The crew are looking for meaning – or just ways to pass the time.
Starring: Tyra Banda, Kristi Boulton, Michael Divinski, Phil Johnston and Sean Howard.
Sound design and music: Eli Hamada McIlveen
Cover art: David Demaret
Announcers: Marisa King and Michael Howie
Content warning: Complete obliviousness.
Theme music plays.
NARRATOR
Humanity’s last hope to find and settle a new world. A small terraforming fleet sets out to prepare a lifeless planet for the colony ships sure to follow in their wake.
ANNOUNCER
Civilized.
AL
Hmm…
BARTHOLOMEW
Thinking time is all well and good Al, but in bullet chess, you might want to limit it.
AL
Hmm… ho hum.
BARTHOLOMEW
See, I’ve done one move, and you’ve lost on the timer.
AL
But… What… Why? Why? What does time even matter to us, Bartholomew? What, what’s, what’s it to us right now? In this afternoon, much like last afternoon, much like the afternoon before it, you’re just trying to differentiate the days with this little timer you have, but it’s all bled into one endless game of chess.
BARTHOLOMEW
I mean, in a, in a cosmological sense… I agree. And in a cosmological sense, you might call victory or defeat in a meaningless game of chess that exactly, meaningless. But in the context of this kitchen… neener neener. I have won.
AL
I guess what I’m trying to get at Bartholomew is, is there a god and what happens to us when we die, if that ever happens?
ROBERT
There you are, Captain. O Captain, my captain!
CAPTAIN
Yes, hello, Bob. How’s it going?
ROBERT
Director Tinsley or Robert, or?
CAPTAIN
I’m good with Bob.
ROBERT
Okay. Um, I prepared some manifests.
CAPTAIN
Ooh.
ROBERT
And I was thinking, maybe we developed some new protocols.
CAPTAIN
New protocols, okay. Is there a reason you’re bringing this up to me now, or?
ROBERT
Well, um, I, I, well, I just, there really hasn’t been anything to do. And I thought, Oh, well, we were clearly lacking, like a mission or… so I thought I’d just sort of draft one up. To run by you. Of course.
CAPTAIN
What do you mean, there’s nothing to do? I run a very tight ship here. you know?
ROBERT
Technically, it’s a bunker.
CAPTAIN
It’s a form of speech. You see, um, you know, like, how people in office buildings- do you remember those?
ROBERT
No. Oh, yeah. Sort of. Yeah. Oh, that hurts.
CAPTAIN
Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to start something. No, but you know, I feel that there’s a lot happening, you know, around the ship. You know, we got bullet chess in the kitchen right now. You know, we just spent that whole morning cleaning up after you know, Beatrix’s rager.
ROBERT
Yeah.
CAPTAIN
So I think that… well, here, let’s have a look at the protocol. Let’s see what you got here.
ROBERT
Okay. I thought, you know, step one would be we leave the base.
CAPTAIN
Leave the base…
ROBERT
Or the ship, as a term of speech.
CAPTAIN
Right, right. Right, right. Um, why?
ROBERT
I really didn’t come up with a good answer yet, for that. I just sort of thought we, you know, we could like jam on it a little, you know, like a captain to director, kind of.
CAPTAIN
Yeah, yeah, I know. You see, Bob, I just, I have bad experiences with leaving ships.
ROBERT
Right. So in this case, we’d be leaving a bunker. What about to go look for your ship?
CAPTAIN
Right, right!
ROBERT
Right. I’ll just write that in right now.
CAPTAIN
Okay. Perhaps we can go look for my ship!
ROBERT
Really? Are you serious? Or is this like last time? When you made me go off and get everything ready? And then you’re like, “haha, we’re not leaving or going anywhere, it’s a Tuesday.”
CAPTAIN
Yeah, your face. (laughs) But no, actually, this time? I think that we should go.
ROBERT
I’m on it. I’m gonna go get the manifest ready.
CAPTAIN
Oh, okay. Great. Great. Okay. We’re going back to the ship.
AL
So I guess that I do not really know what I mean by God as a singular definition. And I guess if I can’t give you that, maybe we can’t have this conversation?
