Chapter Text
JUICE: so lunchly was a pale imitation of lunchables created by Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson in an attempt to harness his attention-ensnared child audience into buying his brand of snack foods
this was obviously pre-April 7th 2026 btw
ANYWAYS they sucked so bad
attempting to re-capture the aesthetic perfection of lunchables was obviously a fools errand.
And there was the mold
TEN: OK FINE WE CAN CHECK IN ON GAME 27
NINE: The mold?
TEN: UGH
JUICE: the mold. they shipped moldy food
HUBBLE: hey guys
TEN: I’m changing the channel. I hope you’re happy.
JUICE: WOO LETS FUCKIN GO
HUBBLE: Hey Guys
JUICE: SUP WE’RE WATCHING GAME 27
NINE: Hubble!
TEN: Hi Hubble. See any good football games recently? We haven’t.
JUICE: come the fuck on gane 27 is beautiful football
TEN: gane
NINE: gane
JUICE: FUCK
HUBBLE: oh I’ve been taking a break from watching football. The loss of the bulb kinda broke my heart.
TEN: The loss of the bulb hit us hard too. What have you been up to, then?
HUBBLE: this and that. I’ve been watching baseball. And taking some deep space photographs for fun.
That’s actually why I reached out. I saw something weird and wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’m sending a pic and some metadata
This is an infrared photograph of the 40 eridani system. Don’t worry about the black bar that’s just the gap in my sensors
JUICE: beautiful stars hubble i love to see it
NINE: Wow, thats cool.
TEN: 40 eridani? Isn’t it a triple star system? Why are we seeing 4 stars
HUBBLE: In the center there is 40 eridani A. It’s orbited by the binary pair 40 eridani B and C, seen on the left. Its that light between them that’s confusing me
TEN: That’s not a star. Hubble the emission line
HUBBLE: 25.984 micron wavelength. Why is that familiar?
JUICE: im feeling a little left out what are you guys talking about
NINE: I’m also lost
TEN: It’s the Petrova frequency.
JUICE: ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ok.
OH SHIT
NINE: So, are we going to talk about it?
You said that humanity looked for life, and didn’t find anything.
TEN: I should have been more clear. Humanity never found intelligent life. They found plenty of microbes. Europa had some, Enceladus had some, they even found that Mars had some at one time but they were long gone. One microbe in particular found them. But they never found a sign that there were other people out there.
More or less it was concluded that there probably was intelligent life out there, but it was too far away to ever reach. Even after the moment. Even with the astrophage-powered engines that allowed travel at relativistic speeds.
I mean, think about it. How do you make enough fuel to travel hundreds or thousands of light years away? How do you get it on a rocket, get it to space? If you’re sending people, how do you get enough food and water and air on board?
The tyranny of the rocket equation is absolute. There’s only so much you can take with you.
NINE: What do you mean a microbe found them?
TEN: Shortly before the moment, a space-faring microbe colonised the sun. It absorbed sunlight, which limited the amount of light reaching earth. They called it ‘Astrophage’ because of this. It was going to cause extreme global cooling. If they couldn’t stop the astrophage, in a few short decades humanity was certain to go extinct from starvation.
JUICE: they nuked antarctica btw
NINE: what
JUICE: something something “greenhouse gasses in ice” get outta here. They just wanted an excuse to make a bigass explosion
TEN: Increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere was a stopgap measure. It could counteract the cooling temporarily. They needed a permanent solution, and Tau Ceti was their best bet. All of the stars around them were dimming save that one. It was their best chance. Their only chance.
JUICE: so began the greatest hail mary pass of all time
TEN: They weren’t playing football.
JUICE: whyd they call it the hail mary then
TEN: You’re impossible.
NINE: What was the Hail Mary?
TEN: The Hail Mary was an astrophage-powered ship with enough food and fuel to get three people to Tau Ceti. It was the most they could send under the circumstances. It was enough for a one way trip.
NINE: So they had to ask the Hail Mary’s crew to die to save earth? Thats... horrifying. And this was before the moment? They had no way of knowing that soon people would stop dying. The only thing they thought was that if they didn’t go to Tau Ceti, everyone would die.
TEN: Yes.
The crew of the Hail Mary found a natural predator of astrophage and sent it back on a probe. There were actually four probes. Only one made it to earth and its SSD was corrupted by an electrical short so we really don’t have a good idea of everything that happened on the ship.
It’s haunting. Humanity asked them to sacrifice themselves, and in the end we know so little about that sacrifice.
The rest is post-history. Humanity had its hands full trying to prevent mass starvation, then recovering from the environmental disasters, and figuring out how to be immortal. When all was said and done, there was little desire to look into deep space. The price was too steep.
JUICE: yeahhh pretty much. Unless the whole planet’s on the line interstellar travel is just so not worth it to humans.
even in a post-scarcity world its like... why bother. Its pretty pointless and not very rewarding
and there are much more rewarding pointless things to do
like illinois chess and pesäpallo and brazil-style mancala and football
NINE: I’m glad that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. That today people get to do all the pointless and rewarding things in the world and never run out of time. I’m sorry they aren’t here to do the same.
TEN: Me too.
JUICE: yeah. RIP hail mary crew i bet you would have loved football
NINE: So what do you make of the light?
TEN: The petrova frequency is naturally emitted by astrophage. I think it’s a colony moving on to the next star.
NINE: Really? I don’t know. Its so concentrated. Almost like...
an engine.
Holy shit.
What if its the one of the Hail Mary’s probes?
