Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:02]

Welcome to get sleepy. The podcast where we listen, we relax and we get sleepy. I'm your host, Thomas. I really appreciate you joining me tonight and I hope you've had a great week so far. No matter the ups and downs that life sends our way, I really hope this podcast is a source of comfort and a peaceful constant for your bedtime routine. And it really warms our hearts to hear how much you're all enjoying it. Tonight, Abby will be reading daily logs from days three and four of the mission in search of the Hipness Flower.

[00:00:54]

I hope you enjoyed the first episode on Monday and that it helped you get a good night's rest. Tomorrow is Thursday, and that means a new exclusive episode on our supporters feed get sleep premium. It will be the conclusion of this series, so if you want to hear how the mission ends, be sure to sign up and listen in to get sleep premium tomorrow. We'll also be posting a long play copy of the hipness series so you can listen to it from start to finish in a single episode.

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And of course, this is in addition to all of the other benefits of get sleep premium, like access to our entire catalog or add free. If you're interested in signing up, go to get sleepy, dot com slash support or simply use the link in the show notes to find out more. I'd like to thank our friends at Better Help for supporting tonight's episode, if you feel like there something getting in the way of your happiness or holding you back from achieving your goals, and please do consider taking a look at better help.

[00:02:25]

They will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. And by visiting better help dot com slash get sleepy, you'll receive 10 percent off your first month. You can start communicating in under 48 hours, message your counsel at any time and schedule a weekly video calls from the comfort of your own home. Better help wants you to start living a happier life today. Visit better help dot com slash get sleepy. That's better. H e l p and join over one million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional.

[00:03:19]

And remember, right now, all get sleepy listeners will receive 10 percent of your first month when you go to better help dot com slash get sleepy. So before we head back into outer space for another glimpse of life on the Starship Arem Mission. Ease yourself down. Into the idyllic, sleepy vessel that is your own bed. You are safe and comfortable right here. So just let the darkness settle behind your eyelids. Feel the soothing rhythm of your breath, gently lulling you into deeper relaxation and let that slow, gentle rhythm guide your whole body and mind.

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Gradually, the pace of your thoughts. Will fall into the same slower rhythm. And do you need to do from here on out is listen to Abby's voice in the background. Easing further into sleepiness with each calming moment. Now, Ipis just received the next batch of daily logs. So let's go and join her at Interstellar Command. Today is the third day of the mission and the lead engineers daily log has just arrived. Now, let's begin with Episode three, the logic of lead engineer Rona's mission, the witness conundrum they three.

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Well, I guess it's just you and me again, computer, I must spend at least half my days talking to computers or conduits or the engine of this ship, I guess, is to be expected as the lead engineer. I spend more time with the insides of RAM than I do with any of its crew members. And it's just as well. I've never really been much of a people person anyways. Ships are easier to understand. They aren't so complicated.

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I mean, they still have moods and opinions, that's for sure. But I've always found the more predictable than people, if you learn a ship, you can really know a ship. I'm still getting to know the RAM. It's a new ship with all new, sleek and shiny parts. I had a lot of fun being the first engineer to climb into some of the holding areas and pull off the wall coverings. I was the first to touch many of the control panels on this ship.

[00:07:13]

I know that probably sounds silly, but I think it was always a flashing lights on ships that made me want to become an engineer in the first place. As a kid, I used to look over my uncle's shoulder. He was an engineer, too. I'd watch him poke and prod at all the flashing lights on his circuit boards. He'd connect this to that and a light would go from red to green and it would be fixed like New Midnight Magic to me.

[00:07:45]

And it still is. If I'm being honest, every time I figure out a problem on a ship, I get that little surge of pride and wonder. And that's what's been particularly frustrating today. We have a serious plant problem that I just can't figure out how to fix ever since the Away team came back with that nozzle. My ship hasn't been working the way it's supposed to. I know this could be the scientific discovery of all time, but it is wreaking havoc on the rim.

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I'm not sure if the scientists just didn't know, but nobody informed me the flower grows like a weed. Yesterday, the team came back from the surface of Dawn Jacks, the lead science officer, put her plant trimmings in the lab overnight. The flower went crazy. Jack sent me a message this morning telling me to get down to the science lab as quickly as I could. I was already awake, of course, cleaning the floor panels in the engine room.

