STEVEN: Hi podcasty friends. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos the Togruta who isn’t dead.
NICK: Fantastic, and now we’re gonna go to… Hudson.
HUDSON: Oh hi. I’m Hudson. I’m playing Tink, a Gigoran slicer. (dramatically)
NICK & CAMERON: Whoa~!
STEVEN: Slicey, slicey.
NICK: And, last but not least, we’ve got… Laura.
LAURA: Hi. I’m Laura. I play Xianna’fan, a Twi’lek smuggler.
NICK: Great.
LAURA: Yep.
NICK: Sweet! Before we get started, let’s do the Destiny Roll!
LAURA: Two light side!
CAMERON: Yas.
HUDSON: One dark side.
NICK: Listeners at home, please keep track of how many times Hudson’s rolled dark side, because I’m pretty sure it’s most of it.
HUDSON: Most of it times.
CAMERON: Two light side!
STEVEN: One dark side.
CAMERON: A few episodes ago Hudson and Laura rolled light sides and me and Steven rolled dark sides.
LAURA: Yeah.
STEVEN: There was like five or six.
NICK: I didn’t say every time.
CAMERON: I know, I’m just saying there’s at least one recorded incident of him rolling a light side.
LAURA: We’re just saying your theory is bad and you should feel bad.
NICK: Okay great, thank you for that wonderful and constructive feedback, Laura. I appreciate it.
(giggles)
STEVEN: It wasn’t Laura, it was the Mask.
NICK: Alright. What does that bring our total score to?
CAMERON: Four light side, two dark side.
NICK: Awesome. Alright. When we last left off you were in space. You were going to deliver an item to the Oracle of the Ithorian people. They unfortunately are surrounded by a blockade, so you’re gonna have to deal with that. We are going to open on the ship coming out of hyperspace. We have a nice starry scene, and then the (whooshing noises) as the ship drops out and is there, and then the camera jumps into the cockpit where… Who is flying right now?
LAURA & CAMERON: Probably Karma.
NICK: Yeah. So, it drops to Karma flipping a bunch of switches. Ahead of you, you see the planet of Ithor which is a very beautiful, green planet. It has two small oceans on it, but a majority of it appears to be lush jungle and verdant life. In between you and that planet is a very large Imperial fleet. There are four Star Destroyers and one Super Star Destroyer. How can you tell there’s a Super Star Destroyer, you ask? Because it’s twice as big as a normal, already ridiculously large Star Destroyer. It’s a very big ship. They’re arranged around the planet in a geometric pattern. Basically any way that you would leave they’ve got a clear shot. Yeah, so as you pull out of hyperspace you have a couple of minutes as you pull closer to the ship. Is there anything last minute you all want to do?
CAMERON: “Alright. Plan wise… I think Xianna should be the one who talks.”
LAURA: “Um, but…”
HUDSON: “I’ve been working on my cockney accent.”
STEVEN: “Is Xianna George?”
LAURA: “Yes, uh, so Sabos was actually right, um… I am not a man.”
CAMERON: “No, like, he has an earpiece, I assume. You have a com, right?”
STEVEN: “Yeah.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. You can talk into his com. He says the words, but you come up with the lies.”
LAURA: “Oh. Okie, I will make the lies. You just—Okay Sabos, I will say things and you just have to repeat them.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I don’t need lies. I’m an ambassador.”
LAURA: “No, you see, but—“
CAMERON: “No no no, you’re not anymore.”
LAURA: “We are not an ambassador. We are Petty Naval Officer… What was the—“
STEVEN: “Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”
CAMERON: “George Jetson.” (laughs)
LAURA: “No, we are Petty Navy Officer George Jetson.”
STEVEN: “Representing Ambassador Sabos Niks, I got it.”
LAURA & CAMERON: “No, no, no no no.”
LAURA: “You see, also, we figured out you are wanted. Not that much—
STEVEN: “Ohh.”
LAURA: “But enough to where maybe Sabos Niks, whatever your name is, would come up in their records.”
STEVEN: “Mm.”
LAURA: “It’s kind of like, you know how I don’t use my name when we are out and about?”
CAMERON: “Yeah, don’t say your name.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I see, so I’m George Jetson.”
CAMERON: “Yes.”
LAURA: “You Are George Jetson, yes.”
STEVEN: “Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes, and I will be your mind, and I will tell you what to say, with your mouth. Okie?”
STEVEN: “This will be fine.”
NICK: If nobody says ‘Meet George Jetson’ I’m gonna get so mad.
STEVEN: I know. (laughs)
NICK: His boy, Elroy.
LAURA: No.
HUDSON: Jane, his wife!
LAURA: No!
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: Yeah, so we just set up the com, and I—
NICK: You put an earpiece in so you can coach him through it?
LAURA: Yeah, and I just like sit in a different room. No, I’m probably just still sitting in the hot tub.
NICK: (laughs) Xianna has a favorite part of the ship.
LAURA: The hot tub… is great.
STEVEN: Are you Naut—No, not Nautolan. Are you a water creature? Or are you just all wrinkly by now?
LAURA: … I get out, for periods of time.
STEVEN: Oh, okay. She hasn’t just been sitting in the hot tub.
CAMERON: We’ve been traveling for like three days. She hasn’t been in the hot tub the entire time. (laughs)
LAURA: “I have not been in here for three days!”
STEVEN: “I’d imagine you could deal with that.”
CAMERON: “I could deal with that, yeah.”
LAURA: “I cannot. Ryloth is a desert.”
CAMERON: “I’ve been taking naps in the hot tub.”
LAURA: “That is why this is so much fun. There is not a lot of water on Ryloth. Mostly sand.”
STEVEN: “Do Nautolans breathe water?”
CAMERON: “Yeah.”
STEVEN: “Oh, so you could just take a nap under the water.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, that’s what I was saying.”
STEVEN: “Oh, okay. Of course.” (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, you don’t want to be underneath the water in a hot tub. It’s very hot.”
CAMERON: “No, it’s fine.”
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: I actually don’t know how hot the water is…
STEVEN: Yeah. Was it even heated, or was it luke warm?
LAURA: No, I meant it as a hot hot tub, I just don’t know how hot the oceans are for Nautolans.
NICK: Okay. Time out.
CAMERON: I think the Glee Anselm’s land masses are tropical, so I would assume that parts of the oceans would be warm. I don’t know how deep in the oceans the Nautolans hang out, though.
NICK: They’re all over the place.
LAURA: Yeah, but like a warm ocean is still not 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
CAMERON: Yeah, still not quite hot tub. But it’s fine, it’s just a little warm.
NICK: I would imagine that a hot tub situation for a Nautolan is like a dry sauna situation for a human.
CAMERON: Yeah. We used to go to the volcanic jets all the time to… warm, ourselves, I don’t know. (giggles) It was the nifty place to hang out!
LAURA: All warm and bubbly. Nature’s Jacuzzi.
STEVEN: Because you’re cold blooded.
CAMERON: I don’t think we’re—No, we’re not cold blooded. No. I’m green, but I’m not a lizard.
NICK: Karma’s thinking about, ‘Why Did we go there?’
LAURA: To make out!
CAMERON: Yeah. It was the Hot place to be.
(groans and booing)
CAMERON: Ha ha ha.
(laughter)
NICK: Alright. You were drifting towards the planet under sub light drives. You get hailed.
CAMERON: I accept the hail.
NICK: Yeah. Good. A hologram, a little one in the middle of the dashboard pops up, it’s basically from the chest up. You see an older gentleman wearing this stupid navy hat that looks kind of like a sideways Burger King serving hat, and Imperial uniform obviously. He says, “This is The Vengeance paging Unknown Ship. What is your purpose here?”
LAURA: “Okie Sabos, tell them that you are a naval officer, that you are on personal leave, and you are reporting back on the planet surface for duty.”
STEVEN: “I am Petty Officer George Jetson, on personal leave, reporting back to the surface for duty.”
NICK: “Oh, wonderful. You’ll have to send your credentials over right away. We’re under a barricade as you can see.”
STEVEN: “I recall that as I left the surface of the planet on personal leave.”
(laughter)
NICK: “Good. You have passed the first test. This blockade has been here for months. It would be very strange if you did not know about it. Please send over your credentials now.”
STEVEN: “Sending now.” I make typing noises.
CAMERON: I hit the button that sends it.
NICK: There is an interminable pause of a couple minutes. The hologram turns off.
LAURA: “Well, they are not shooting us yet.”
NICK: Yeah, and you’re drifting closer. You can see that the ship’s guns are tracking you which is very intimidating because there are tons of them on the Super Star Destroyer which is the closest thing to you, and there’s also two other Star Destroyers in range, and your ship is quite small compared to these that are city sized. The hologram clicks back on. “Well, it’s an older code, but it checks out. What did you say your purpose was on entering the planet?”
STEVEN: “Reporting back to the surface for Imperial duty activities, sir, officer.”
NICK: “That’s very strange, because we don’t have a presence on the planet. We are staying on the—“
STEVEN: “Not that you know about.”
LAURA: (quietly) “Nope…”
CAMERON: (bursts out laughing)
NICK: “Are you implying that an Imperial Communications Officer on this Super Star Destroyer of Vengeance would not know where everyone is located?”
LAURA: While he’s saying that I’m like, “No no, tell them you are working with the ISB.”
STEVEN: “I’m sorry. I was doing activities with the IS… ISB. It’s been a long—It’s been a nice personal break.”
NICK: “Hmm… If you were with the ISB you’d be in the database. Stand by.” And the hologram turns off again.
STEVEN: “Indeed.”
LAURA: “Okie, so…”
STEVEN: “So, uh, slicer slicy slicy.”
(giggles)
HUDSON: I run over to the computer.
STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer, can you put me in the database? By me I mean George Jetson.”
HUDSON: I try to put George Jetson in the database.
NICK: Okay. You’re gonna put George Jetson in the ISB database.
HUDSON: Correct.
LAURA: I have to imagine that because so much of it is undercover work that they probably have very basic profiles.
NICK: Oh yeah.
LAURA: So it’s real easy to just import the same photo and a name, and like that’s all.
NICK: So, the actual getting him in, getting the database format is gonna be super easy. It’s getting into their network and dropping I in while this guy is searching it. That will be a Computers check, it’s going to be hard, and you’re still gonna have those two black dice. This is sort of becoming your specialty, dropping stuff into Star Destroyer networks.
CAMERON: I flipped a light side point to upgrade one of his greens.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yaaas.
LAURA: So, triumph with a success, two successes, and a threat.
NICK: So tons of successes.
CAMERON: Yeah, so three successes total, a triumph, and a threat.
NICK: Alright. How do you want to use your triumph?
HUDSON: Not only do I put him in the database, but suddenly he’s over the rank of the person who was on the hologram.
(laughter)
NICK: Okay. That’s good.
STEVEN: So Petty Officer is just the cover of George Jetson.
NICK: I’m gonna beat a dead horse here. That threat is you still haven’t noticed the signature, and you put it all over it but it’s like in the report. So, if there was some sort of inspector or special agent who was hunting you at some point, then this signature would be one of a long trail of Moriarty-like clues, but I’m sure that would never happen so I wouldn’t worry about it. Yeah, so the hologram clicks back on and the communications officer is sweating. You can see he’s pushed his hat back, tried to put it back, and his hair is kind of askew. “Oh, uh, Commander Jetson. My mistake.”
STEVEN: “Petty. Officer. Jetson.”
NICK: “Oh, y-yes, Petty Officer Jetson. I trust that this won’t need to be reported. I apologize for the delay, sir. If you will head down to the surface… Whatever you need, just let me know, and apologies again.”
STEVEN: “I recommend this be handled with discretion as we land on the surface, if you know what I mean.”
NICK: “Oh, absolutely. We’ll mark you as a certified civilian vessel, of course, as is protocol, Petty Officer Jetson.” He winks into the hologram. “Is there anything else that I can do for you?”
STEVEN: “Nope.” Click.
NICK: You cut him off mid-word, and the hologram disappears.
LAURA: “You should have at least said thank you.”
STEVEN: (laughing) “Nope. Nope.”
CAMERON: “I feel like that’s not really a big thing in the Empire, though.”
LAURA: “Eh.”
STEVEN: “Good job, slicer.”
HUDSON: “Thank you.”
CAMERON: “Well done, Tink!”
STEVEN: “Mr. Slicer. May I call you mister?”
