17 characters: Peters, Larissa, Renata, Announcer, Ex-mayor, Stone, Sanders, Lawrence, Marissa, Ahmadi, Hernandez, Tojo, Therapist, Saetang, Jim, Ambassador One, Crowd
Click on a character's name to get their lines highlighted.
Peters (26 lines, 358 words, 10.74%) - [David Loftus] Salish Peters, chief mechanic. Great-grandfather was the first mission commander, and he never tires of telling people so and relating the stories of Earth he remembers hearing from great-grandpa. Sensible, direct, kind of average working Joe. Now about to turn 70, he has a husband and two grown kids.
Jim (17 lines, 233 words, 6.99%) - [SlimSamVO] Jim O'Hara is an ore extractor who works in the mines. He has a chip on his shoulder and is a little resentful of the desk jockeys who run things and know nothing of real work and real danger. In short, he has an attitude when dealing with the detectives. A fairly macho guy.
Tojo (4 lines, 92 words, 2.76%) - [Gwenith Knight] Farah Tojo is a bright young adult who's an apprentice mechanic. Brings a youthful eagerness and excitement to the job.
Saetang (15 lines, 154 words, 4.62%) - [Sova Reign] Detective Aranya Saetang has now been on the job for 22 years. Sometimes she's still a little annoyed about having to share the office with Ahmadi, but she tries to bury her resentment.
Renata (26 lines, 345 words, 10.35%) - [Kathleen Li] Renata Mutombo is the mayor for 22 years now. Now around 50 years old. Ambitious and competent. No longer in campign mode, she should sound more natural and less practiced than before.
Ahmadi (34 lines, 305 words, 9.15%) - [Paul Knierim] Detective Arash Ahmadi is now 46 and married to Marissa Flint.
Ambassador One (11 lines, 130 words, 3.9%) - [Azure] Ambassador One is a Centaurian. They communicate non-verbally, so in order to be understood by humans they wear machine translators.
Larissa (16 lines, 250 words, 7.5%) - [Lindsay Townsend] Chief Mech Larissa Flint is now 40 years old and much more experienced than last season.
Ex-mayor (22 lines, 511 words, 15.33%) - [Roger Arnold] Mayor Renata Mutombo's father, a former mayor himself, really misses being in the middle of everything. At 82 years old, he's struggling to reconcile with his declining years and wants to find a way to matter again.
Therapist (14 lines, 299 words, 8.97%) - [Ahmad Joudeh] Doctor Tam Peters is the husband of Salish Peters and therapist to all.
Marissa (12 lines, 264 words, 7.92%) - [Virginia Hargrove] Communications Chief Marissa Flint is 48 years old and enjoys the responsibilities of her new job. She's now married to Arash Ahmadi... turns out there was some jealousy behind her previous spite for him, but they're still playfully combative at times.
Sanders (7 lines, 89 words, 2.67%) - [Erin Suminsby] Chief botanist Juliana Sanders is now in her 40s and mellowed, with dreams of revolution far behind her... but she'd still love to return to Earth.
Stone (2 lines, 40 words, 1.2%) - [John Gaunce] Doctor Stone has become ever more wrapped up in his research over the years and resents being torn away from it.
Lawrence (2 lines, 16 words, 0.48%) - [James Lorenz] Chief Lawrence heads up astronomy section.
Hernandez (1 line, 7 words, 0.21%) - [Lindsay White] Eva Hernandez's job is undefined at the moment, but she's definitely there at the meeting.
Crowd (4 lines, 38 words, 1.14%) - [??] Crowd noises.
Announcer (3 lines, 203 words, 6.09%) - [Erin Suminsby] Reads opening, closing and credits.
Script format: Margined | Marginless (for phone viewing)
Listen along as you read:
1 SOUND: mechanical work, finally tapping metal panel
2 Peters: There, that should do it.
3 Larissa: [sfx: communications filter] Are you sure about this, boss?
4 Peters: You’re going to have to stop calling me that, Chief Flint. I’m not your boss anymore.
5 Larissa: You’ll always be the boss to me, and ‘Mission Specialist Peters’ just doesn’t sound right.
6 Peters: Sounds right to me, this little ship has been my mission and my life lately. Okay, are you ready for burn telemetry?
7 Larissa: [concerned] Are you sure this is a good idea? Why not bring it in for a landing and then test the full burn remotely? What if there's another guidance system malfunction?