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I packed up my tool kit and headed for the lab. I didn't hurry that quickly because I figured a science emergency couldn't really be that bad. But it turns out I was wrong. They hit an ice flower, trimming it being inside a specimen container. Jack said, But when I got there, I found her picking up broken pieces of that container off the floor. It seems like overnight the flour sample grew this giant tendril that snaked up the wall and all the way back into one of the ventilation conduits.

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It also grew a bunch of small tendrils that were hanging down from the ceiling and sprouting new growth of their own. The tendrils were all covered with these bright green leaves and dark purple flowers. The plant had grown straight through to an empty specimen, tanks breaking the casing on both sides and had completely coiled around the workbench and Chad making it impossible to get to any of the tools in any of the drawers or to sit down where they used to be a ceiling.

[00:10:19]

That's now I can only describe as a miniature jungle. Smaller tendrils completely cover the top panels and the upper third of the walls. In some places, the ends hang down nearly to head height, all covered in leaves and flowers. I had to brush one out of my face when I first walked into the room. It would have been pretty in a way had it not damaged so many of the supplies in the science lab. We'll have to wait until we're docked back up Rinat to replace all of them.

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Of all the parts of the plant that were where they shouldn't be, the one that really concerned me was the tendril in the ventilation shaft. It's not affecting the function of the shaft. The thing is from that. A plant could theoretically get anywhere on the ship. The way the ship is designed means there's a crisscrossing series of large shafts and conduits that run through the walls. It's how you can get to one spot or another without taking the hallways.

[00:11:36]

For example, while most people spend their time in the common areas of the room.

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I spend a lot of my day crawling through shafts to get to the hard to reach places on the ship. When I saw the tendril in the ventilation shaft, I realized it could be spreading to the ship's other systems in areas without crawling back there to see for myself, I couldn't be sure exactly how much had been affected. So I grumbled at Jack's, she was nice about it, then I got all my tools and went for a climb, I removed the grill panel that leads to the shaft and climbed inside.

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Luckily, the vine followed the bottom of the shaft, so there was still plenty of room for me to edge along beside it. What I found was not encouraging. Through the night, this plant had sent its snaking arms through every open space it could find. Its leaves, flowers, buds and stems had pushed open control panels and encircled every button switch and. Nope, and it came across. One small, particularly determined tendril made its way back to a wiring bundle, was pretty key to the propulsion systems, it had crawled in and out between all the wires.

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The whole thing was a mess. I followed that piece as far as I could. The end of the tendril had shoved the wiring out of the way and jammed up the circuitry. About five minutes after I found it, the entire propulsion system went down. Now, that's not a huge problem since we're in orbit around the planet anyway, but it is problematic for me as the ship's engineer and it's a mystery I still haven't solved. Somehow I have to find a way to bypass the affected systems and make sure new growth from the plant doesn't cause similar issues again.

[00:14:01]

I've been working closely with Jacks in the science lab. She's trying to figure out how to contain the plant and keep it from growing so wildly. She's tried everything from special holding containers to force fields, but the plant just keeps on growing. She tried a water tank that didn't work and we ended up with a very wet floor. For my part, I've tried flipping the tendrils back and removing the pieces from the wiring, but every time I cut away the plant, new growth immediately sprouts from the parts I cut both on the main part of the plant and on the clipping.

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So basically, I just have two lines instead of one, and they're both growing even faster than before. The first time I tried to cut back the plant, I put the clipping in my pocket. The next thing I knew, it had grown right through a weak part in my scene and was hanging down the outside of my pant leg like a keychain. This all led me to wonder why the Away team hadn't mentioned how fast or extensively the hipness plant grows.

[00:15:29]

I asked Jax about it and she said they had no reason to suspect it would grow like this, apparently down on the surface of doom. The plant was pretty well contained, she said. There was a single vine growing on the ground near the entrance to the caves. There were no small tendrils. There was no mini jungle of hipness, flowers hanging from the top of the cave. The vines didn't sneak anywhere they weren't supposed to. All in all, it seemed like a very orderly and rather small vine, she said.

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In fact, that's why they didn't even bring back that large of a sample. They didn't want to take too much of the plant and affect the part that was still growing back on Don. She had taken some scans when she was on the surface and she showed them to me, it's true what she said, the vine really wasn't that big. Now she's trying to figure out what it is about this ship that's encouraging it to grow so quickly. Apparently, it's the perfect environment for growth, but nobody can figure out why.