HUDSON: “I mean, this wasn’t like the hardest thing I’ve ever done or anything.”
(laughter)
STEVEN: “Good job, Tink.”
NICK: So, all the Star Destroyers, they stop weapons lock with the Afternoon Delight. The Super Star Destroyer, a chunk of the cannons seem to whip around in the opposite way as fast as possible like someone went and slapped a targeting officer in the back of the head, and you are able to head down to the planet.
Here’s the thing about Ithor… Nobody lives on the surface, really. Ooh, let’s get Xenology checks.
LAURA: I have Underworld.
NICK: Nope. This is the opposite of that.
CAMERON: What is the difficulty of the check?
NICK: Average. (musically) Who knows about Ithor~?
HUDSON: I know about ether.
NICK: Not that. Not that.
STEVEN: I know about Ithor.
NICK: What did you get?
STEVEN: A success and two threats.
NICK: Mm, okay.
LAURA: I got one failure, but two advantages.
CAMERON: A success and two threats.
STEVEN: Yeaaah.
HUDSON: Three advantages.
NICK: So, with the successes: The Ithorians value the Mother Jungle kind of as their god. They worship nature, and plants, and animals, and their ecosystem, and as such they don’t live on the planet; they live on massive floating cities above the planet. Sometimes they do take a pilgrimage down to the planet, but anyone who goes to live on the planet doesn’t come back – not like they died, like they just live there now, because once you become one with the planet you can’t leave. The only people who can take pilgrimages down to the planet and return are the Oracle, which is why they’re important, they can check with people.
So, as you are relaying this information, you break down through the clouds and you see a large floating city. It is made mostly of white steel and is very pretty, and has tree lined boulevards and is very open and airy, and you see Ithorians walking around which are those weird hammerhead-looking slug alien guys from, you know, the Star Wars. You are immediately given clearance to land, and you already knew as you were coming in some of the information that you got from Sentinel which was which floating city the Oracle was on and general directions of where you were going, so you’re able to land very quickly. They actually put you on a priority landing pad, and as you land you can see that there are several Ithorians standing by, and you are on the planet, sort of.
CAMERON: Nice.
LAURA: “Okie. So, somebody is going to have to wear some sort—It’s probably going to have to be Karma.”
CAMERON: “Hmm?”
LAURA: “You should probably wear some sort of fancy cape, cloak, thing that covers your face so that maybe it looks like we actually have a human aboard, because I do not think Tink could ever pass for human.”
HUDSON: “You haven’t seen me shaved.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “True. I have not.”
HUDSON: “We don’t have the time or the tools, thankfully.”
LAURA: “Sabos’s montrals things would be too pointy.”
STEVEN: I try to flatten them down.
CAMERON: They just pop right back up.
LAURA: Yeah. I don’t know how mobile they are, but I think they’re pretty rigid.
CAMERON: He definitely doesn’t make it flat, but he can like bend the tips a little bit.”
STEVEN: “What if I push them like towards–No? Hmm.”
LAURA: “I think I am a little too short. Just a little.”
CAMERON: “Okay. Now that we’re down here why do we need to be human?”
LAURA: “Because if they have any surveillance, or if any of these Ithorians were told we were Imperials?”
CAMERON: “I don’t know if I can pass as male though.”
LAURA: “Well no, no, we just pull the hood down and we get very fancy cloaks and capes.”
CAMERON: “Oh yeah, from our costume closet.”
LAURA: “And they will be so impressed by the cape, and that is how they would know you are important, because of the fancy cape.”
CAMERON: (giggles) “Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
NICK: To be fair, that is basically how Star Wars works.
CAMERON: “Yeah. If I pull it down far enough so you just see darkness and chin shadow it’s not obvious I’m green.”
LAURA: “Yes. Just do not let them see your face, and if you keep the cloak, you know, mostly together in the front they will not see that, you know, you have boobs.”
CAMERON: “Okay.” I go to the costume closet and I whip out one of those capes we have!
NICK: So, you all have one full costume change and some accessories that you can use from a triumph a few episodes ago, so yeah, there is a very nice Imperial style cape with hood.
CAMERON: Nice.
NICK: What does it look like?
CAMERON: So it’s gotta be black… but it’s more ornate, because they’re normally just very boring, but it has really nice embroidery along the edges, like silver embroidery, or no, gold, it has to be gold. Gold is my color scheme. It has gold embroidery all along the edges of it.
NICK: Okay. Does it have an Imperial logo brooch that holds the front?
CAMERON: Nope.
NICK: It’s just a plain cape?
CAMERON: Mm-hmm.
NICK: Okay, with gold embroidery.
CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: Alright. You get one of those. It hides you. It’s a very big hood. Imagine the one that Padme wears when she’s trying to be sneaky, and you’re able to wrap up in it, and it sconces you quite well. It will be difficult to tell much about you, except that you’re wearing pretty nice combat armor.
CAMERON: As I’m walking out of our costume closet I start swooshing around all the corners with my cape feeling very self-important.
LAURA: Yes.
NICK: Great. Yes. You get +1 to self-importance.
CAMERON: Awesome!
NICK: Make sure you mark that down. That is an important stat.
CAMERON: A blue die on all self-importance checks.
NICK: Yes. Is anyone doing anything else to prepare, or are you all rolling out?
STEVEN: What do Ithorians wear?
NICK: Mostly like mechanic jumpsuits. Nothing too fancy. They have weird kind of hunched bodies that seem way too small because they’re mostly head, so they wear a lot of single colors with utility belts and things like that. I think they have two fingers and a thumb.
LAURA: I think so.
STEVEN: Yeah, that’s not nearly Ranbo enough for me. I’m gonna keep on my current outfit.
NICK: Okay. What are you wearing? I don’t remember.
CAMERON: Oh, you’ve got like a vest with no shirt underneath.
STEVEN: Yeah, it’s like a leather vest with no shirt.
NICK: Oh yeah. Now I remember. Great.
LAURA: Yeah, because you have padded armor…
STEVEN: Yes.
LAURA: Are you wearing that?
STEVEN: No.
LAURA: Okay.
CAMERON: Why not?
STEVEN: (laughs) Well, not on the ship. Sometimes, when we get off the ship, I have a nice padded vest.
NICK: You have some sort of weird ballistics property under-vest that you wear in dangerous situations.
STEVEN: Yeah.
LAURA: With a vest over it.
STEVEN: With an over-vest.
NICK: Of course. It’s the Osaronian style… to wear… Great.
STEVEN: I am the Osaronian style. I mean, yes, it’s the Osaronian style.
NICK: (laughs) I’m starting to think that Sabos is the only person who lives on that planet.
STEVEN: There’s a couple others. (laughs)
NICK: Alright. You head down the ramp. Do you come down in a specific order or in any way tactically?
LAURA: “Okie. Karma goes first. She is in charge. She is the human. She goes first. The rest of us, as dirty, dirty aliens go next, because you see the Imperials would never have non-humans in front. They do not like the non-humans. So, Sabos and I will go in the middle, and then Tink goes in the back because it is more likely he would be some sort of hired mercenary and therefore would be taking up the rear.”
CAMERON: “Do we want to take the Stone Breaker with us now?”
LAURA: “Yes.”
STEVEN: “I feel like you have ample place to hide it in your coat.”
CAMERON: How big is it? It was a crate?
NICK: It’s a crate.
STEVEN: Oh yeah.
NICK: We’re gonna have to flash back real quick to you all opening the quite large crate.
STEVEN: (rewinding noises)
NICK: The Stone Breaker appears to be made of some sort of stone.
SEVERAL: Whaaat?!
NICK: Yeah. It weighs about 20 pounds. It is about 18 inches long, and 8 inches wide, so it’s like an oversized iPad kind of situation. It’s made out of, kind of a granite, about 3 inches thick, and it looks like a solid piece of kind of a beige stone, but when you pull it out of the case it has a lot of cover and padding and stuff. If you touch it in different spots different parts seem to light up. The stone can turn semi-translucent and there’s some sort of screen interface, but it’s in a bunch of symbols you don’t really recognize.
LAURA: “Just put it back in the box. Sabos, you hold the box.”
NICK: The box is like really big. It’s like three feet wide.
LAURA: Would there be somewhere in the Afternoon Delight a smaller box that would fit it or even some sort of wrapping to cover it up?
STEVEN: I’ll put it in my padded vest.
LAURA & CAMERON: Uh, no…
LAURA: Yeah. Would there be any sort of like wrapping paper, or like brown paper, or a small box or bag?
NICK: Yeah, you can find something. It’s not gonna be super resilient, but you could put it in something. Sabos, if you’re the one carrying it, what are you gonna put it in?
STEVEN: I’m gonna put it in my padded vest.
NICK: So you’re gonna like zip your vest up and put it just between that and your skin?
STEVEN: Yes.
LAURA: Yeah, Xianna wasn’t looking so much for protective cover, just something to cover it so if we get caught on cameras you can’t see exactly what we have.
NICK: Does the padded vest have some sort of like kangaroo pouch in it that you can put stuff?
STEVEN: Just in between the vest and the skin, because the other vest is pretty tight.
CAMERON: It’s just holding it there.
NICK: Okay. Yeah. So you’re just gonna flex your abs 100% of the time and hold it in place?
STEVEN: Oh, I don’t have to flex to hold it.
NICK: Okay. (laughs)
LAURA: “Why can’t you just hold it like a normal person?”
STEVEN: “I don’t want it to be seen.”
LAURA: “But it does not matter. It almost looks better if you are holding something, because then it looks like you are some sort of errand boy.”
STEVEN: “Hmm…”
NICK: This conversation’s happening while Sabos has it like half jammed down his armor.
STEVEN: Yeah, no I start thinking about it.
LAURA: “Okie. This makes sense in my mind. You see, Karma is the human, she goes in front.”
STEVEN: “George Jetson.”
LAURA: “Then I go. They will probably just assume I am some sort of dancer, mistress-type person as a Twi’lek. Again, they are very xenophobic.”
STEVEN: “Yes.”
LAURA: “You, if you are holding something and you have the weird vest, they will assume you are some sort of hired messenger or errand boy who is just there to deliver packages or something. You are the hired help.”
STEVEN: “Ah, yes. There was once a nice tale on Shili about the four tailed—“
LAURA: “Okie, so never mind.”
CAMERON: “Oh god.”
STEVEN: “—Togruta that could weave their head tails into a basket with twine.”
CAMERON: (laughs)
LAURA: “And then Tink, being in the back and being quite large, will be the mercenary, the hired gun, that is how it is going to look. It is going to work. Trust me.”
STEVEN: “Fine.”
HUDSON: “I don’t look that scary, do I? Do I?”
LAURA: “Well, not to us because we know you, but to them you are a very, very large creature with a gigantic axe.”
HUDSON: “Oh, I should hold my axe?”
LAURA: “No no no, keep the axe on the back.”
CAMERON: “Just the fact that you have it.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
HUDSON: “Oh… Sure that’s scary enough? Okay.”
LAURA: “Yes. The giant is scary enough.”
HUDSON: “You got it.”
CAMERON: “We don’t wanna necessarily scare the Ithorians.”
STEVEN: “I’ll just carry the bag.”
CAMERON: “You’re mostly scaring in case of video cameras.”
HUDSON: “Got it.”
CAMERON: “And the assumptions that the Empire will make based on those.”
HUDSON: “I see.”
NICK: Okay, so, in that order. You got a bag.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: It’s just—There’s a baguette sticking out of it.
CAMERON: Messenger bag.
NICK: No, uh…
HUDSON: Messenger baguette?
STEVEN: A messenger baguette.
NICK: Okay. You have a messenger bag with the Stone Breaker in it. Like I said, it’s surprisingly heavy for its size, but it should be fine, shouldn’t get in the way. You head down the ramp, and there are two Ithorians standing off of the landing pad. They turn and regard you quietly for a minute, and one of them raises its hand and slowly waves, like if a sloth was saying hello.
LAURA: Xianna quickly waves back.
NICK: It like does a catching gesture, and like puts it in its pocket.
LAURA: Xianna winks at him.
NICK: You can’t really tell if it’s winking because it’s eyes are so far apart and you can only see one at a time. (laughter) It might be blinking. It’s hard to tell.
So, do you approach the Ithorians?
CAMERON: Yep.
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. As you get there the Ithorian says, “Welcome to Ithor.”