8 SOUND: Peters lies on takeoff couch and fastens seatbelt-type straps, under the following
9
Peters:
I can get these fixes done so much faster by testing while I’m on board, and we don't have much time if we're going to have it ready for Tau Ceti.
I’ll just do a 5 second burn here, starting 10 seconds from now.
10 Larissa: [reluctantly] If you insist. Make sure your straps are secure.
11 Peters: Three, two, one…
12 SOUND: enormous rocket noise, maybe find what shuttles sounded like from inside
13 Larissa: [upset] Cut the engine, boss!
14 Peters: [upset] I’m trying! The injector’s stuck!
15 Larissa: [upset] Hit the emergency cutoff!
16 Peters: Already did! It’s this new fuel mixture, must’ve caused a runaway reaction, I’ll have to wait for it to burn out!
17 SOUND: rocket noise stops
18 Peters: There.
19 Larissa: [urgently] What’s your velocity?
20 SOUND: checking instruments
21 Peters: Relative to Mathilde, about half a kilometer a second. [defeated] At least I proved this mixture can provide sufficient acceleration for our needs.
22 SOUND: touch sounds of larissa patching in renata
23 Renata: [sfx: also processed] Peters, Chief Flint patched me in. What’s your situation?
24 Peters: Hopeless as far as I can see, mayor. Out of fuel.
25 Larissa: Don’t give up, boss. Maybe there’s something else you could use for some propulsion.
26 Peters: I'd get out and push, if it weren't for the vacuum and Newton's third law.
27 Renata: We’ll get everybody working on this, and we’ll figure something out.
28 Peters: You don’t have any other ships to reach me with.
29 Larissa: We’ll think of something.
30 Peters: And I don’t even have any food or water.
31 Renata: Understood. We’ll do our best for you.
32 Peters: I appreciate that, mayor.
33 SOUND: end scene
34 SOUND: opening theme
35 Announcer: Quiet Please dot org presents Two Fifty Three Mathilde. In the early 22nd century, the crewed asteroid 253 Mathilde left the solar system on an interstellar mission. Generations later, after a hundred and fourteen years, a new star system stretches out in front of them…
36 Announcer: Episode 8 - Unknowns
37 Renata: Dad, you can’t be serious!
38 Ex-mayor: I’ve never been *more* serious.
39 Renata: [angry] You’re 82 years old! How the hell do you expect to take eight gees acceleration and then fend for yourself on an alien planet with who knows what dangers?!
40 Ex-mayor: I’m still in decent shape and injections will help. But face it, this is a one way mission, a suicide mission even if everything goes to plan… and unlike the other candidates, I’m expendable.
41 Renata: [upset] Why would you say that? Nobody’s expendable!
42 Ex-mayor: Well if anybody were expendable, I’d be the first pick. I’m old, I don’t have many years ahead anyway. I haven’t had a purpose here for 22 years. I’ve just been rotting away, a discarded memory nobody wants to think about.
43 Renata: [upset] That’s not true, dad!
44 Ex-mayor: I’m just not built for retirement. I can't keep spending my days doing sudoku or playing hoverball. Every time I think I've come to terms with it, I discover I really haven't.
45 Renata: If you feel that way you can get a job, hydroponics is always looking for people!
46 Ex-mayor: After you’ve been mayor, being a drone doesn't cut it! I need to *matter*, I need to be doing something *important*. This mission is a way I can make a difference again and spend the rest of my life doing something momentous!
47 SOUND: emergency alert beep, fiddling with multicom
48 Renata: Sorry dad, there’s an emergency, I’ve got to take this.
49 SOUND: another beep
50 Renata: Peters, Chief Flint patched me in. What’s your situation?
51 Peters: [sfx: processed] Hopeless as far as I can see, mayor. Out of fuel.
52 Larissa: [sfx: processed] Don’t give up. Maybe there’s something else you could use for some propulsion.
53 Peters: I'd get out and push, if it weren't for the vacuum and Newton's third law.
54 Renata: We’ll get everybody working on this, and we’ll figure something out.
55 Peters: You don’t have any other ships to reach me with.
56 Larissa: We’ll think of something.
57 Peters: And I don’t even have any food or water.
58 Renata: Understood. We’ll do our best for you.
59 Peters: I appreciate that, mayor.
60 SOUND: beep of cutting off intercom
61 Ex-mayor: This is exactly the sort of situation I want to be involved in!
62 Renata: [skeptical] What could *you* contribute here?
63 Ex-mayor: Experience! I’ve been through so many things I can draw on! You know, this is kind of like that time twenty two years ago but that time Flint was in the air and Peters was trying to bring her back safe, now we've got the reverse.