BARTHOLOMEW
I mean, maybe that’s true, though you seem to know what God isn’t. For example, when I told you that I was God of this kitchen, you didn’t agree with that.
AL
Oh, I find that to be very disagreeable to me. You are not the God of this kitchen. And you’re not the God of this chessboard.
BARTHOLOMEW
Well, God is often persecuted.
AL
Are you maybe just trying to fill the time because your girlfriend ran away and never came back and didn’t tell you where she was going?
BARTHOLOMEW
That is perceptive for a 14 year old boy.
AL
I was gonna say, we played like 17 games of chess in the past three days.
BARTHOLOMEW
I mean, that’s true. I mean, some of them were bullet chess.
AL
Bullet chess is something you made up. You spent all night working on bullet chess so we could fit more games into the day.
ROBERT
Hey guys, sorry. Just coming into the pantry. Just got to fill up this bag, really quick. Some of this, some of that. Okay, good.
BARTHOLOMEW
Bob. You’re like the Santa of snacks. What’s going on?
ROBERT
Oh, Can one of you Well, I guess you, Barty. Come on. Can you drag that down to the exit when you have a chance?
BARTHOLOMEW
Why?
ROBERT
Just Captain’s orders.
AL
I’ll suck it through the floor.
ROBERT
What? No, no, no, no, no, no,
AL
It’s gone. Don’t worry. It’s there. Freshly sucked straight through the floor. I’m helping. As always.
Captain, delivery from upstairs.
CAPTAIN
Oh, okay. Thanks, Al.
AL
Thank you. I did a really good job, eh?
CAPTAIN
It was a great job, Al.
AL
Wow.
BARTHOLOMEW
So are you going somewhere?
ROBERT
Yeah, yeah, I just, I’m gonna load up a small backpack with whatever’s left here. Okay, well…
BARTHOLOMEW
Where are you going?
ROBERT
Oh, well it’s not where we’re going, Barty- Bartholomew.
BARTHOLOMEW
How? are you going?
ROBERT
With Captain. We have a mission.
BARTHOLOMEW
When are you going?
ROBERT
Shit. I gotta go check with the Captain, I’ll be right back.
BARTHOLOMEW
Hang on, you said we have a mission?
ROBERT
Yeah, we do.
BARTHOLOMEW
That’s, that’s fantastic!
ROBERT
Isn’t it?
BARTHOLOMEW
Yeah, I know, in my HR capacities, I have to update our website regularly, as you know. And under our mission statement, I just had a big line of question marks, and then a line underneath that with more question marks.
ROBERT
That’s great, just backing out the door now.
BARTHOLOMEW
It feels like for years now, for 1000s of chess games.
ROBERT
That’s great. You update that site.
BARTHOLOMEW
I am on it.
ROBERT
Okay, be right back. Captain!
CAPTAIN
All right. Bobby, can I call you Bobby? I’m gonna call you Bobby. I think that this might just have to be a two person mission.
ROBERT
Really?
CAPTAIN
I fear that Al will be exposed to too much at such a young age. And I just don’t really like BarbaQue that much.
ROBERT
Wow. I mean, I think it’s a really good decision, actually. Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense.
CAPTAIN
You didn’t say anything to them, right? About any sort of mission?
ROBERT
No, of course not.
CAPTAIN
Yeah. Okay. Good. ‘Cause I don’t want them, you know, doing their own little rogue thing.
ROBERT
Yeah, no, no, no, just top secret.
CAPTAIN
Good.
ROBERT
Quick question. When is the mission?
CAPTAIN
When?
ROBERT
Yeah, I just realized that, like, I got the manifest. I wrote down the mission. We didn’t decide when.
CAPTAIN
Like, are you free today?
ROBERT
Are you kidding? I’m free every day.
CAPTAIN
Great, then I say that we get out of here as soon as possible.
ROBERT
Okay. Are we okay with the small backpack stuff? ‘Cause the big backpack, there was a small issue…
CAPTAIN
No, actually, Al just dropped me this duffel bag of food. So, I think we’re good.
ROBERT
That’s it! That’s amazing.
CAPTAIN
Yeah.
ROBERT
I mean, I thought of that.
CAPTAIN
Yeah… how did he know to do that?
ROBERT
Oh, I just told him “Oh, it’s a random package. Just send that to captain.”