LAURA: Before Karma says anything, Xianna is going to run in front of her, put an ear to her face, and kind of pretend like she is getting something whispered to her, and then turn around like very non-authoritatively turn around and be like, “Oh, hello. I will be talking for, uh, him.”
NICK: “Yes. We saw you break the blockade. Nobody has come to the planet. Is that an Imperial?” It’s very hard to read their facial expressions because their faces are flat and their eyes are far apart, but it does seem to be scrutinizing the group very closely.
CAMERON: Karma nudges Xianna like through the cape, just sticks her arm out. Xianna leans back in. I whisper, “Tell them something,” and then just like wave back. (giggles) And now she has to say something.
LAURA: “Um, yes, yes, um, he is with the Galactic Empire. Um, we would like to see the Oracle.”
NICK: “Well, clearly if you are finally issuing demands, the Oracle would speak with you. This way, please.”
LAURA: “Thank you.”
NICK: The Ithorian turns around and moves actually pretty quickly down the road. You see that there’s a big old main thoroughfare, and a lot of different kinds of buildings and roads and neighborhoods. This is a full city floating about a mile above the jungle, and occasionally tropical birds and things will fly by, and they’re roosting places. The landing pad is towards the edge, and you can see some very colorful birds with what look like antennas sticking out of their heads, and by antennas I mean like mechanical antennas because that’s a thing in Star Wars. Birds with mechanical antennas, look it up.
LAURA: Yep.
NICK: They’re pecking at each other, and they dive straight down off the side toward the jungle. So, that’s going on. In the distance you see, it’s like one long, low building that seems to take up a pretty good amount of this main thoroughfare, so it’s half way through the city, and it doesn’t open up into a square, the road just leads straight into some sort of covered pavilion-type thing that looks like it’s maybe a quarter of a mile wide in any given direction. He starts leading you that way, and he gestures at you. His arm gestures are very slow and waving, but his legs are moving pretty quick, and he’s moving along at a good pace.
CAMERON: I look pretty badass walking in my cape.
LAURA: It swooshes a lot.
CAMERON: It’s very swooshy, and billowy.
NICK: We get a lot of camera shots from like real low of different parts of the city with the cape brushing past it. Do you get your boots to click authoritatively as you walk?
CAMERON: Oh yeah. They do that, yeah.
NICK: Oh, they do that anyway?
CAMERON: Well, except for when I’m trying to be sneaky.
NICK: … Okay.
CAMERON: I’m not trying to be sneaky right now, so I’m being loud.
NICK: Yeah. So, there’s the ‘I’m important’ boot click, and we get camera shots of the cape flying by, and we get camera shots of the crew of the Afternoon Delight all walking except then it’ll like zoom in on the cape and play like brass hits of (Dun-dun-DUH).
Yeah, so you make it through the city without any sort of issues, and the Ithorian says, “Continue this way to the Oracle’s receiving room.”
LAURA: “Okie.”
NICK: And he stops.
LAURA: “And, we keep going.”
NICK: Great. As you go inside, it’s basically the Oracle’s pavilion. There’s a lot of life inside here. It’s been a pretty normal city, but in here it’s kind of like an arboretum. It’s got a lot of different trees, and you can see stuff clustered by region, and there’s some small animals. You don’t really get any good looks at them, but you see some rodents and things darting in and out, and there’s more of those tropical birds swinging by, and they like to peck at each other and fly off and they’re chasing each other. As you continue through, there is a… it kind of looks like a tent if you wove a tent out of trees and then lined the inside with Japanese paper, like the Japanese paper walls. It’s an interlocked, upside down basket of that, and it’s open in the front. It looks like the doors have been pushed open, and you see an Ithorian sitting there in a simple woven tunic and some pants, and it’s got it’s legs crossed, and it appears to be meditating as you arrive. As you get there it opens its eyes and says, “Outsiders. How interesting. I am the Oracle. Who… are you?”
LAURA: “Oh, um, I think we are supposed to be delivering something, and… (hesitantly) the light will never go out in the universe.”
NICK: The Ithorian sits up real straight. “Interesting. Interesting indeed. I thought that the Empire had finally decided to tell us why it is killing the Mother Jungle, and instead… I find a friend, from Sentinel. Strange. What do you have for me? I’m going to continue to talk at weird intervals.”
(laughter)
LAURA: You can see Xianna like every time he pauses like, perks up a little bit and then stop, like oh, no, oh—okay. She points at Sabos and waves him over. “Um, we have this.”
STEVEN: I just present.
LAURA: “Well, take the bag off first!”
STEVEN: “Oh, oh, right.” I still lay it flat and just slide the bag off as I’m holding it.
NICK: The Oracle chuckles to himself and takes the pad, rock, Stone Breaker, and turns it over, and as it’s fingers touch at different points it starts to light up a little bit. The Oracle says, “Oh… The Sentinel has brought us a valuable… gift indeed. Thank you… for delivering it. I must ask… that you do not tell anyone… that we have it. It will be important… that we keep this….. a secret.”
(giggles)
LAURA: “Yes, yes, secrets.”
CAMERON: “Of course.”
LAURA: “Secrets are good. Yes. Obviously. Okie, I guess we will be going now. Uh… Have a good day?”
NICK: “If there’s anything… we can do for you… please… do not hesitate… to ask.”
LAURA: “Um. Completely unrelated.” I just point at him. “He wanted to go to a specific bar but he does not know where it is, but it was recommended to us. Do you happen to know where The Gooberfish is?”
NICK: “Ah… The Gooberfish… A wonderful establishment… It serves off-worlders, so I believe it is in financial difficulties as we are in a blockade.”
LAURA: “Mm, yes.”
NICK: “If you return… to whence you came… it will be on the right.” And, there’s a much longer awkward scene that we’ll fast forward through because we’re not the jerks that stop watching this movie. There’s some directions given out. It’s basically off the main road. It’s not too bad.
CAMERON: I had another question. “Is there a good place to get medical attention for my friend?” I gesture very billowingly with the cape, keeping my green covered, toward Sabos.
STEVEN: (through coughing) “Yeah, the walking, so…”
LAURA: “Oh yes. I forgot about that. You are so injured.”
(laughter)
NICK: With the amount of time you spent on the ship you have healed a little but you’re still in pretty bad shape. The Oracle says, “Oh… Conflict has found you like it… has found us. If you will wait… I will have someone… come to you.” The Oracle stands up very slowly and stretches, and the crazy thing about Ithorians is when it stretches his whole neck expands out like a bullfrog, really far, and you can see these black strips on either side that you can kind of see through his neck. There’s a creaking of muscles, and the arboretum area seems to fall quiet for a minute, and then he collapses back into his little body and big head and then walks off rather quickly, and you are left alone in the Oracle’s pavilion for a minute.
STEVEN: I’ll wait.
NICK: Was there anything you wanted to do while he was gone? You wanna just wait until he gets back?
LAURA: We just wait.
CAMERON: Yeah. I scratch my face.
NICK: Sounds good. The Oracle comes back with a smaller Ithorian. It’s really hard to tell if they’re male or female, but this one looks like it might be female, because it’s got like a pretty teal jumpsuit on, and it says, “Please, step this way,” and there’s a bush that the woody parts of the inside of the bush have been shaped kind of like a chair, and she has you sit down, and she starts to stitch at you. You guys feel a lot of parallels to Falx’s office, because as he’s getting stitched up and she is liberally applying bacta everywhere, so that feels like the aloe gel that you would get for a sunburn so it’s very cold but you start to feel better. So, as she’s working on that, and Sabos is responding to that…
STEVEN: “Ah, yes, that’s better.” (coughing) “I mean, little, ah, yes.”
NICK: The Oracle turns to Tink and Xianna and Karma and says, “This blockade… I hope that… Sentinel has sent you for a reason… as… it is killing us… quite quickly. We are being crushed, we are unable to trade, and as food… becomes more scarce, the herdship is becoming more deserted as people head to the planet… It is great to become one with Mother Jungle, but… we cannot have the entire population leave the herdship.”
LAURA: “Um, we were just told to bring you this box thing, tablet, stone, yes. I don’t really know what you expect us to do about a blockade.”
CAMERON: “We will have to leave the planet, though, so perhaps Sentinel has some plan involved in that.”
NICK: “Well, I trust… that it will work out. Sentinel has helped us in the past… I hope that your trip to The Gooberfish is worth the journey.” The Oracle sits back down, crosses his legs, and takes up a meditative pose again. Around this time the younger Ithorian finishes up with Sabos and puts your vest back in place, and says, “That should be enough to get you on your way” and like slaps you on the shoulder, which hurts pretty bad.
STEVEN: (coughs) “Ow… Ow ow ow…”
NICK: Yeah. As you’re saying ow, she reaches for you feeling bad, and then pulls back because she knows if she touches you again it’ll hurt again, and then holds her wrist and says, “Well, sorry,” and runs off. Where are you guys going now?
CAMERON: What’s his health situation now?
NICK: Yeah, you’re good. Between the healing on the ship and the medical attention you’re at full health.
STEVEN: Wow.
LAURA: We leave and walk towards The Gooberfish, to do whatever we’re gonna do.
CAMERON: Yep. Keep my cape on. Keep up appearances.
NICK: Right. Okay.
STEVEN: Oh, I make sure to grab the bag so it doesn’t look like I dropped something at the Oracle.
NICK: Oh, smart. Great. As you head through town, it’s basically you go down the main pathway and it’s one street over, you see The Gooberfish which is a low, plain building but it does have a sign out front of the depiction of what looks kind of like a giant angler fish with big teeth. You assume it’s giant because there’s a little, tiny picture of an Ithorian also on the sign that is less than the size of one of the teeth. You go into the bar. There is pretty much no one in there. There is an Ithorian behind the bar who does the slow sloth wave as you come in, and sitting off in the corner you see one other person in the shadows. As you walk in, that person makes notice of you all you think because it sits up a little straighter, but you can’t really make out a lot of details, but they’re not an Ithorian, you can tell that.
LAURA: I kind of lean back and whisper to the group. “I think that may be our contact considering they are the only person here, so I think that maybe was what he meant by (Cameron joins) we will know them when we see them, (Cameron stops) because he is the only thing to see. Yes.”
NICK: So, as you were whispering you see that the shadowed person has stood up and is slowly inching towards a side door and like very suspiciously trying to…
LAURA: So, Xianna tells everyone else like, “Okie, stay here,” and then walks over to them and tries to walk over as politely as possible with like visible hands of, ‘hey, it’s just a Twi’lek, you can see my hands, I don’t have any weapons,’ that you know of, but you know.
NICK: Yeah. So, as you get closer, the figure stops for a second and gives you very obviously skeezy elevator eyes…
CAMERON: Ew.
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: Everyone in the bar hears him say, “You know, uh, I kinda got a thing for tentacles,” and then—
CAMERON: Oh shit.
LAURA: “Do not say tentacles, they are leku. Tentacles is a little offensive. You can call—No, never mind. Never mind. Forget what I was going to say.”
(laughter)
STEVEN: I shake my head.
LAURA: “Anyways. Does the phrase ‘the light will never go out in the universe’ mean anything to you?”
NICK: “Uh, yeah, but I never expected to hear that from someone body guarding an Imperial. What the heck is going on?”
LAURA: (smiling) “Oh, do not worry about them, they are fine.”
NICK: “If-If you say so…”
LAURA: “That is just for appearances. Do not worry.”
NICK: “This is getting real weird.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: “I walk closer, but I keep my hood up until I can see who he is.”
NICK: Yeah. You see a Selonian, which is like a big otter-looking person, with kind of like a beer belly and some leather pants on.
LAURA: A dude Selonian?
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA & STEVEN: Ooh.
NICK: But he’s like kinda skeezy, he’s got some bald patches, and he’s wearing a leather jacket.
LAURA: Oh, that’s why they kicked him off.
STEVEN: Oh, I walk over because I notice that he is also a dude, and wearing a leather jacket.
NICK: (laughs) Yeah. Karma, you would recognize him as Felton Mox, the bounty that you took in during your first trip to Corellia in quite a long time, that you dropped off at Sentinel’s base on your way in. he looks to be in much better shape. He isn’t shot, so that’s good, but he doesn’t recognize that you are in the cloak.
CAMERON: Underneath my cloak I’m gonna take his heavy pistol and put it in my bag.
NICK: (laughs) Okay.
LAURA: “So, do you want to buy us drinks?”
NICK: “Uh…”
LAURA: And she winks a little bit, and she’s like, ‘ugh, this guy’s skeezy, but maybe we can get free stuff.’