[00:16:51]

Dr. Trailer is also working on the problem. He's analyzing the molecular structure of the hipness. NFL trying to understand how it grows and what supports its rapid growth here. He's had a challenging time keeping his sample under control, too, from what I hear. I guess it managed to break his first microscope, so he switched it over to the largest scanner so far. It seems to be working. All right. We can't wait to hear we find anything to help contain this clown would be welcome.

[00:17:31]

Right now. Normally, crew members record their logs in their quarters at night before they go to sleep, but I've got so much work to do, call it damage control, if you like that. I'm still back here in one of the smaller workspaces behind the engine room. My latest strategy is just trying to move the plant instead of cutting it back and causing more friends to grow. I'm Jack Cafferty. Shifting the line to places it won't do as much harm.

[00:18:09]

It's a complicated task, especially when the vine has wound itself around wayas as it has back here. What I have to do is take the leading end and trace it back through the wires, carefully untangling it as I go, I've got this fine mostly untangled now and I'm laying it on the ground. I'm hoping it will just keep going straight along the floor instead of finding any new complicated wiring to jumble itself up in. The amazing thing to me is that I can almost see this plant grow when you look at it close up, you don't notice the growth exactly.

[00:19:00]

But if you look away from it and then look back, you can see how far it's traveled in a fairly short amount of time. I've never encountered any kind of plant life quite like this before. When I was at the engineering academy, I remember learning about another kind of line that grows in the jungles of the planet. Clavering That line can grow hundreds of feet in length from a single point of origin. When scientists first discovered it in the thick tangle of trees that they thought it was multiple different plants wound together.

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It turns out that it was just one looping back on itself countless times in an effort to fill as much space as it could in the dense undergrowth that plants could only be contained by painting a thin mask of sugar on the end. You wanted to slow down. I only remember it now because it's such a strange solution to a problem. Who would have thought to paint sugar on the end of a vine in the first place? I actually asked Jack about it and she got really excited and tested it out on this wine and didn't seem to have any effect at all.

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She also told me lots about the plant that I can't remember now. She seemed to have fun describing it, although I think she's really into plants. I like plants well enough, but I just don't get that excited about them. Most of the time. I think I prefer metal and useful composites, which makes sense for an engineer. Well, I'm just about finished uncoiling what I can off the vine back here. I keep yawning and I'm starting to get tired.

[00:21:08]

I mean, I have been awake much longer than normal, but I usually don't get sleepy while I'm on an important job. Maybe this one's just being particularly tiring. I need to take a break for a bit at least. Who knows how long I'll have to keep redirecting and clearing these vines out. And I've been at it for quite a while now. Physical work is always tiring, especially when you're cramped in an air shaft. I can feel sleep reaching for me with its inevitable grasp, almost like the inevitable reach of these vines through the crevices of the shape.

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I guess I'll pack up my tools and head back to my quarters and try to catch a few hours of sleep before getting back to it tomorrow. And speaking of tomorrow, I need to talk to Dr. Trello about the possible effects of being around this flower for so long. It's supposed to put people to sleep. I don't think I'm feeling anything unusual right now, but it would be worth it to get a professional opinion. You never know what might happen from being in close contact with an alien species for too long.

[00:22:38]

Most of the time is fine, but it's always wise to be careful. This is lead engineer Rona's signing off. Good night. The look of Dr. Mariusz training mission, the conundrum day for. I'm getting very tired if I pause what I'm doing for more than just a few moments, I feel my eyelids start to grow heavy. My vision blurs until all I can see is a glossy landscape of colors and textures rather than objects around the room. My body feels as though there's a comforting weight on it, like a heavy blanket wrapped around my shoulders that drapes down to my knees, I feel safe and secure as if I were in a cocoon.

[00:23:56]

I made the mistake of putting my head down on my desk a few minutes ago, I had felt unbearably heavy. I had to close my eyes just for a moment. When I did it quick, he drifted off to that place behind my eyelids where everything was black. Small starbursts of yellow and white danced across the velvety background. I watched them like little fireworks against the night sky. I felt the thoughts of the day drifting off with my vision.

[00:24:39]

Oh, my research, all my experiments. Well, my notes gone without a trace, I started to forget why it was all so important, it seemed to be but a trivial problem from long ago that could bother me no more. My thoughts went to my family and friends, to all the people who make me smile and bring me comfort and happiness. And then my visions turned to the other members of my crew to Jacques's in her lab. And to the captain of the bridge to row in her engine room and the first officer in his quarters, I thought of them going about their daily tasks, making sure the ship is running smoothly, that all the bits and pieces are in the right places.