64 Renata: *sighs* Well, you can come along to the meeting if you promise not to get in the way.
65 Ex-mayor: I might surprise you!
66 Renata: God knows we need every idea we can get, to have any chance of saving Peters.
67 SOUND: meeting room, crowd somewhat busy but quiets when someone speaks
68 Renata: We have to prioritize the problems here to buy time. What’s the first thing that’s going to kill him? Air, food, water?
69 Larissa: His air should last a couple weeks.
70 Stone: He could live weeks without food, but he won't last more than three days without water.
71 Renata: We've got a lot of people here, let’s split into two teams for the moment, one to work on the water problem and the rest of us to work on the propulsion problem.
72 Ex-mayor: I can lead the water group.
73 Renata: Chief Sanders, you’ll lead the water group. Take my dad and whoever you need with you and use the other conference room.
74 Sanders: Yes mayor. Tojo, Winkowski, Hernandez, Lee, Stone, you’re all with me.
75 Stone: I don't see how my medical expertise can contribute anything more, I have an important research experiment running I need to get back to.
76 Renata: If you say so doctor, but stay available on multicom in case anyone has a question for you.
77 SOUND: Sanders and her group depart, door closes behind them
78 Renata: Okay, we’ve got a bit of a riddle here. How do we return a craft home to us that has no fuel?
79 Larissa: We can’t move his ship, so we’re going to have to move somebody over to him.
80 Renata: But we don’t have any other ships.
81 Larissa: That’s the problem.
82 Renata: Could we build one?
83 Larissa: Give me six months, and maybe.
84 Renata: Then what’s left?
85 Lawrence: Excuse me for interrupting.
86 Renata: Go right ahead, Lawrence.
87 Lawrence: Well, we don’t have a ship, but we *are* a ship.
88 Renata: Chief Flint, could we maneuver Mathilde to catch Peters?
89 Larissa: [cautiously] Given his trajectory, we’d have to turn around, and you can’t turn a 50 kilometer asteroid on a dime. If we turn over the way we’re designed for it’ll take a month. And the longer it takes to turn over, the longer it takes to backtrack from there to catch him. And then our gravity would draw him into a crash landing... I can't think of a way to make that survivable at the moment, I don't think it's possible to give Mathilde the kind of fine-grained mutli-direction maneuvering to counter his acceleration at the last second.
90 Renata: Well, it’s a new set of problems to work on. Better than what we had before.
91 SOUND: end scene
92 SOUND: communications room tone, then door opens and footsteps enter
93 Marissa: [casually] Hey Arash, what brings you to my work?
94 Ahmadi: Did you hear about Peters, hun?
95 Marissa: [good natured ribbing] That’s a stupid question to ask the communications chief. I hear about everything.
96 Ahmadi: True, true. I guess I really just want to know if you’ve heard anything I haven’t.
97 Marissa: [good naturedly] You want me to abuse my position to give you special insider information?
98 Ahmadi: [kidding] Sure, why do you think I married you?
99 Marissa: Well I guess our years together have all been for nothing, because I haven’t heard anything new of any consequence. Everybody’s hard at work trying to do the impossible.
100 Ahmadi: Your sister will come up with something.
101 SOUND: incoming data stream noise from episode 4
102 Marissa: It’s Earth data stream time in here right now.
103 Ahmadi: How much are we getting now?
104 Marissa: Just a few hundred megabytes a day after the error correction. But that’s pretty impressive at almost 12 light years.
105 Ahmadi: Strange to be here in the year 2220 receiving messages from 2208.
106 Marissa: The weird part is trying to figure out what year it is on Earth right now.
107 Ahmadi: How’s that?
108 Marissa: You could say that their equivalent of 2220 is 2224 becuase of four years of time dilation -- time passes faster on Earth than for us, so they're sort of in our future. But you could also say they’re in 2208 because that’s when the transmissions are from, and the last moment any cause on Earth can have an effect out here. Or you could even say Earth is in 2236 because that's the soonest causality can propagate from here back to them. The concept of ‘right now’ just doesn’t properly apply anymore at these speeds and distances, it's decades vague.