NICK: “I, you know, normally being an informant people buy Me drinks, but yeah, I think I can make that happen,” and he walks past you. He gives the cloaked figure of Karma a wide birth because he still seems kind of nervous about an Imperial cloak, and he goes over to the bar and you hear him asking for beverages.
The Ithorian who is very incapable of speaking quietly says, “Beverages for your elicit meeting. Right away.” And he starts mixing drinks. Again, he moves very slowly getting situated, but once he plants his feet he starts putting stuff together pretty quickly.
LAURA: What are the driiinks?
NICK: The Ithorian is putting together kind of a mixed bag. You see several tall, thin glasses that have some sort of a bluish-greenish liquid in them, and then what looks like an Imperial ale which is like a straight beer, and—an Imperial stout.
LAURA: Imperial stout.
NICK & LAURA: Haaa.
NICK: And then there’s one copper mug that gets slapped down on the bar and has some sprig of some greenish, weird, curly plant sticking out of it, and the Ithorian says, “This should be… easy to decide… who enjoys the finer things in life.” Then he looks around, which takes up a lot of air space when something with heads this wide look around—
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: –and makes himself scarce back behind the bar.
CAMERON: So, as Xianna starts to walk towards the bar Karma grabs her and pulls her in closer to her hood. (whispering) “So, this guy was my mark for Sentinel, so I’ma gonna keep my hood up because I’m not sure how he’s gonna feel about me.”
LAURA: “Oh! Okie, because I was thinking maybe if we figured him trustworthy we would let him in on the secret, but… Okie, no, secret stays.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, we’ll see how he’s doing. Yeah.”
LAURA: “The secret stays. Okie.”
NICK: As that conversation wraps up real quick, Felton comes back and gestures towards a round table and the booth that he was sitting at and he drops the serving tray down. The drinks kind of clatter around. He says, “Three Ithorian Bellows, an Imperial Stout, and a Flame Out for the adventurous. Take your pick.”
STEVEN: “Would you consider colonizing another planet adventurous?” I just say to the group.
CAMERON: The hooded figure nods.
NICK: He kind of looks you up and down, grabs the copper mug and just slides it towards you. Then he looks at everyone else and says, “The Ithorian Bellows is a pretty mellow beverage. It’s good for having a long talk with people.” He sits down and he waits for you all to select your beverages.
LAURA: Xianna would take the Ithorian Bellows.
CAMERON: Same with Karma, because she realizes that one of them says Imperial on it, so she’s gonna grab the Bellows.
HUDSON: I grab one of the Ithorian Bellows.
NICK: Okay. Felton looks at you all very shiftily. It looks pretty comical on his little otter face. He grabs the Imperial Stout and goes, “You saw through my crafty rouse, I see. No one’s given themselves away yet,” and he takes a long pull on the drink.
STEVEN: I take a sip of mine and kind of look for what reaction he thinks I should have.
NICK: He’s got the bottle back and he appears to be chugging it, but you notice it’s not going down that fast, it’s mostly for show, but he opens one eye at you as you take a sip like eager to see what your response will be.
STEVEN: I respond in such a way that would warrant someone looking eagerly for a response.
NICK: What the fuck does that mean?
LAURA & CAMERON: What does that mean?!
(laughter)
LAURA: Also, do you remember what this drink tastes like?
STEVEN: Oh, I absolutely remember, yeah. No, yeah, so, you know, I’ve had a lot of these on Corellia back when I was ambassadorizing, and I’m quite fond of it, but everyone—or at least Felton—seems interested, so I react as if I don’t like it, set it down, and then pick it back up and drain it.
(laughter)
LAURA: That’s like a Constitution check!
NICK: As you cough and splutter, he sets the beer down and chuckles to himself. “Yeah, those are pretty hard to—Oh.” As you just knock the whole cup back. It tastes like pepper’s angry, drunk cousin tried to strangle your uvula on the way down is basically what a Flame Out tastes like. Yeah, the Flame Out’s a pretty rough drink, but you like them and you’re used to them. So, as you do that, “Wow, oh, okay.”
STEVEN: (chuckles)
NICK: So you’re in the horseshoe booth sitting and he has the one chair and he skootches it toward the door a little bit and looks a little anxious. “So, you knew the passphrase… You’re from Sentinel, huh?”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: The hood nods.
NICK: “He said, uh, if I gave you this information that he’d let me off scot-free, got me away from CorSec. If I hadn’t gotten shot it would’ve been a really good deal. I’m, uh, not 100% sure why I got shot. It seemed pretty unnecessary. The person who did—You know, bounty hunters, I’m just not a big fan of them.”
LAURA: “Yes. They are terrible. Just, all of them, every single one of them, just terrible.”
HUDSON: I cackle.
CAMERON: The hood nods.
STEVEN: “Yup.”
NICK: “So, Sentinel said that you would have most of the tools you need but I was to give you two more, and that is… I lost one of them, but I have the other one!” And he takes—
LAURA: “Wait, wait, what?!”
NICK: “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine!” He takes a plasteel box, it’s gray and looks kind of like a Chinese take-out container, it’s about a foot wide and a foot long, it’s like a square, and he sets it on the table and slides it to you very carefully and nervously. “Don’t, uh, open that until you’re in position, because it’s uh, not great, but…”
LAURA: “And, what was the thing that you lost?”
NICK: “Uhhh… I’m not sure. It was another box, um… but it’s gone now…”
LAURA: Xianna’s sitting there and is suddenly like, ‘Ohh, I had a box. Karma probably had a box.’ This is what Xianna’s thinking. So, Xianna’s gonna like drop it and just be like, ‘oh, never mind,’ because in her head she’s like ‘I had to go get a box, and if Karma took him in he probably had the box so she took it, so it’s okay, Sentinel has the box.’ That’s what’s going through her head. So, she’s like, “Oh, okie. It’s fine. Okie. I’m sure we will make do.”
NICK: “Yeah, so, totally didn’t lose it gambling. Uh…”
LAURA: He says that and Xianna’s like, ‘oh, wait… oh no.’
CAMERON: ‘My plan has a hole in it.
NICK: “Here’s the deal. This is a special kind of weapon and Sentinel wants you to break the blockade. This weapon is powerful enough to take down a Super Star Destroyer if you can get onboard. That’s all I know. My job was to get the weapon to whoever told me the light of the universe would never go out.”
LAURA: “Okie. Thank you.”
CAMERON: How are we seated in this booth?
LAURA: I imagine that Xianna took lead and got in next to him, and then…
CAMERON: I probably have an edge spot, because scooting in my cape wouldn’t have been the best.
LAURA: I imagine it would be, like from one end of the horseshoe to the other, it would have been like Karma, a wide space, Felton, then Xianna, then Sabos, and then Tink, guessing that Tink would have a harder time fitting in, and he probably doesn’t slide well just being all fuzzy. Probably a lot of friction.
HUDSON: I don’t. I just cause static on myself.
NICK: I can imagine if you sit on your hair and try to scoot you’re just pulling all your hair. That couldn’t be fun.
SEVERAL: Yeah.
NICK: Booths were not designed for Gigorans.
CAMERON: So, I’m just gonna go into my hood. I’m wearing gloves now so my green doesn’t show if I put my hand up. I’m gonna whisper into my com links so they can hear me, because none of them are close enough to pull over to me. (whispers) “Ask who he lost it in gambling to, because we may need to track them down.”
LAURA: “So, um, who were you playing in the gambling game?”
NICK: “Well, you know, it’s a little embarrassing. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done. She’s a pretty heavy hitter in this sector, but uh… Yeah, I may have lost your other tool that you need to, uh, the Queen. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She’s a gangster from Corellia. I mean, she’s not that big a deal.”
STEVEN: “Ah yes, the Queen.”
NICK: “Oh, you’re familiar?”
LAURA: “Um, I guess so, yes. It appears.”
STEVEN: “I used to play the cards as well.” (grinning)
NICK: “You know Kettle, the Queen of Corellia?”
STEVEN: “I know Kettle.”
NICK: “Well, more power to you, man. You can try and go get it back, but I didn’t have any deal with having to do with her.”
STEVEN: “Oh, I didn’t say nothing about trying to get it back from Kettle.”
LAURA: (nervously) “Okie. We take the box now. Thank you, so much, heh, thank you.”
NICK: “Great.” Can I get Perception checks from you all?
LAURA: Can do.
NICK: This will be an average Perception check.
HUDSON: One success.
CAMERON: Karma got two successes and an advantage.
LAURA: Three successes.
STEVEN: I got one success.
NICK: You all see that he’s pretty anxious to leave, and he also looks like he feels a little guilty about it, but he’s scared and trying to get around. It’s pretty easy for you all to interpret that he had further instructions he was supposed to do to help you all out and is just trying to get out of there with the bare minimum.
LAURA: When he does that Xianna’s gonna reach into her pocket, get her blaster, and like push it towards him through her coat so that he can like feel the blaster. “Um, you seem very quick to leave. Do you maybe have something to tell us?”
CAMERON: Karma stands up menacingly at the end of the booth and just lets her cape fall.
HUDSON: I start mean-mugging.
STEVEN: I say, “Hey buddy, you got anything else for us? It’d be a shame if Kettle had to hear about this.”
NICK: “Um… Wow. This—I thought we were having a friendly drink here.”
LAURA: “Well, we were, and then you decided to get all shifty.”
NICK: “Uh, I’m a Selonian. We do shifty. That’s like our thing.” … That’s not their thing.
STEVEN: I chuckle, because that’s… (laughs)
CAMERON: Because you don’t know species.
STEVEN: Right, because I’m a Togrutan. (laughs)
LAURA: “No, no, I dated a Selonian once. They were not very shifty.”
NICK: “Uh, well, okay. Part of my contract was that I’m supposed to help guide you until you leave the planet again, but you’re all very capable. You have an Imperial. You don’t need me. You should really just let me go. I’ve got things to do.”
HUDSON: “Everyone could use a helping hand.”
CAMERON: The hood tilts.
LAURA: “Guide in what way?”
NICK: “Uh, just help you find anything you need for your assault, uh, maybe inform him once the mission’s complete. I’m supposed to be like an observer type thing, but he’s got eyes everywhere. You should really just let me go. There’s really no reason for me to…”
CAMERON: The hood shakes it’s head.
LAURA: “Where do you live?”
NICK: “On Corellia…”
LAURA: “Where are you staying currently?”
NICK: (hesitantly) “Uh, why do you wanna know?”
LAURA: “In case we do need your help later on.”
NICK: So, he perks up a little bit at that, because it sounds like you’re going to let him out of your immediate eyesight, and he goes, “Oh, I’m right above The Gooberfish. You could find me if you needed me, but you won’t. You’re all very capable.”
CAMERON: I look over at Tink, and I’m like—
HUDSON: “You’re gonna help us out.” I hold my vibro-axe higher.
(laughter)
NICK: Can you roll me a Coercion, please?
HUDSON: Great. I can do that.
NICK: It’s gonna be easy, and you have two blue dice because everyone is backing you up.
CAMERON: Oh wow, your Willpower is one?
HUDSON: Wow. Two advantages.
NICK: Is there something that you would like to spend your advantages on specifically?
HUDSON: Look more intimidating.
NICK: That’s not how that works.
LAURA: Yeah, because this roll was to look intimidating.
HUDSON: Oh, sorry. This was Coercion.
NICK: You don’t intimidate him, but you can get something else tangential out of it, if you want.
HUDSON: Oh. The bartender brings me another drink to calm me down.
NICK: Nice. Okay. The bartender runs up with two. “You seem to be a big fellow.”
HUDSON: “I am.”
NICK: “Here’s another one, on the house… and another one… that you will pay for.” He sets them down. They’re Ithorian Bellows.
LAURA: Xianna is seeing Tink, and I imagine it’s something where like Tink tries to narrow his eyes but instead they look even more cute and round, so Xianna’s like, “Okie. So I know he is very cute and fluffy, but he is very large, and he has a gigantic axe as you can see.” She like head tilts at Sabos. “That one, I do not know what that one does. Apparently he knows Kettle. I don’t know. That seems to be important.”
STEVEN: This one’s crazy,” I say.
LAURA: “And, um, also…” She points over at Karma. “The Galactic Empire, so you know, maybe, also I have a gun… Maybe you should help us.”