[00:25:37]

But what was my job aboard the ship that thought pulled me back to the present, to the now to why my research is critical for the crew. I'm the doctor. I'm the one who knows the most about this strange plant we found on the surface of Dawn, I'm the one leading the research into deep space travel cryo chambers and suspended aging through deep sleep. I'm the one who knows the power of the hypnotic flower better than anyone. And that's why I have to stay awake.

[00:26:19]

The practical application of this flower could forever change the way we travel long distances. We already have cryo chamber technology, which allows us to drop a person's cool temperature very low, keeping them in a kind of Stacie's. The hipness flower allows that person to sleep deeply and comfortably used together, both would allow crew members to travel for months or even years without aging and without feeling any discomfort at all. We could program ships to take us on missions to the far reaches of space we've only dreamed of visiting.

[00:27:05]

When we set out Dawn, we had envisioned finding the flower and bringing it back to the ship for testing, but something's gone wrong. We didn't account for one critical piece of the puzzle. How to prevent a hit n flour from working so well so fast and what to do if it did, we presumed the standard procedures and materials would work for containing and sustaining the plant on the ship. Although we had no way of knowing. It's clear now that we miscalculated.

[00:27:44]

You see all the plans we had with a closely monitored tests and the application of the plant in a controlled setting, we didn't plan for what to do if the plant grew and grew until the whole ship was overtaken. We didn't expect that to be Vine's a kilometer long, snaking their way through all of the dark and hidden parts of the ship, or thick growth hanging from the ceiling like a dense jungle. Walking through this ship now, you'd think it be some kind of terrarium and the crew just a part of some larger experiment.

[00:28:26]

Everywhere you look, there's green, there are tendrils with dark purple flowers and the leaves hanging from the ceilings, cutting down the walls, running along the floors and around tables and chairs. The inside of the ship is damp the way a greenhouse gas is. What happens when there's more plant life than any other in an enclosed space is beautiful in its own way. Watching this plant grow untamed. It's wild and raw. So unlike what we've come to expect from traveling through space.

[00:29:09]

But the greatest problem is we were right we were right about the hit, not how we were so incredibly right, it works. And I have no idea how to make it stop. When the first few crew members fell asleep, we didn't realize they'd done so because it had already come time for them to finish their shifts and rest. But then this morning, a security officer and a member of the science crew didn't report for their shifts. They were found still in their quarters, tucked away snugly under their sheets, fast asleep.

[00:29:55]

I was called to check on them, but nothing I did could wake them up. Throughout the day, more crew members from the night shift fell into the same deep sleep, we didn't alert the rest of the crew immediately for the captain and first officer. By afternoon or at the first officers had been told. Then we called an emergency meeting, RO, was that as was JAG's? Roe had just finished eating a late man in the mess hall when we called her in, she said she had been feeling unusually tired as she worked late uncoiling the plant from a wiring bundle.

[00:30:43]

I told her then to try and stay awake. She fell asleep at the end of the meeting, she laid her head down on the table despite our protests. It was as though she were overtaken by the uncontrollable need to sleep. We moved her from the table to sickbay. She's laying on one of the medical beds in the corner here now. I brought her pillow and some blankets and have been keeping watch over her ever since, monitoring her for any changes.

[00:31:20]

But there haven't been any. She's perfectly sane and sleeping like I've never seen anyone sleep before. This morning, Jack also didn't report first shift. We found her in her quarters, too, with her head on the table in her living area. She'd been writing in a journal in an attempt to stay awake, but sleep, it seems, one out. It makes sense that Roe and Jacks were two of the first to fall under the hipness flower spell.

[00:31:57]

They had both been in close contact with Italian and had spent a lot of time working hands on with the plant. The two crew who first succumbed were also on the away team by late afternoon today, more than half the crew had fallen asleep. Some lay down in the hallways and corridors. Others made it to their quarters. Stillmore fell asleep at the tables in the mess hall, at the stations on the bridge and their work spaces around the ship.

[00:32:34]

We moved as many of them as we could to their beds, but after a while it became too much to do. We made sure they were all comfortable where they were and focused our attention on the hipness floor. The ship monitors the vital signs of all the crew members at all times. I've been checking the stats every 15 minutes. About an hour ago, the captain and first officer fell asleep. Now I'm the only one left who's still awake.