109 Ahmadi: We can’t say 2220 for them?
110 Marissa: If they could see us, it’d look like we’re walking around in slow motion now. Time is passing at different rates here and there.
111 Ahmadi: Relativity gives me a headache.
112 Marissa: They'd also see length contraction.
113 Ahmadi: Hm.
114 Marissa: That means they'd think you're getting thinner instead of fatter.
115 Ahmadi: [jovially] Too bad you can't see me from that perspective. Well Marissa I gotta get back to security, not that anything ever happens there. See you after work.
116 Marissa: Hopefully I’ll have some good news for you by then.
117 SOUND: footsteps, door open/close
118 SOUND: meeting room
119 Sanders: I just don’t see how we’re supposed to create water that Peters didn’t bring with him.
120 Hernandez: Condense it from moisture in the air?
121 Sanders: That might get him a few drops if he had a condenser, but the ship is a low-humidity environment. There’s not enough moisture in his air to significantly extend his life.
122 Ex-mayor: What about other systems?
123 Sanders: What do you mean?
124 Ex-mayor: Is there any other system in the ship that uses water for some purpose? What about the toilet?
125 Sanders: Suction-based, it doesn't use water.
126 Tojo: [excitedly interjecting] The cooling system!
127 Sanders: It has a cooling system?
128 Tojo: The whole point of the ship is to visit Tau Ceti's inner system, where it’s going to need cooling on the sunward side. The easy way to normalize that heat is a fluid exchange with the shaded side, and water is the most abundant fluid. The system is already installed for testing.
129 Ex-mayor: Okay, how much water are we talking about there?
130 SOUND: shifting, looking up info on multicom
131 Tojo: Should be about eight liters in total.
132 Ex-mayor: A person can survive on half a liter a day. We can ration that water to last for the two weeks of air he's got.
133 Sanders: *If* we can find a way for him to extract the water.
134 Tojo: He can open up the inner hull to get at it. He’ll lose some radiation and meteorite protection, but that’s not really a concern at the moment.
135 Ex-mayor: [proudly] Good job everybody, I think we’ve accomplished our goal.
136 SOUND: end scene
137 Therapist: Salish, I heard what happened, are you okay?!
138 Peters: [sfx: processed] [with a little laugh] No dear, of course I’m not okay.
139 Therapist: I guess that was a stupid question. How are you– uh, is there anything I can do for you?
140 Peters: [wryly] You could make me dinner, Tam. I’d really appreciate that right now.
141 Therapist: You might not appreciate it if I set it in front of the camera and make you look at it.
142 Peters: True.
143 Therapist: [frustrated and sad] What were you thinking, Salish? You’re too old to be playing astronaut, you didn’t have to be on board for that test!
144 Peters: Maybe I was thinking people think I’m too old for these kinds of things so it might be my last opportunity.
145 Therapist: [angry] So you just decide to go throw away your life on a stupid risk because you’re afraid people will say you’re too old to throw away your life on stupid risks?!
146 Peters: You’re a lot younger than me, Tam. You can’t understand what it’s like. Facing obsolescence. Seeing the end of everything you’ve worked for barreling toward you.
147 Therapist: You’re right, I can’t understand. You have a family who love you, you have the respect of everybody, you had a happy retirement ahead of you and you’d have been welcome to tinker with projects to keep busy.
148 Peters: But I wouldn’t really matter anymore. Once this ship is complete, I’m not needed.
149 Therapist: I need you, Salish. Our kids need you. Your friends need you. Aren’t we enough?
150 Peters: I'm sorry I've made you feel you're not enough. I'll think about what you've said. Goodnight Tam, we'll talk tomorrow.
151 SOUND: end scene with long music to indicate passing into next day
152 SOUND: security room tone
153 Saetang: Are you sure it’s not natural?
154 Jim: [sfx: processed] Do you think I'm a complete idiot? I recognize a machine when I see one.
155 Saetang: You’re sure it’s not one of ours?
156 Jim: [sfx: processed] We’ve never drilled here before. If you can explain for me how something of ours got nine kilometers underground in front of the drill, I'd love to hear it.