NICK: “Ah. I thought you were just happy to see me. Heh, heh…”
LAURA: “No…”
STEVEN: I check my head tails really quickly.
LAURA: Xianna’s just kind of shaking her head. “No, you see, I would have to say that to you because I being a woman do not do the thing you are implying. You as a male can, so you see it has to be me to you.”
NICK: “Yeah I can. Wait—“
LAURA: “No. No.”
NICK: “Oh, yeah. Oh boy.” And Felton Mox looks right into the camera and says, “Well, Felton Mox, it looks like we’re in a whole bunch of trouble.” (groans and laughter) And that’s gonna be the end of the episode!
(all make dramatic noises and Star Wars tunes)
## Outro
CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.
Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.
Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.
Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.
Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.
Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.
Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.
Additional music by James Gunter.
Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.
The crew of the Afternoon Delight have eaten many cups of instant noodles. They’re tasty, perfect for spending days in hyperspace, and you can have original or spicy. They first appear in Episode 14 when Xianna makes a few cups for everyone.
While the following “recipe” isn’t as shelf stable as cup noodles and it isn’t quite as instant, but they’re much better tasting and still pretty fast.
“Recipe” is in quotations because what follows is less of a specific recipe and more of a set of guidelines. There’s a lot of ways to customize your specific noodles.
These noodle cups can easily be stored in the fridge for a few days and handle being at room temperature for a few hours, which make them great for office lunches. You can even make them with all dry ingredients for shelf stable cups that should last at least a few weeks.
You’ll want a 16-ounce container that is heat-proof since you will be adding boiling water. Large mason jars or wide-mouth preserving jars work great.
Let’s start at the bottom with the soup base. You can use bouillon paste, a bouillon powder, or even powdered soup mix. If you want to use bouillon cubes you’ll want to smash them up a bit before adding. They dissolve better that way. You’ll want to use 1-2 servings of whatever soup base you use, depending on how strong you like your soup.
We’re using Better Than Bouillon paste in their Vegetable flavor and adding 3 teaspoons, about 1.5 servings worth.
Then you’ll want a “flavor boost”. Something to give your cup a little extra flavor and depth. This could be soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste. Anything that will add something a little extra to the soup. You can even combine them. How much you add will depend on which you choose and personal taste. If you’re going completely shelf stable then omit the “flavor boost” and just add a bit more powered base.
Next, the vegetables. There’s a lot of options for this step. Kimchi is a great choice, carrots and peas are common in many noodle cups along with
dried shiitakes, freeze-dried vegetables are great, fresh or frozen edamame works, basically anything you can think of. You do want whatever you add to require minimal cooking, since they will only get a short soak in hot water. So raw onions may be a bad idea.
Now we’re at the strangest option: beef jerky. Since we want these sit in a fridge for a few days, at a desk for a few hours, or even on the shelf for a few weeks, raw meat is a bad idea. It also probably won’t be cooked by just a few minutes in hot water. But if you’re looking to add something meaty to your cups jerky is the way to go. It lasts for a long time, and when it reconstitutes in the water it softens up and gains a pleasantly chewy texture. You can even play around with what flavor you use. We used a “Hot & Spicy” jerky.
And now, we have come to the noodles. You can use precooked wheat noodles, such as udon, Lo Mein, or even spaghetti noodles. You can also use “fast-cooking” dried noodles, which are basically the noodles that come in ramen packages and commercial noodles cups without all the extras. Rice noodles are also a great option since most only take a few minutes to cook. There’s rice vermicelli, flat “pad thai” noodles, pho style noodles, and many more. The vermicelli styles can be rolled or folded into little nests that can fit into the jars. Long, straight noodles may have to be cut in half to fit into the container.
Finally we have green onions or chives. These add a little fresh pop that ties everything together. You can use fresh or the freeze-dried kind that you can often find in the produce section.
Then, whenever you want your noodles, simple add boiling water, close the lid, and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Then, give it a good stir and you’re all set!
Almost Instant Noodles
Per Container:
1-2 servings base (bouillon paste, bouillon powder, powder soup mix)
2-4 teaspoons flavor boost (soy sauce, chili paste, miso, fish sauce, curry paste)
Vegetables (kimchi, dried mushrooms, freeze-dried vegetables, diced, julienned, or small fresh vegetables)
Beef jerky, optional, torn into bite sized pieces
Noodles:
3-4 ounces precooked wheat pasta
2-3 ounces “fast-cooking” dried wheat noodles
1-3 ounces dried rice noodles
Sliced green onion or chives
In the bottom of a 16-ounce heat-proof container add 2 servings of the base, the flavor boost, vegetables, and jerky, if using. Place noodles on top and then the green onions or chives.
When ready to eat, fill the container almost to the top with boiling water. Loosely set lid on top and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Stir to combine.
Word document download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook
PDF download: Episode 8 Let’s Check Spacebook
Read in browser:
Tabletop Squadron Transcript, Season 1 Episode 8:
Let’s Check Spacebook
Transcript by Tyler (Twitter: @Tyler_MoonSage)
Note – Laura’s character Xianna’fan speaks in an accent. Most of her soft I’s sound like “ee,” and most of her TH’s sound like Z’s. Example: “this and that” = “zees and zat”
## Intro
NICK: Hi everyone, and welcome to Tabletop Squadron, a Star Wars: Edge of the Empire actual play podcast. I’m Nick, your game master. Every other Thursday, our story follows a thief, a bounty hunter, a fringer, and a slicer as they explore the galaxy, helping a mysterious benefactor and each other.
I want to thank everyone who sent in one of our questionnaires about the show. Thank you for taking the time. We’re taking your feedback seriously to make the show better. Remember everyone, if we get to 20 iTunes reviews we’ll be releasing a flashback starring Karma and her twin boys. It was a blast to record and we wanna share it, to tell your friends to review the show.
Thanks for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy.
##
NICK: Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 8 of Tabletop Squadron. We’re really getting into the swing of things now. Let’s go ahead and go around the table. Everybody say who you are, who you’re playing, and if you spent any experience what you spent that experience on… starting with Hudson.
HUDSON: Hi internet. I’m Hudson, and I’m playing Tink the Gigoran. I moved up two ranks in Astrogation and one rank in Coordination. I also got the Natural Programmer talent off the slicer tree that lets me reroll any one Computer or Astrogation check once per session.
NICK: Yay. For anyone wondering why he did that, he’s been hoarding experience for like three sessions.
HUDSON: In secret. It was the best kept secret.
NICK: Next we’ll go to… Cameron.
CAMERON: Hi. I’m Cameron, and I’m playing Karma Nailo the Nautolan bounty hunter. I spent some experience going up to rank two in Perception, and I also bought Toughened on my Skiptracer tree to add two to my wound threshold.
NICK: Yeah, after getting shot a bunch.
CAMERON: Apparently it’s important, yeah.
NICK: Yeah, makes sense. Next up we have… Laura.
LAURA: Hello. I’m Laura. I play Xianna who is a Twi’lek smuggler, and I believe I bought a rank in Underworld. I forgot to mark it down, but I’m like 80% sure that’s what I bought with my points.
NICK: Alright. Book keeping, the best part of RPGs. And, last up is… Steven.
STEVEN: Hi, listeners of the network formally known as Arpanet. I’m Steven. I’m playing Sabos. What’s that face?
(laughter)
NICK: I don’t get that reference at all?
STEVEN: One person might.
LAURA: Because Hudson said welcome to the internet.
NICK & HUDSON: Oh.
LAURA: It used to be the Arpanet.
NICK: Oh man.
STEVEN: I used some of my experience to purchase the Master Starhopper trait on my fringer talent tree which allows me to once per round suffer two strain to decrease the difficulty of the Astrogation check by one to a minimum of one black die.
NICK: Oh, neat.
CAMERON: Useful.
NICK: Oh gosh, you can set it to zero.
STEVEN: Yup.
HUDSON: The real question is who’s better at Astrogation. Me?
STEVEN: Probably you. I have two. I can upgrade sometime.
CAMERON: You’re smarter though, Tink.
HUDSON: I’m smarter, though.
NICK: So y’all would just be the Astrogation Bros. it’ll be fine.
CAMERON: #AstrogationBros.
NICK: #AstrogationBros…
HUDSON: We’ll know our three fans by someone actually tagging that on Twitter.
NICK: Yeah. Hi Ted, our one international fan that we talked to last time. #AstrogationBros.
So, before we get into the show, let’s go ahead and make our Destiny Rolls, please.
LAURA: One light side.
HUDSON: One dark side.
CAMERON: One light side.
STEVEN: One light side.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yay!
CAMERON: So three light side, one dark side.
NICK: Great. Last time, you went to a secret asteroid base in the middle of nowhere, you found Quiggle the Quarren and made an exchange for Falx. He gave you a briefcase to give to them, and it didn’t go great. You ended up killing pretty much everyone except for Tiny, your small gun-toting friend. You were also contacted by Sentinel and told kind of what you’re supposed to do next, that you’re supposed to go to Ithor, and that you’re supposed to get down to the planet, and that there’s a very strong blockade with a super star destroyer involved. You’re gonna have to figure out how to get around that, and then you promptly ignored him to go on an adventure to an asteroid belt. I’m sure that won’t come up. That’s great. Am I forgetting anything?
STEVEN: I’m super dead.
CAMERON: (laughs) Yeah.
NICK: Oh yeah, and Sabos got shot a whole bunch, and is very dead. I believe you’re at what, negative seven? So, yeah, we’re gonna have to deal with that. And the last thing that happened was Tiny surrendered and said he was gonna be the captain of Quiggle’s Crew from now on, and that’s where we ended. Picking up right there.
You are in a wide, open space in the middle of a hollowed out asteroid and there is the corpse of Quiggle and his large Gamorrean who is also dead. Tiny has been wounded quite severely. There is an oil drum fire with some fold-up camp chairs around it, and your ship is probably about a hundred yards behind you, and their ship is somewhere off in the dark. You haven’t actually seen it yet. Ready, set, go.
LAURA: I wanna go check the bodies. For fun items.
NICK: I will need a Skullduggery check to pat them down.
LAURA: Can do!
NICK: It’s going to be a hard difficulty, because these are smugglers.
LAURA: That is one triumph with its success, and an advantage.
NICK: Pretty good. I can tell you that Quiggle has a pretty nice light blaster. It’s nothing particularly fancy, it just looks like it’s got pretty plating all over it. It has a water theme. There’s lots of bubbles up the sides.
LAURA: Ooh.
NICK: Yeah. The Gamorrean has a vibro-axe, it’s a standard vibro-axe. With the triumph, tell me two things that you really want them to have.
LAURA: Stim packs and impact.
NICK: Yep, sounds about good.
LAURA: All the packs.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: Yeah, so this makes sense. The Gamorrean has a set of six stim packs in a pouch on his belt. It’s one of those unrolly artist kits, so you undo the cloth tie, it falls open, and there’s just a line of syringes.
LAURA: Fancy~
NICK: Quiggle has a little snuff box. It’s a really pretty chrome plated one, and it has a little electronic reader on it, but it looks like when he fell it opened. In the snuff box there’s four doses of impact in little individual vials, and you also see that it’s got a little thumbprint reader on the snuff box, and from the inside, with your triumph, you see that you can reprogram it to open only for you.
LAURA: Oh yes.
NICK: It would make it so that if someone say found your stash, they wouldn’t be able to tell what your stash was or get into it right away. So, you have a little thumbprint reader snuff box that can hold four doses of impact in it. Actually, it can hold eight doses of impact. It looks like Quiggle’s been partying lately.
LAURA: Okay good, because I already had some.
NICK: Yeah, so it can hold a decent amount. That’s what you find on the bodies. What else does anybody want to do?
CAMERON: Karma’s going to drop down next to Tiny and start applying pressure to one of his wounds.
NICK: He is bleeding. It doesn’t look like he’s gushing blood. He’ll probably be okay, but he appreciates the medical assistance. Would you like to make me a Medicine check?
CAMERON: Sure!
NICK: It is average, because he is not unconscious.
CAMERON: Okay, that’s three successes!
NICK: Three successes! So he gets three wounds back. That actually—You’re able to stop all the bleeding, get him patched up, he is by no means in fighting shape but he is not going to go septic or anything.
CAMERON: Yay.
NICK: Good work. Why would Karma know how to do like field medicine? Tell me about a time that happened.
