Zeo Genesis Travelogues
Greetings, star-nomads! You can call me Trev. (You can also call me Trevallion Franklin-Ridgeway III, but I’d rather you didn’t.) I’ve left behind my shallow executive existence to explore the Hundred Suns, to re-connect with insignificant voiders just like you. These are my travels. You’re welcome.
“Grateful though I am for my recent experience, I do rather miss the void-yacht. Those pirates were tremendously convincing in their argument for robbing me, stripping the yacht and casting me adrift in space. Though they did let me keep my shorts and sandals. Going a week without food was a blessing, really, as I’d been meaning to lose some weight. Indeed, by the time I was picked up by this migrational tradeship, I looked positively rakish.
“I’ve spent the last hour studying the Yasuhiro Projection. This must be an antique version, as there are several heliospheres yet to be charted. Oh, how readily the galaxy withholds its mysteries. If I recall my astrography lessons correctly, the first celestographers charted only half the heliospheres compromising what we now know to be the Hundred Suns. Take this heliospheric array, right here. Now, I know for a fact that… Oh, wait… Bloody thing’s upside-down.
“This is day three of my time aboard the Deucalion’s Crossing, which has been… educational in terms of meeting people so wonderfully different to myself in terms of attitude, appearance and indeed smell.
“I was delighted to learn the vessel was en route from Juno to the neighbouring heliosphere of Astrapelago, which I’d heard so much about. I was shown to the engineering deck where I was kindly afforded a cabin, though evidence strongly suggests it was previously a latrine. This was fortunate, however, as my first experience of slip-travel – passing from one heliosphere to the next via dimensional slipway – though instantaneous, did have a regrettable effect upon my bowels.
“To earn my keep, I’ve been assigned a scrub-wagon, which I’m still learning to drive. The people I’ve run over so far have been tremendously helpful, sharing plenty of forthright opinions on how I might improve my steering. I do so find myself distracted by thoughts of what awaits me here in Astrapelago.
“A wave of galactic commerce has swept through this heliosphere, following Father’s mining corporation into the gas-rich system of neighbouring Periphery, the very last of the Hundred Suns to have been discovered. Astrapelago remains a vibrant assortment of frontier holdings centred around the sapphire-blue gas giant of Nyx. She is attended by the miners’ station known as Little Aether and the meteor-battered, but mineral-rich planet of Arke, which continues to attract prospectors either brave or desperate.
“I’m ashamed to say until now I’ve unconsciously shared Father’s Hegamonist leanings, placing my faith in capitalism and government under the Unitas Consortium and its Prefectures. But my fellow workers in engineering have given me the chance to consider a more Accordist view. There are plenty of People’s Galactic types down here, full of amusing ideas about labour laws and so on. Asteroid miners, void-crews, unionists, the sort of people that always made Father start throwing things at the telescreen.
“Up on the trade decks, I’ve heard rumours of even greater political extremes, of a group of expansionists known as the Starbound, an eccentric cult determined to explore beyond the bounds of the known universe. However, the majority of people aboard here are humble voiders just like you and I. Migrant workers, void-traders, families, graduates, retirees, and plenty of pilgrims en route to the holy crash-site of Kannock-Rey back in Juno. My pockets brim with coins, wafers, rune-scratched stones, currencies from across the Hundred Suns.
“I used to see plenty of zeotech from my office window, robotic hulks plodding about the warehouses below. Zeos are so ubiquitous in our lives that one often forgets they’re there, let alone that there are people inside, piloting those mechanoid giants. Seeing them up-close – usually as I swerve to avoid them – has been startling. Watching them heft cargo-crates the size of hab-cabins, rocket through space alongside the ship, thudding through the trade-hub on sentry duty, one can only imagine how terrifying such machines might be upon the field of battle.
“Thus inspired, I’ve been looking into becoming a zeo-pilot myself. I’ve been reading all about the neural connection between one’s brain and that of the zeo’s interface, a psychic link known as the Kanai-Edelman Bridge. I was explaining all this to a charming fellow in the mess hall who told me that he used to be a zeo-pilot himself! Flew a dozen top-secret missions for GuardCorps on worlds across the Hundred Suns and won several medals for bravery, along with an Honorary Senior Affiliation! He explained that I would need a ‘permissions permit’ before I could even think about training as a zeo-pilot, but it just so happens he knows a chap in Licensing who owes him a favour… Well, of course, I immediately paid him the 4,000 zeobits he was asking for, plus another 1,000 for his commission. He assured me the paperwork would be ready as soon as I disembark upon Little Aether.
“It just goes to show that when you give your heart to the universe, the universe gives back.
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