157 SOUND: door opens and Ahmadi walks in during above line
158 Saetang: Good morning Ahmadi, you’re going to want to hear this.
159 Ahmadi: Oh, do we have our first crime of the year?
160 Saetang: No, but we’ve got our first mystery.
161 Jim: [sfx: processed] Damn right we do.
162 Ahmadi: Who’s that?
163 Jim: Jim O’Hara from mining section. We were drilling a new ore tunnel like any other day when we ran into a metal cage.
164 Ahmadi: What? In a new tunnel?
165 Jim: And inside the cage, there’s some kind of machine.
166 Ahmadi: Another drill?
167 Jim: No, I mean like a computer. But not one of ours.
168 Saetang: Have you got an air seal around the area yet?
169 Jim: Figured you’d want that, we’ll have an atmosphere in a few minutes.
170 Ahmadi: Don’t touch anything. We’ll be right there to check it out.
171 Jim: [sarcastically] Sure, I wouldn't dream of messing anything up before you *smart* people take over.
172 SOUND: beep of closing conversation
173 Saetang: Maybe we should bring Ambassador One?
174 Ahmadi: Why?
175 Saetang: If it’s not our tech, maybe it’s theirs?
176 Ahmadi: Hm. I don’t see how they could’ve planted something down there, but sure, have the ambassador meet us there.
177 SOUND: end scene
178 SOUND: therapy room tone from ep 5
179 Ex-mayor: Doctor Peters, I'd understand if you wanted to cancel, under the circumstances.
180
Therapist:
No, I'd rather be here trying to think about your situation than at home thinking about my husband's situation without being able to do anything about it.
So did you bring up the mission with your daughter like you planned?
181 Ex-mayor: Yeah, this morning.
182 Therapist: And?
183 Ex-mayor: She blew up at me. Treated me like I was being ridiculous, wouldn't even consider letting me go. Made me feel like a child.
184 Therapist: [growing progressively irritated] An octogenarian pilot for the most challenging and dangerous job of our lifetimes is a hard sell. You know, you're as crazy as Salish. I'll bet he was planning on volunteering for the mission too. He had no business flying that ship at his age, and look where it's got him.
185 Ex-mayor: I envy him.
186 Therapist: [angry] You're jealous that my husband is dying out there all alone?!
187 Ex-mayor: Not of the dying part, but of getting to take those risks. He still matters, he still gets to work on things critical to our mission, he still gets to make his own decisions. He hasn't been put out to pasture quite yet.
188 Therapist: He seems to agree with you. But can't you find safe, age-appropriate ways to contribute to society?
189 Ex-mayor: I wrangled my way into a bit of that. Convinced Renata to let me participate in the emergency meeting.
190 Therapist: How did that go for you?
191 Ex-mayor: It made me feel alive again, just for a bit. I came up with the idea to look for water in ship systems and helped buy your husband a couple weeks to be rescued.
192 Therapist: Thanks for that, and sounds like some great progress for you too!
193 Ex-mayor: [frustrated] But... the way I was treated for it! Renata was just trying to get me out of her hair by moving me to the water committee. She put Juliana Sanders in charge of it, even though I've got about 50 times her leadership experience. And if you ask any of them, they're probably giving apprentice Tojo all the credit for knowing the technical details and I'll bet nobody noticed how my problem solving experience contributed.
194 SOUND: end scene
195 SOUND: tube travel sound effect, maybe getting progressively more primitive before halting. Small room reverb on voices.
196 Ambassador One: Why are we going into the mines? I know very little about mining technology, I do not see how I can help.
197 Ahmadi: Ambassador, we’ve just discovered what appears to be non-human technology. Naturally we wonder if it could’ve been placed by your people.
198 Ambassador One: In a mineshaft?
199 Ahmadi: That’s correct. About 9 kilometers down.
200 Ambassador One: We have never done any mining on this asteroid.
201 Saetang: But could one of your people have placed a burrowing device meant to go deep into Mathilde, for some scientific purpose?
202 Ambassador One: I have heard of no such thing.
203 Ahmadi: Perhaps you weren’t told.
204 Ambassador One: That is not the way we do things. Besides, we have no such technology capable of burying itself under nine kilometers of rock. I am afraid I have nothing to tell you.
205 Saetang: Well, that’s why I asked you to bring your scanner. Maybe you’ll be able to detect something important about it that we can’t.