CAMERON: So, when she’s most often used it is when she’s going after a mark and there’s another bounty hunter going after the same mark. With Felton Mox in the first episode where he got shot by the other bounty hunter, it’s either that situation or the other bounty hunter is like I don’t care, I’d rather get them both dead than have her take him in alive, so the mark will get damaged. It’s keeping the mark alive until we get to the drop point.
NICK: Right. So, very business-like, not really paying attention to people’s comfort so much.
CAMERON: Yep. But then also, she was paired up with her sons. She’s probably being nicer to Tiny then she would be to just a random person she was bringing in, because he’s tugging heartstrings by just being young.
NICK: Right. When you were going on missions with your sons was one of them more of a medical specialist?
CAMERON: Yes.
NICK: Since clearly you weren’t super trained in it.
CAMERON: Yes. My son Jet is much smarter than me.
NICK: Oh, okay, so he was the medic guy. Okay, cool. Tiny gets patched up. “Well, th-thanks. I’m gonna leave, because honestly it’s a little bit more jarring than I expected to see you patting through the pockets of my dead friends.” He’s just kinda staring at Xianna.
LAURA: “Um, sorry, but you know… They did shoot at us, and they are dead…”
NICK: “Yeah, it’s the space pirate code, I understand. It’s just having a little bit more of an emotional impact than I expected. I’m gonna go back to the Quarren Quagmire and take off. I’ll have to meet up with the rest of the crew, and… I guess figure out what we’re doing. But I’m the captain now, right?” He gives a weak smile.
CAMERON: “Since you’re the captain now, do you want his tri-cornered hat?”
NICK: “Oh, yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” He goes and picks it up and it’s dripping with blood a little bit, so he has to wring it out and it’s kind of misshapen. He kinda pats it back into shape and puts it onto his head. “Well, I think it’s sort of a work in process,” and he wipes some charred ash off of it, “but it is important, so thanks for the advice there.” A little rivulet of blood runs down his temple dripping out of the hat. He wipes it off and it leaves a smear on his face. “So, yeah, it’s pretty good, I guess. Yeah, this is, this is…” He looks at Quiggle and gulps. “Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks for, whatever, not killing me. That’s important. I’m gonna go now. Byeee.”
HUDSON: “You’re welcome.”
NICK: He does finger guns at Tink and backs cautiously into the shadows.
CAMERON: Oh, karma walks after him, and starts sharing life advice, and shares contact information.
NICK: You’re gonna have to give me some actual life advice. You don’t get to just make a \broad statement\ like that.
CAMERON: Oh damn! Uh, let’s see. Not getting shot is a good one. Getting cover, I noticed he didn’t get that.
NICK: “Okay so, take cover… Well, so, I figured like the auto-turret was gonna be a lot more helpful, but…”
CAMERON: “Maybe next time though if you set up the auto-turret so it’s in front of one of the barrels, and you can be behind the barrel, just to kind of block you, because if you have the situation again where you throw the target and it doesn’t hit then it kind of leaves you open as you’re then the one with the big gun.”
NICK: “Yeah, that makes sense.” You guys are walking through the shadows, and probably 50 yards away around a small corner, in like an actual parking spot instead of the middle of the thing, you see an angular freighter. It looks like some form of YT but like a weird off-brand one. It’s kind of shaped like a croissant. So, he’s walking towards that. “Well, yeah I guess cover would be a good idea. Duly noted. Thank you for that.”
CAMERON: “Yep. I really hope you achieve your hopes and dreams.”
NICK: “Thanks That’s… This got a little weird. Uh, thanks for not shooting me. You almost did. I could see you thinking about it, so… I guess we’re friends now. Cool. I… If you ever need anything, call on Quiggle’s Crew—or I guess it’s Tiny’s Crew now.”
CAMERON: “Yeah, are you gonna rename that?”
NICK: “Yeah, Tiny’s… Tiny’s Terrible… Tallahassee… that’s not a thing.”
CAMERON: “Tango!”
NICK: “Tango?”
CAMERON: “Tiny’s Terrible Tallahassee Tango!”
NICK: “Oh gosh. What’s a Tallahassee?”
CAMERON: (laughs) “I don’t know. You said it.”
NICK: “Mmm…”
CAMERON: “I thought it had some sort of significance for you for you to have said it.”
NICK: “Yeah, it’s my mom’s name. I forgot.”
CAMERON: “Oh, okay. So that makes sense.”
NICK: “I think I’ve lost more blood than I thought I did.”
CAMERON: “Okay, so you can call your ship the Tallahassee after your mom, I guess.”
NICK: “…Yeah.”
CAMERON: “That seems really sweet.”
NICK: “Yeah… I think it might be the Tallahassee Quagmire. We gotta remember our roots.”
CAMERON: “True, true.”
NICK: At this point he’s hitting a panel on the croissant-shaped ship and the ramp is dropping down. He starts to limp up. From the inside you can see a very large Wookie kind of leaning down on the ramp and it makes a Wookie noise. (low groan)
CAMERON: Hahaha!
NICK: (smiling) I can’t do that. You can see Tiny turn around and say, “It’s a really long story. I’ll explain on the way out of here.” And there’s more Wookie noises. (low groan)
CAMERON: (Chewbacca sounds)
NICK: Oh, that’s way better. Do it again.
CAMERON: (Chewbacca noises)
NICK: Yeah, that’s good. “No, it’s fine. I… Look. He fell behind. You know the pirate’s code.” The ship stars to go (rushing and clicking noises), and you hear the engine start to cycle up. Great.
CAMERON: I walk back.
NICK: Cool. Sabos is bleeding out on the ground.
CAMERON: Sabos is still laying there! (laughs)
HUDSON: “Should we do something about him?”
CAMERON: “Yeah. Hey Tink, come here.”
HUDSON: I come over.
NICK: Okay. Are you gonna take him back to the ship, or just work on him out in the open?
CAMERON: Let’s go back to the ship.
HUDSON: I pick him up.
LAURA: “I think we need to make up some lost time.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. We can fix him on our way to Ithor.”
HUDSON: “You got it.” I carry him to the ship, and then get in the cockpit.
STEVEN: (distant coughing noises)
CAMERON: Yup. (laughs)
NICK: Okay. We get a side wipe, and we get like two side by side screens. We get one of somebody piloting, which I guess would be Karma probably.
CAMERON: So, Karma would probably have Tink help with the Astrogation check and then would take over piloting.
NICK: Right. We’ll skip the Astrogation part, because it’ll make the story better. So, it’s you flipping switches and starting to take off, and then it’s still a bedroom, like a weird 70s sheik hotel room, but the bed is not a water bed and has just plain white sheets on it, and it has like a linoleum floor, so you guys have used this as your kind of medical suite. We see Sabos laid out on the bed. You got a big slash across your chest from where you got hit, and some blaster bolt wounds, and you’re shirtless. Is Sabos in good shape?
STEVEN: Yeah.
NICK: Yeah? So you got that Hollywood shot of the injured, but still very attractive, torso. Just the torso, your head’s cut off of it. (laughter) Oh, and then you hear Tink rummaging around, and a single head tail falls into the frame off the side of the bed, and jiggles a little bit, because it has to be gross because it’s Sabos. So, the camera pans out and we see Sabos on the bed. Is Xianna helping with the medicine stuff, or did she just leave Tink to it?
LAURA: Xianna like has a drink and is sitting on a night table next to the bed, and is watching, and is just… She’s not really helping. She doesn’t really know too many medical things, which is why she tends to carry stim packs, and she’s just hoping she doesn’t have to use one on Sabos.
NICK: Okay. We’re gonna cut real quick to a weird, hazy dream sequence. Sabos is having a flashback while he is unconscious.
LAURA: Ooh, ooh! Xianna wants to be the scarecrow. (laughter) And Tink can be the cowardly lion, and then I guess…
CAMERON: I’d be the tin man.
NICK: I feel like Karma’s probably Dorothy.
(laughter)
CAMERON: Sabos is the scarecrow!
LAURA: Sabos is the scarecrow in his own dream sequence!
STEVEN: This is my story.
CAMERON: Yeah, exactly. If you wanna be the scarecrow, you can be the scarecrow.
NICK: So, it actually is probably more like plot and character relevant than this bit that we’re doing right now, but—
LAURA: Oh, so he’s the dog. He’s Toto.
NICK: Sabos, what is going on in this flashback of yours? What does your ‘I’m injured and dying’ dream sequence look like?
STEVEN: So, I wake up in a hut on Shili, and well, you know there’s the rest of the schoolkids, the nice Shilian schoolkids, and then the concerned parents—not my parents, just the concerned Shilian schoolkid parents—looking over me saying, “You better wake up. You’ll be alright. We need you to wake up.” As it turns out, I mean, there’s another schoolkid next to me. Just don’t know what happened, right.
(distant giggling)
So, yeah, you know, pack instincts are very important in Togruta culture, so we were practicing our packing, which would be fighting other Togrutas because yeah Shili, and you know it got a little bit too real and I got pretty beat up. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with the pack instinct culture on Shili.
NICK: Cool. So, we see you as I guess a small seven year old Sabos. You always kind of punched people?
STEVEN: Yeah, yeah.
NICK: Never really got along. That was the beginning of you deciding that maybe this pack instinct wasn’t the way to go, when you were practicing fighting and got knocked out, and also knocked out the other kid.
STEVEN: Yes. I got knocked out harder.
CAMERON: That fourth head tail just flew and just smacked him on his way down.
STEVEN: To be clear, he was okay.
NICK: Well, that’s what happened. He got a head injury and it caused the fourth head tail to grow.
STEVEN: Ohhh.
LAURA: Whoaaa.
STEVEN: The other kid was okay. He was just a little bit dazed and confused, but I got my ass kicked pretty darn hard, and wasn’t cool with it.
NICK: And then, because this is like a post-traumatic flashback, the camera pans out and there’s just like a Quentin Tarantino amount of blood everywhere.
STEVEN: Just like a kid on top of me beating the living crap out of my fourth head tail specifically. (laughter) They didn’t like me—They picked on me in all the reindeer games. Okay?
LAURA: Sabos used to have five head tails…
(laughter)
NICK: Oh, please no… Yeah, so the camera pans out. There’s a ton of blood. The older adult Togrutans grow long fangs and smoke starts to go everywhere, and the camera jump cuts back out to Tink standing over this compatriot of yours who is not bleeding so much anymore, but you’re pretty sure it’s because they’re running out of blood to fall out.
HUDSON: “You got blood all over the nice sheets.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “He cannot hear you.”
HUDSON: “Oh, no. I’m just saying this to him anyway.”
LAURA: “Okie. Are you going to, you know, heal him?”
HUDSON: I think on my medical experience… Non-existent. “Sure. I’ll heal him.”
(laughter)
LAURA: Yeah, but you’re smart. You can figure it out.
HUDSON: Yeah, I’m smart. I can figure it out. “It’s basically mechanics, right?”
LAURA: “Sure.”
CAMERON: You hear over the com, “Just picture the body as a machine.”
HUDSON: “Great. Alright, get my toolbox.”
NICK: So, a Medical check for someone who is unconscious is going to be hard difficulty.
STEVEN: Like the fourth head tail.
LAURA: You don’t have Medicine, so it’s just gonna be your Intelligence.
NICK: It’s an Intelligence check. You can flip light side points to make yourself better at this. You can explain why you deserve blue dice.
HUDSON: “I deserve blue dice because I’m Being Brave.” (laughter)
LAURA: Xianna’s like flipping through data pads. “Ooh, that muscle connects to this one,” and like holding up the data pad a little bit. “Okie, so this is how you do it, I think.”
CAMERON: We’re using Technology to assist.
NICK: Okay. The camera’s definitely gonna go over Xianna’s shoulder and this “medical text” that she’s looking at looks a lot like Ikea assembly instructions. It’s just like very cartoony pictures, and in a box on the side there’s a scalpel, and then like an arrow going to the wound with like an X over it.
LAURA: They don’t have scalpels in Star Wars!
NICK: It’s like a space scalpel.
LAURA: It’s those little sticks that just shoot lasers.
NICK: … Oh yeah.
CAMERON: It’s a little baby laser stick.
NICK: It’s like a light saber scalpel.
LAURA & CAMERON: Yeah.
NICK: It seals as it cuts, because that’s what you want a scalpel to do.
LAURA: I mean, maybe.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: So, you can get a blue die from Xianna sort of helping.
HUDSON: Yay.
NICK: Yeah, go for it.
HUDSON: Alright.