[00:33:08]

It's like we've become a ghost ship. Naturally, I've been going over what went wrong. What did we miss? When the Away team collected the sample on the surface of dawn? I know they were careful, but there must have been something that in its natural environment that kept the plant in check. It may have been something about the atmosphere, but I don't think so. I've gone over all the readings from the planet's surface and tested small portions of the mine in atmospheric controlled containers.

[00:33:46]

But it doesn't make a difference. My guess is it was something far more simple. I think there must have been something on the surface of the planet that used the vine as a food source, maybe it was some kind of animal or insect, perhaps that would make sense. If we brought the vine here but failed to bring the kind of creature that somehow prevents its unrestrained growth, it would account for why we can't get it to stop now. It's a classic situation of an invasive plant species when brought to a new environment without other species evolved to keep it in check.

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The plant takes over. At least that's my best theory at this point in time. I'm tagging this log, I'm recording with emergency priority.

[00:34:45]

My hope is that if we fail to maintain communication with Rheinhardt Station, they'll send out a search party and find us here. If they repay my log, then have some understanding of what came to pass on our ship, if only so they can protect themselves before they, too, fall into a deep and unwavering sleep to anyone listening. If you can travel to the surface of dawn, try and find what subdues the hipness floor. Figure out why it doesn't grow so wildly that.

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I'm sure that's where you'll also find the secret of how to wake us all up. The other forms of life on DAUn were not asleep, so they must have some way of avoiding the hipness flower's effects. That's the other problem. You see, I have no idea how to wake anyone up. I've tried a range of stimulant electric stimulation. Every means we know nothing works. We're lucky, at least that this is a safe part of the system.

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I have never been accounts of anything bad happening here. Occasionally trading ships pass through, but that's it. For that reason, anyone must also take great care in coming aboard the RAM. The power of the flower lies in its pollen. Anyone who comes aboard must take precautions. Under no circumstances should they breathe the contaminated air. Well, respirators must be worn at all times while on board the room, so long as the hipness plant is growing at its current rate.

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Despite all of this, I'm not worried. I know someone will listen to our logs and find out what's happened here. Now, find the solution and administer whatever is needed to wake us up again. And until then, we'll just have had a nice long sleep in a funny way, it's what we all joke about needing and now we have it. Everyone on board is certainly getting the good night's sleep that they deserve is hard work on these missions.

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There's something else I should mention, the captain was the last person away except for me. With her now asleep, full control of the ship has now passed to me, I've established emergency protocols for the ship. It will remain in orbit until someone manually takes control of the helm with the proper interstellar command codes. I've also set up protective force fields around all of the crew members, including me. Anyone with the same command codes can deactivate them. I've put a lock on our life support systems to keep them functioning normally.

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I've also made sure the seniors officers Lokes have all been tagged with emergency priority like mine. They'll begin playing automatically should the proper codes be entered. As a final precaution, I've done something now everyone may agree with, but I believe it's our best option we have on board the ship a sellick model S and 29 Android. Until now, the Android has been performing a number of tasks around the ship, typically in spaces that are challenging for living crew members to be in, but the SL and 29 is capable of much more than that.

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It can do complex calculations better than any living crew member. It's capable of advanced analysis and could perform research with great precision than even I could. At least that's what testing environments have shown. These androids, though exceptional, have never been used in the field for advanced human functioning activities. I've had the chance to interact with the S.L and 29 a few times, it has a personality function with the ability to adapt and learn. That means it can actually learn to interact like a living crew member.

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No one has ever really explored what this means for the future of space travel or for these androids. They're still seen as machines in the eyes of Interstellar Command, but I believe there's potential. That's why I am now also transferring emergency command codes to the SLN 29. I have instructed it not to move the ship from orbit, but it will be able to take emergency action if the need arises. I've also instructed it to keep watch over the living crew members and make sure they're doing all right.

[00:40:16]

I've been yawning every few minutes and I feel my eyelids growing heavy again, so heavy I need to stay awake, but everything in me is calling for sleep. I don't think I can keep myself awake much longer, so I'm going to finish up this log and send it, if anyone listens to this, send assistance, the ship should be fine on autopilot for a long time. But with all of the crew asleep, we may be left orbiting Dawn forever.

[00:40:54]

And be careful with the witness. It's more powerful than we ever imagined. This is Dr. Trailor signing off. Good night.