CAPTAIN
Oh.
ROBERT
Need to know basis.
CAPTAIN
Well, good job, Bobby.
ROBERT
Thanks, Cap. Can I- can I call you Cap?
CAPTAIN
Absolutely not.
ROBERT
Right.
BARTHOLOMEW
(on communicator) Hey, Bob, just-
ROBERT
Woah, just turn that off. Oh, faulty. I don’t know what’s going on with that thing. I’m just gonna drop it on the ground, and I’m gonna step on it. You know, what is a secret mission? I don’t think anyone needs to know where we’re going. Right, Captain?
CAPTAIN
That’s what I like to hear. All right, shall we?
ROBERT
Yeah, let’s do it.
SUIT
(on communicator)
Robert Tinsley is unavailable at this moment, please leave a message. And if you would like to hear a joke after your message, press two.
BARTHOLOMEW
Yeah, so I tried to call, but it- I don’t know, your communicator must be dead or something, even though they’re, you know, they’ve got a lithium battery, lasts forever. But you know, whatever. Maybe that still happens. Anyway, I realized there were a couple of questions that I missed for the mission statement of the five W’s. So if you could cover “What is the mission?” And “how is the mission?” I would appreciate that. So just when you’re ready, anytime. Thanks, Kay. Love- Bye.
SUIT
Oh, oh. No one ever wants to hear a joke.
BARTHOLOMEW
Okay, sorry. That’s done back to chess.
AL
Yeah. Oh, okay. I was gonna ask what’s a website?
ROBERT
Captain? Are you sure you don’t want to carry some of these items?
CAPTAIN
Oh, no, I’m good. I think I slept on my neck weird last night. Oh, so I think I should really just focus on just like keeping myself up.
ROBERT
Okay, I can work on that at some point if you want, you know, I got it, just like-
CAPTAIN
Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, I’m- I think I actually might have something for it on the ship. Yeah. So I think I’ll just wait till that.
ROBERT
Right, makes total sense. I’m just gonna drag this. Okay, we’re coming up on the hatch. I’m so excited Captain. We are going to be like the first explorers heading out into the unknown to find ship.
CAPTAIN
It’s gonna be something Bobby.
ROBERT
Okay. Oh, you want me to open the door?
CAPTAIN
Did you expect me to open the door?
ROBERT
No, of course not. I’ll just go-
CAPTAIN
Yes, that’s a you thing…. Maybe today, Bob? It’d be good?
ROBERT
Do you mind maybe using your communicator to ask Al to open the door?
CAPTAIN
Okay. Hey Al?
AL
Oh hey, how’s it going Captain?
CAPTAIN
I’m so sorry to bother you. But could you please open the hatch door?
AL
Ah, okay. Yeah, I’ll give it a go. I just, I kind of slept on my back weird it’s like-
CAPTAIN
Oh my god, I had this same thing.
AL
Yeah, it was my first time trying sleeping. So it was, it was rough. I’m gonna say, didn’t love it but- oh.
CAPTAIN
Maybe just like a little, like a creak open?
AL
Yeah, okay, I can get it open like an inch, and then someone will have to probably like force their body through it, I guess.
ROBERT
I ‘ve also been carrying this big bag, starting to feel a little cinch-
AL
I don’t even have a body.
CAPTAIN
That’s really insensitive, Bobby.
AL
I can’t carry things.
ROBERT
Okay- sorry, you’re right. Okay, I’m just gonna try and open this door. I’m gonna- okay, I got it. Don’t worry. Ooh, that hurt. Oh wait, the door’s opening. Oh, look at that. It’s like I did it myself.
BEATRIX
Hello.
ROBERT
Oh, my God.
Beatrice?
BEATRIX
It’s Beatrix.
ROBERT
Oh, right.
CAPTAIN
Happy belated!
CREDITS
Theme music plays.
ANNOUNCER
Civilized.
Starring Tyra Banda, Kristi Boulton, Michael Divinski, Phil Johnston and Sean Howard.
Sound design and music by Eli Hamada McIlveen.
Cover art by David Demaret.
Join us on Patreon for bonus episodes and lots more. Look for the Support Us link at civilizedpod.com.