NICK: Wow, that’s pretty good.
HUDSON: Is it just one success?
CAMERON: Yes…
NICK: Oh, then it’s not very good.
LAURA & CAMERON: One success.
NICK: Okay. You manage to stabilize him. You start using medical supplies, and then half way through you pull out a wrench because you’re more comfortable with it and just start using that to like apply pressure to things, and for some reason it kind of works. So, you’re at negative six now.
STEVEN: Yes.
CAMERON: (laughing nervously) You’re getting there.
LAURA: Xianna just like sees him pulling out the wrench, sighs, walks over and like digs through her pockets, and just shoots him up with two stim packs.
NICK: Okay. So that gets you up to…
LAURA: The first one would be five, the second one would then be four.
NICK: So you’re at three. You’re positive. You wake up.
STEVEN: (gasps and coughs) “Shili…”
LAURA: “You owe me two stim packs!”
STEVEN: “Only two?”
NICK: Three now, right?
LAURA: “No, three! I forgot about the first one.”
STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”
HUDSON: “You owe me your life.”
LAURA: “Three stim packs.”
STEVEN: “Two stim packs.”
LAURA: “Mm… Close enough.”
NICK: So, Sabos is still in pretty bad shape.
STEVEN: “Where are we?”
NICK: I’ll say because it was a hard difficulty your critical wound was also fixed. That’s mostly what Tink was doing. You had a pretty nasty head wound, and maybe a piece of bone kind of out of place in your skull, like a skull fracture, and that’s what he used the wrench to kind of tap back into place. So, you’re in a lot of pain still, but you feel mobile, able to do something gat least.
STEVEN: “More importantly, who’s flying this ship?”
HUDSON: “I’m flying it, but first Sabos-“
LAURA: “N-No… Karma. Karma.”
CAMERON: “That would be me. I’m flying the ship.”
HUDSON: “Oh, currently.”
STEVEN: “Do I just hear that over the com?”
CAMERON: “You just hear it over the coms. Yeah.”
STEVEN: I say loudly, as loud as I can, (through coughs) “I’m the captain now.”
CAMERON: “If that makes you feel better, sweetie. Sure.”
STEVEN: “…Okay.” I pretend to fly, just laying on the table.
NICK: (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, she is the co-pilot, and we are, you know, in hyperspace. There is not much to do.”
STEVEN: I still have my hands out, like upward on the table, as if I’m grabbing the yolk to fly.
LAURA: “Okie, sure.”
NICK: Around this point, yeah. As you say we’re in hyperspace, Karma, you get the ship out of the little asteroid belt aimed in the right direction and hit the lever, and go flying off. I’m assuming you’re going to Ithor. Right?
CAMERON: Yes.
NICK: Okay. We’re gonna fly to Ithor. So, the ship is going to take a few days to get there. You’re going from the outer rim. Fun fact, Ithor is located in the mid rim, and it’s on the wrong side of the hub from you, so it’s gonna be quite a trip. The good news is it’s very well populated and the routes are very well documented, so it’s pretty easy to get there but it’s not like there’s a lot of shortcuts or anything.
So, you guys have some time, a couple of days. What do you guys do?
LAURA: So, the first time everyone’s all together, Xianna sits down and is like, “Okie. So, what did we learn?”
STEVEN: “Don’t get shot.”
LAURA: “Open the briefcase before the handover.”
STEVEN: “Oh, that too.”
LAURA: “Uh-huh. Everyone? Uh-huh.”
HUDSON: “Uh… Eh..”
STEVEN: “Getting shot is bad.”
HUDSON: “I will agree that I think all of us learned something today.”
CAMERON: “What is the proper protocol if you open the briefcase and it is empty?”
STEVEN: “Put something in it.”
CAMERON: “Do you then just not ever continue, or do you put something else in the briefcase?”
LAURA: “You just don’t deliver it, and then you call up who gave you the briefcase, and you yell at them. A lot. It works sometimes.”
STEVEN: “What happens the other times?”
LAURA: “Uh, the person who gave you the briefcase tries to kill you.”
STEVEN: “Oh, okay.”
CAMERON: “That would be why you’re comming them then, so it’d be more difficult to kill you right then…”
LAURA: “No no no. Not the people you are giving the briefcase to, that would be empty and then they shoot you. The person that gave you the briefcase to give.”
CAMERON: “Yes, you then com them, and they try to kill you eventually, but you’re not there because you commed them, so they have to track you down.”
LAURA: “Yes.”
CAMERON: “Okay.”
LAURA: “I mean, is slightly better than the people that are physically there with you shooting you. It gives you more time.”
CAMERON: “Okay. I’m much more comfortable with the people coming after me scenario of that. I know how to deal with that.”
NICK: Also, where is this scene happening? Are you all in the hot tub?
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: (laughing) Yes…
HUDSON: Yeah.
LAURA: Definitely in the hot tub. I don’t know if anyone else is in the hot tub. Xianna is in the hot tub.
HUDSON: I think we left Sabos in the medical area and took a dip.
LAURA: There’s like chairs he can be…
STEVEN: I can limp.
NICK: He’s got like his feet in, but he doesn’t want to get blood into all the hot water, so he’s just—
STEVEN: Open wounds, and hot water, and infections, yeah.
NICK: He’s just sitting with his feet in the hot tub, yeah.
STEVEN: And one head tail. Every now and then I dip one head tail.
CAMERON: Oh, gross. “Okay, next steps. We need to come up with a plan for this blockade.”
LAURA: “We should probably try to fake our credentials.”
STEVEN: “Or you can say you have an injured Togruta.”
CAMERON: “Honestly, I don’t think they’d care.”
LAURA: “Um, it is the Empire. They will not care.”
STEVEN: “They might know this injured Togruta.”
LAURA: “And then we would all be arrested.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. I don’t understand how that’s helpful.”
STEVEN: “You could turn in the injured Togruta.” (coughs)
CAMERON: “Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
LAURA: “I mean, do you know how much you are worth?”
STEVEN: (nervous, stumbling) “Negative… really…”
CAMERON: “I can look it up.”
NICK: You can look it up, actually. That’s a thing you know.
LAURA: (gasps)
CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: Can we look up what everyone is worth?
NICK: Sure. Yeah, we can do that. We’ll say that the Afternoon Delight has a self-updating holo-net uplink, so whenever you’re parked not in hyperspace it pulls certain websites for info. So, it does that. You’re looking at like cached websites off of Google.
One of them is Bounty Boards. That makes a lot of sense. You have the credentials for it. It’s like being a notary – when you’re a bounty hunter you get certain rights and privileges as afforded your positon. So, you can just look it up, honestly. If you were trying to find information on somebody you didn’t already know or help track someone down with the info, it would probably be either a Computers or Skullduggery. Probably Computers, honestly.
LAURA: My guess is that there’s like… I’m thinking of the MSI system where you can put in like, I want a 2,000 square foot house with three bedrooms. They have that for bounties where you can like put in their species, and then you put in like what age range you think they are, and like identifying marks, and then it pulls up a list of all the people who match that so you can try and find who you were getting.
CAMERON: I also probably have the reverse, like, I’m currently located on Ithor. What bounties are near me? It’s like the Restaurants Near Me function in Google Maps.
LAURA: You move your little dot around, and you’re like, Bounties Near Me!
CAMERON: Five mile radius.
STEVEN: Uh, I can be found under fourth head tail.
CAMERON: No, but if like you’re searching for a specific name…
NICK: So, if you pull up Sabos, he is a pretty small fish. You’ll remember he owes the Empire like a 150,000 Credits which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a ton especially since the person he owes that to doesn’t really want it getting out. So, he has the Imperial equivalent of a parking ticket. He has like, Disturbing the Peace and Racketeering, which—
CAMERON: Boring.
NICK: For the Star Wars universe is Most people. So, it’s like a 2,000 Credit bounty.
STEVEN: (laughs)
NICK: It’s not that much. He is in the system, but there’s no picture of him and most of the stuff is blank. His name, Sabos Niks is in there. The way the system works it has different tiers of notoriety and stuff, so one of the things it’ll do is the names will get linked through the network for like known aliases and stuff like that so they’re more likely to show up in the search. I gotta be careful making up computer shit with who I’m sitting at the table with, but we’re gonna say this is how it works. The more notorious they are, the more important they are, the more likely they’ll pop up on related searches. ‘Those who hunted Sabos Niks also hunted…’
(giggling)
Sabos has no connections, it’s just him, so unless somebody specifically already had him or was looking for him, which they probably wouldn’t because he’s pretty cheap, he’s not gonna show up. So, he’s not very notorious, it’s unlikely people are gonna pull him on a related search, he’s not worth very much, but the Empire knows who he is.
CAMERON: Okay. I’m gonna look up everybody else too, (laughs) since I’m in here.
LAURA: Once she looks up Sabos, Xianna starts bouncing. “Ooh, ooh! Look me up! I want to see.”
LAURA & CAMERON: ‘Me next! Me next!’ (giggles)
NICK: Okay.
LAURA: “You will want to search for Xianna’fan…”
CAMERON: Okay.”
LAURA: “…and we will go from there!”
NICK: Alright. You pull up Xianna, and there’s a mugshot photo of her. Ooh, what would the background on an Imperial mugshot be?
HUDSON: Laura already drew it.
LAURA: Well, I just drew a very standard…
NICK: Yeah.
LAURA: My guess is it would be either white, a steel blue, or just kind of a mat gray metal.
NICK: Yeah, so I think you’re right. It’s probably like a blue steel background, because this happened when you got arrested at a local area. It’s not like in a major holding facility. It’s someone’s backwoods jail kind of situation. The picture is you smiling and making the peace sign at the camera, and you look absolutely unworried, absolutely unphased.
LAURA: “I do not remember which one that was…”
NICK: (laughs)
CAMERON: Can I look up where that mugshot came from, specifically?
NICK: Yeah.
CAMERON: I wanna know which one of her arrests was that mugshot.
LAURA: Xianna’s just sitting there mumbling to herself. “That definitely was not the doorway incident. Was that… I think maybe that was just standard burglary. Huh…”
NICK: So Laura, this particular one, kind of like a backwoods arrest, probably one of your earlier ones…
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: What happened with Xianna? Where was the photo taken?
LAURA: I think it was just a local station, a trooper outpost. I think what I had tried to do was seduce some low-level politician, sneak into their house, and steal goods and information to then later sell, and I probably just tripped an alarm. It was probably a silent alarm and I didn’t realize it, and then also the person came home, and it was just like, “Oh, um, hello. I thought you would be gone. Uh… Do you want pancakes?”
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: We get another shot from the flashback of you doing something, getting caught, and then looking up and making eye contact with a pretty obvious security camera and making the exact same face that happened in your prologue where you realize you’ve been made and now you just have to figure out what to do about it.
Okay, so, where was that though?
LAURA: Um…
NICK: Pick a planet, any planet.
LAURA: Corellia.
NICK: Corellia? You spent a lot of time bouncing around there?
LAURA: Yeah.
NICK: Okay. If that’s the case, then it actually says on the website Coresec sub files on it, and you recognize that steel background. It’s very distinctive of small Corellian holding patterns. It’s like a drunk tank, basically, but they use it for not just drunk people. It’s people who are in holding until they post their very small bail or their court date happens. There’s that, but under the picture there’s a pretty long list of misdemeanors, solicitation, because you figured out it was easier to get busted for solicitation and pretend you were being a prostitute than what you were actually doing, which was trying to rob people.
LAURA: Oh, yeah. Xianna’s definitely figured that out. ‘Ohh, if they think I’m a prostitute they just let me go… They usually don’t even check my pockets…’
NICK: Yup. So there’s a lot of solicitation things. You see that there is some burglary, but it all seems to be minor theft, and then there’s a lot of alleged things or skipped bails or warrants out in various places. The list is a little hard to read. It’s got—not the same thing as Sabos where nothing’s linked, but it’s obvious that the system’s a little messed up because a bunch of it is CorSec but then there’s some Imperial stuff and those systems don’t mesh real well, so whoever was looking for her would have some problems. She’s like a 5,000 Credit bounty. It’s solid.
CAMERON: “Hey, you’re worth more than Sabos.”
STEVEN: When we discover that I say, “Oh, you’re a bad girl?”
LAURA: (exasperated laughs)
STEVEN: “You like bad boys?”
LAURA: Xianna’s just like, “I will shoot you.”
STEVEN: (laughs) “That’s what the thing said.”