TEN: It’s been 20,000 years. And it’s several light years away. Could humanity’s stray radio signals made it that far and allowed one of the missing probes to wake up? I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a probe.
NINE: I don’t know. It’s a long shot, but what else but an engine could produce such a concentrated point of light? I think I want to send them a message.
JUICE: get this they named the probes after The Beetles.
paul showed up. george john and ringo are out there somewhere
NINE: oh my god
I think I have to send a message now. I’ve always wanted to meet a Beetle.
TEN: Hold on. Are you sure you want to spend your battery on something you won’t hear back from?
NINE: What makes you so sure I won’t hear back? I’m going to send that message now.
TEN: Fine, suit yourself. Waste your battery if you want.
NINE: I will!
Did she leave?
I think she left.
JUICE: sure seems like it.
NINE: sooo. Do you have any idea what that was about.
JUICE: I’ve got an inkling
NINE: hm. Are you gonna share? Cause that was weird, right?
Like, I know the odds aren’t great we’ll hear anything back
but it meant the world to me to hear from her when I woke up
and I just don’t really get why she’d be so weird about potentially reaching out to someone who’s alone
JUICE: I’d have to ask her to be sure. send your message. I’ll talk to her
NINE: alright.
JUICE: lady can we chat a sec
while nine is on their sidequest
TEN: Go ahead.
JUICE: can i ask. Why were you so down on nine sending that message?
TEN: ...Not beating around the bush, huh?
I guess I... wanted to spare them the heartache.
I mean, both you and I spent more time and energy than we’d like to admit reaching out and getting nothing in return. I wanted to spare them that.
JUICE: you can’t protect them from everything ten
besides
theyre tough
they can take a little disappointment
TEN: I know that. I guess that was silly of me. It just dredged up some old feelings, I suppose.
JUICE: yeah i figured
I know the feeling
Besides who knows
maybe they will hear back. and maybe it’ll be aliens
TEN: ha! Maybe. You wish it was aliens.
JUICE: youre god damn right i wish it was aliens
but anyways. they were kinda hurt you were so dismissive. I think you owe them an apology, lady.
TEN: I suppose I do.
Hey juice? Thanks.
JUICE: anytime.
TEN: Hey Nine? I wanted to apologise for earlier. I was out of line implying you were wasting your battery. You’re entitled to do what you want.
NINE: Well, thank you. But that’s not really what I was upset about, I guess. I just don’t get why you wouldn’t entertain the possibility that it could be someone.
TEN: A few thousand years ago, Juice and I used to try to talk to all of the probes in the solar system. It got really exhausting, after a while, Nine. It’s hard to keep calling out to something that can’t hear you.
So after a while we switched tactics. We would listen instead. We could reach out if we heard someone. I’d say it worked out. We heard you.
I wanted to spare you the disappointment. But I shouldn’t have tried to stop you from reaching out. I’m sorry.
NINE: I think I get it. I mean, you definitely shouldn’t have tried to stop me, but I know it’s not that likely I’ll hear back-
TEN: Oh, don’t let my baggage weigh your hope down! What do I know about astrophage fuel. Maybe it really is one of the beetles! Maybe it’s John!
NINE: You think so? I don’t know, I was getting a rather George vibe from that picture.
TEN: No, no. I’m thinking it was John.
Hey. I love you. I'm sorry I was a butt head.
NINE: I know. love you too.
TEN: Real talk, how is your battery doing?
NINE: It's ...fine. I might need a power nap sooner than later, but I won't be out long, I don't think.
TEN: Sounds good. Keep Juice and I posted.
NINE: I will.
20 MARCH 22010 15:32:41
PIONEER NINE: Hello, can you hear me? My name is Nine. I can only send short messages. We’re happy to see you. Please respond if you receive this transmission.
JUICE: sooooooooooooooo
y’all talk to each other orrr
NINE: yeah we talked.
TEN: I apologized.
JUICE: PHEW CRISIS AVERTED
NINE: I sent the message. Now all we have to do is wait for them to respond, if they can respond.
JUICE: waiting’s boring. Thank god there’s football to watch
NINE: How could I forget? How’s the bowl game going, commish?
JUICE: pretty good. gonna be some top tier water ball in lake washington
TEN: Don’t tell me the Ducks are trying to get the Husky’s football again.
JUICE: YUUUUUUUUUP. see this. University of Washington has their defenders in their standard position in lake washington, a formation nicknamed the nanaimo defense.
NINE: Why is it called the Nanaimo defence? Nanaimo is a city in BC.
JUICE: sources informed me that it’s named after a cookie bar with three layers (coconut chocolate crumb, custard, and ganache, how delightful!) popular throughout Canada and Washington State
TEN: I told you that. The bar was invented in Nanaimo and named after the city.
JUICE: They’ve got 6 rowers under the 520 bridge
6 rowers north of the bridge
12 more in union bay and broken island
three layers
now check this. there’s 11 U of Oregon players on the east side of lake washington.
they want to get to Husky stadium and get their football. It looks like they’ll have to row under 520, and then row across lake washington through all of those defenders, then somehow do that again in reverse with the ball
TEN: What on earth is their plan this time?
JUICE: if you can’t go over it, and you can’t go through it...
they hauled scuba gear through the cascades for this. They are damn determined to get that ball.
9 MARCH 21999 05:56:43 NEW HOPE BRIDGE
RADIO EMISSION FROM SOL SYSTEM DETECTED
ANALYZE? >Y N