206 Ambassador One: That is possible.
207 SOUND: movement noises stop, sound of some beeps and getting up and stretching and ruffling clothes
208 Ahmadi: Okay, atmosphere outside registers good and the heat will last us a while too. No need to suit up, but do put on these hard hats because there's a lot of sharp rocks out there.
209 SOUND: passing out hard hats and putting them on, then sound of door unsealing and opening. Reverb type changes to larger room reverb.
210 Jim: [impatiently] There you are, took long enough.
211 Saetang: We came as fast as we could, it’s a long way over and a long way down.
212 SOUND: sound of them stepping down into rubble, then walking. low gravity as engines are not running.
213 Ahmadi: So where is this inexplicable device?
214 Jim: Keep your shirt on. It’s just up here. Here’s the cage.
215 SOUND: they halt
216 Ambassador One: Vanadium.
217 Saetang: [confused] What?
218 Ambassador One: The cage is constructed of vanadium. A rare metal. It does not occur naturally in 253 Mathilde, it can only have been manufactured.
219 Ahmadi: I think we’d ruled out the possibility of a naturally-occurring cage already. Detective Saetang, can you point your light at the same spot as mine?
220 Jim: That’s the device.
221 SOUND: centaurian scanner
222 Ambassador One: I will need to approach it in order to get accurate readings.
223 Ahmadi: Mr. O’Hara?
224 Jim: Call me Jim, we’re not so formal down here like you folk who sit behind desks all day tend to be.
225 Ahmadi: Jim, can you get us in?
226 Jim: Thought you’d be asking that, so I brought a plasma arc.
227 Ahmadi: Okay, let me have it.
228 Jim: Are you crazy? You’d probably kill yourself. Stand back while I open it up.
229 SOUND: they stand back, welding sounds, then kicking in of metal
230 Ahmadi: Can we go through now?
231 Jim: Just be very careful not to touch the metal, or you’ll get a burn you'll never forget.
232 Ahmadi: The hole looks plenty big, let's go.
233 SOUND: movement noise, then computery fx fade in as they approach indicating the device is still functioning
234 Ahmadi: Looks like it's functioning.
235 Saetang: If only we can figure out what its function is...
236 SOUND: centaurian scanner
237 Ahmadi: Looks pretty old.
238 Ambassador One: Actually, Ahmadi, it looks quite young for its age.
239 Ahmadi: What age is that?
240 Ambassador One: This device is between eight and nine thousand years old.
241 Ahmadi: WHAT?!
242 Saetang: HOW?!
243 Jim: [scolding] I'd give that scanner a good long diagnostic if I were you, Ambassador.
244 Ahmadi: I'll scrape up a sample for Doctor Stone to analyze, that should settle it.
245 Saetang: I wouldn't touch that until we've--
246 SOUND: electric shock, grunt and falling body
247 Jim: [disparagingly] I knew that know-at-all would get himself hurt!
248 Saetang: Help me out here, let's get him to Doctor Stone!
249 SOUND: closing theme
250 Announcer: You've been listening to Two Fifty-Three Mathilde, episode eight: Unknowns. Created, written, produced and directed by Paul Knierim. Specialist Salish Peters is David Loftus. Jim O'Hara is SlimSamVO. Apprentice Tojo is Gwenith Knight. Astronomy Chief Lawrecnce is James Lorenz. Eva Hernandez is Lindsay White. Detective Aranya Saetang is Sova Reign. Mayor Renata Mutombo is Kathleen Li. Detective Arash Ahmadi is Paul Knierim. Chief Mech Larissa Flint is Lindsay Townsend. Ambassador One is Microsoft Azure neural voice Eric. The mayor's father is Roger Arnold. Doctor Stone is John Gaunce. Doctor Peters is Ahmad A.J. Joudeh. Communications Chief Marissa Flint is Virginia Hargrove. Chief Botanist Juliana Sanders is Erin Suminsby. The announcer is Erin Suminsby. Sound effects and music courtesy free sound dot org, a sound effect dot com, free p d dot com and audionautix dot com. This program is licensed for free reuse and redistribution. Hear more episodes at quietplease dot org slash two fifty-three.
251 Crowd: But how do we move him without fuel?
252 Crowd: Could we build some sort of rudimentary ship real quick?
253 Crowd: I don't think that idea can work.
254 Crowd: We don't have the materials or labor to even begin to contemplate that.