HUDSON: “Look me up!”
(laughter)
CAMERON: Okay. I look up Tink.
NICK: Tink’s not in there, at all.
HUDSON: I knew it.
NICK: What’s Tink’s holo-net alias?
LAURA: “Do you have any fake names?”
HUDSON: “StarDestroyer1.”
(laughter)
LAURA: “Yes. Look up StarDestroyer1!”
NICK: So, StarDestroyer1, it looks like a default Facebook profile. It’s got just the outline picture silhouette. It says StarDestroyer1, it says Alleged Low-Level Slicer, and that’s it. It says Insert Allegations Here, Insert Warrants Here, like it’s all mostly blanked out. So, he’s either an amazing slicer who’s cracked the CorSec and Imperial systems, or he’s done not very much and he’s not in there, and it’s hard to tell.
LAURA: It could be either one. (gasps) “Karma! Are you worth anything?”
CAMERON: “I don’t think so.”
LAURA: “Look it up!”
CAMERON: I look myself up.
NICK: Yeah, so you have a full profile, but it’s all accolades. You’re not wanted for anything. There were a couple of removed threats. There are some dismissed allegations that you can see like grayed out with lines through them, and it’s some violence charges that got thrown out, some disturbing the peace charges that got thrown out, things that you may have collected as a bounty hunter that you either got dismissed or got overturned due to lack of evidence, but no, you’re squeaky clean. It actually links to another database which is of bounty hunters, and your profile there—it looks like LinkedIn. It’s all like, pretty, and it’s like, Qualifications, Known Associates, and there’s little pictures of your two twin sons below yours in the contacts thing. The weird thing if you are looking over Karma’s shoulder is the Known Associates tab maxes out. It just keeps going, way past, it just says 99+ and it runs out.
CAMERON: And then if you look at the Friend Requests it’s like also maxed out.
HUDSON: What a socialite.
CAMERON: But I can’t add more people to my profile, so. (laughs)
NICK: Yeah. Well, it’s not like the bounty hunter social media. That would be… Oh. Bounty hunter social media pun, guys?
LAURA: BountyBook.
NICK: FaceBounty?
LAURA: Mm… My Bounty.
NICK: … SpaceBase. SpaceHunt.
HUDSON: iBounty.
NICK: Egh, that just sounds like electronic paper towels.
LAURA: HuntersOnly.
(laughter)
NICK: HuntersOnly.com, that’s it!
STEVEN: That’s what it is.
LAURA: Great.
NICK: HuntersOnly.com is a different thing. This is just the Imperial records thing, so it has basically—you’ve maxed out its thing. If you go to HuntersOnly.com, which you do have a profile—you don’t look at it very much, but a lot of people are really into it. I think the twins made you a profile at one point.
CAMERON: (laughs)
NICK: That one is just totally full of stuff. There’s a bunch of people that you don’t even know that wanna be friends with you. That one’s really maxed out. But as far as this one, you just have a lot of known associates in the bounty hunting world.
LAURA: Going back to mine, how many like known aliases were listed on mine?
NICK: We’ll say six known aliases. What were they, Laura?
LAURA: Oh, and I have to write them down. Okay.
CAMERON: So we know not to use them.
LAURA: So I know, yeah, what they are.
HUDSON: Chris Angel.
NICK: Felicia Day.
HUDSON: Kate Bush.
LAURA: Yeah, there’s Felicia…
CAMERON: I feel like Xianna only ever gives first names.
LAURA: Yeah. There’s like, and it’s like, with a P-H.
STEVEN: Ooh.
NICK & CAMERON: Ahh.
LAURA: P-H-T-I-F-F. (giggles)
CAMERON: (laughing) Oh, that’s not what I was thinking it was.
NICK: ‘Pa-tiff’
LAURA: No, no, it’s T-I-P-H Tiff, there’s Roxie, Sion with an S, ooh the Lia would probably have a last name.
HUDSON: Alia Keys. (laughter) That makes me feel weird, not saying the name right.
STEVEN: Me too.
LAURA: I’m trying to think of the Twi’lek last names. There’s Lia Fortuna.
NICK: That works.
LAURA: And…
CAMERON: Oh yeah. Is Serene listed?
LAURA: Serene probably wouldn’t be.
CAMERON: I’m just wondering if Falx updated the entries.
LAURA: Ooh. Yeah.
NICK: Uh, no.
CAMERON: Or if he just knew it was a purple Twi’lek and didn’t specifically know it was Xianna.
NICK: Mmm…
CAMERON: Because I’m assuming she didn’t give her real name to the other guy either.
NICK: So I’ll say Serene is not listed on here. That’s all I’ll say about that.
CAMERON: Okay. Don’t use that one either. (laughs)
NICK: I’m going to avoid talking about my NPCs without them being in the room.
LAURA: And then the last one is Moa’tel.
NICK: Moa’tel.
LAURA: Yes.
CAMERON: Mo-tel.
NICK: Tell me Moa.
HUDSON: Like where you take your clients?
CAMERON: Yeah, motel.
HUDSON: To the motel?
NICK: Hotel. Holiday Inn.
(snickers)
LAURA: And then, how many arrests do you say are on there? Because I know I’ve been arrested a number of times, but how many do you think?
NICK: I think you’ve probably been arrested a few times, a handful of times. This particular database doesn’t register that. It’s only like the legal proceedings and stuff. So, that is not on there. You did say earlier that you’ve been arrested at least four times.
LAURA: At least.
NICK: At least. And the first planet that you all went to had been one of them, so that’s not a great sign.
LAURA: Eh.
STEVEN & CAMERON: (giggles)
LAURA: It’ll be fine.
HUDSON: “So, I have an idea for us getting through the barrier.”
CAMERON: “Go for it.”
HUDSON: “Alright. I think I can rig some credentials and send out a distress signal acting like this is from a very important vessel and that we have a high ranking official that we’ll disguise Sabos as, and he’ll be you know injured and looking in bad shape, and they’ll let us through so that we can immediately get him to the medical area, but then as we’re getting taken to the medical area we’ll overpower them and then get into the ship deeper.”
CAMERON: “We’re not trying to get into the ship. We’re trying to get to the planet.”
HUDSON: “Oh, sorry.”
CAMERON: “We just need to get past the blockade.”
LAURA: “So, similar concept. We say we are a political transport ship, and trying to get to the planet, and we have fake credentials.”
HUDSON: “Yes.”
STEVEN: “I am an ambassador.”
LAURA: “I don’t think that is true, but…”
HUDSON: He plays one on TV.
STEVEN: “It’s laminated, damn it.”
CAMERON: “We also learned that Osaron does not have the best relationship with the Empire at the moment.”
STEVEN: “Ehhh.”
CAMERON: “You are listed as having a bounty. Your badge does nothing for you right now.”
STEVEN: “Ehhh.”
LAURA: “I also have had laminated badges before. They can be faked.”
STEVEN: “We made this on Osaron.”
CAMERON: “Goodness.”
STEVEN: (laughs)
CAMERON: “Things I could help you with, Tink, on the creating fake credentials and getting through… I have the low clearance code cylinder from Duelson, and then he also told us that the low frequencies are easier to sneak through than the high.”
HUDSON: “Alright. I can program that.” I program that.
CAMERON: (laughs) I hand over the code cylinder.
NICK: Okay, so, while you’re flying to Ithor you’re going to try to forge low class Imperial credentials. That’s what you’re trying to do?
CAMERON & HUDSON: Yes.
CAMERON: If you could then make it so that we don’t show up on their scanners too, that would be better, but having the credentials in place in case we don’t make it through…
HUDSON: Okay. I try the credentials first.
NICK: Okay. For the credentials it’s going to be hard. You can have a blue die because you know about the low frequency thing. You can upgrade one die because you have the code cylinder to work off of. You also have two black die, because the last time you tried to hack a Star Destroyer you left your signature, StarDestroyer1, over a bunch of stuff. Or, I think you put ‘leet hacker.’
HUDSON: I have Bypass Security. Remove a black die rank from checks made to disable a security device or open a security door. Oh, no. Per rank of code breaker—I don’t do codebreaker right now. I can reroll if I want.
NICK: Cool. Great. What’s that, once per session?
HUDSON: yes, once per session.
CAMERON: You need two black dice.
HUDSON: Four successes, two threats.
NICK: Okay. Your threats are gonna get spent. You are always pretty careful when you’re forging stuff. You pretty much do the forgery, go back and redo it, and then double check everything. So, you’re able to get something made that avoids activating that little boobytrap about they know what your signature is. The threats are you don’t figure out that signature is in their database, so you include it. The stuff is gonna work, you got four successes, it’s solid. The credentials themselves will not be suspect in any way, but you’re still gonna have this issue the next time you try to hack a Star Destroyer. They know there’s someone who’s been able to get through their system.
HUDSON: Yeah.
NICK: So, yeah. You make some solid ass ship credentials for like Petty navy Officer, I don’t know. What do you name your guy?
HUDSON: George Jetson.
NICK: George Jetson. (laughter) Petty navy Officer George Jetson gets made. Yeah. You got it, it’s got a picture on it. It’s actually a picture of Sabos, but a human Sabos.
HUDSON: Eww.
NICK: Like, the head tails are gone, and you photoshopped it around a little bit, so it looks pretty believable as long as they don’t like see Sabos in person. So, you have got some credentials.
HUDSON: Mm-hmm. Alright! I high-five Karma.
CAMERON: Yeah!
LAURA: Nice.
STEVEN: “I make a good Imperial. … Oh, shit, uh—(garbled speech)
CAMERON: “Can you turn off our camera so that when we get hailed it’s voice only from our side?”
HUDSON: “Yeah. I can make it break accidentally.”
CAMERON: “Yeah.”
LAURA: “None of us are human.”
CAMERON: “Yeah. If they see any of us this isn’t gonna work.”
HUDSON: I break the camera.
NICK: Oh, you just break it?
LAURA: “No, you don’t have to break it!”
CAMERON: I wanted you to like remove the wire so that we can—(laughter)
HUDSON: “It’s now too late. The camera’s broken.”
LAURA: “You just had to disable it. Ugh.”
NICK: So, Karma and Tink are standing up front, you have that conversation. You go, oh yeah, and take out a wrench and go whack whack whack, and punch a little hole in the dashboard.
CAMERON: (sighs) Okay…
STEVEN: That makes me twitch a little bit when I see him take out the wrench, and I don’t really know why.
HUDSON: The blood loss.
STEVEN: Yeah, you know, the head fixing wrench.
CAMERON: “Alright. Then do we wanna try and set us up to not show up on scans?”
HUDSON: “I’ll go for it.” I go for it.
NICK: Alright. How are you trying to not show up on scans? What exactly are you trying to do? Normally you would do that with a highly specialized stealth suite that is military only and extremely expensive.
HUDSON: Actually, we don’t want to do that, because that’s actually suspicious if we’re acting like we’re a real ship, like a real envoy.
NICK: That’s true.
HUDSON: So, I don’t do that.
NICK: That would be like trying to sneak into somewhere and then when they get there be like, oh hi, I’m your cousin, nice to see you.
CAMERON: Oh, did we have that turned on? Whoops.
NICK: Yeah. I mean, you could pull it off, it would just be difficult.
STEVEN: Did we the petty officer have that device on the ship? Yeah, that’s normal I’m sure.
NICK: Yeah, you’d be able to talk your way through it, it just wouldn’t be easy. So, cool. You guys are set up, and you have a way to try to spoof your way past the blockade and get down to planet, and that’s where we’ll end the episode.
(all make dramatic noises)
## Outro
CAMERON: Thanks for listening to Tabletop Squadron. If you enjoyed our show please consider logging into iTunes and giving us a five-star review. Five-star reviews will help new listeners to find the show.
Xianna’fan is played by Laura Penrod. She can be found on Twitter at @cheerio_buffet.
Tink is played by Hudson Jameson and he can be found on Twitter at @hudsonjameson.
Karma Nailo is played by me, Cameron Robertson. You can find me on Twitter at @midnightmusic13.
Sabos Nix was played by Steven Schroeder. He… does not exist on the internet.
Our game master is Nick Robertson, and you can find him on Twitter at @alias58.
Our intro song is Space Jam by Pablo Ribot.
Additional music by James Gunter.
Follow the podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tabletop_squad. For real! We’re real people and we wanna talk to anyone who listens to the show. Reach out! See you next time.
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