Episode 15

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.

"That cracking isn’t more of this ship disintegrating. Though, as I’m part-willingly smuggled from Saienten to evade unjust criminal punishment, I’ve come to expect it of this knackered zoomer. However, I suspect it’s more down to Maybrick’s piloting than build quality. No, that’s my spine. Maybrick “acquired” an auto-chiropractor, like you see painted with gormless grins in thrift malls. Bloody scary story, actually."

"Two hours hence we were in the cockpit. Maybrick’s prattling about Saienten actually being hollow was mercifully curtailed by a sudden collision. We’re traversing Oscar’s Doldrums, so empty it’s unheard of to even see anything, never mind bash into it. Nothing massive, but significant enough to require a damage check."

"I was preparing to join Maybrick for a spacewalk when we heard a clanking across the roof. We followed, but not before Maybrick had readied a massive Gulo assault rifle."

"Upon our arrival, the UFO had bored into a cargo chamber. The ship’s microdrones had already knitted the breach closed behind. It, or rather, she was a vision of unmitigated terror, forever seared into my retina."

"Perturbat, as she called herself, occupied a zeo so chaotically modified I couldn’t begin to identify it. Despite its machine nature, it was horrifying, like it had an extremely aggressive, mechanical version of papillomas. She was directly wired in via clearly painful, weeping, amateur surgery. Resultant tissue damage and infection riddled her."

"Naturally, there was a stand-off, Maybrick versus Perturbat, the latter brandishing a bizarre firearm and sucking on a battery. I simmered things down, though, letting her divulge with aggressive panic that an immeasurable robot, Big Bad Z, is hunting humanity through the stars. Humans must merge with zeos to become a species capable of repelling it."

"Throughout this I was gingerly approaching. Her Kanai-Edelman Bridge, standard human-zeo mental link, was blood-encrusted, partially grown over with skin and pulsing wildly. It must’ve been driving her insane."

"As I reached to remove it, fury took hold of her and she of me. Perturbat tried to pull me apart. Maybrick let rip with the Gulo, reopening the freshly repaired hull. Decompression hurled Perturbat outwards and I felt the spinal snap of the cord I’d anchored myself with, while the cyborg horror was swallowed by the empty darkness of space."

"'Big Bad Z? An’ you fort I was mad,' Maybrick remarked as he carried me to the auto-chiropractor."

  • ‘Nuhu’ movement
  • Largely omninet-based, with adherents described as ‘the chronically logged on’.
  • Zeo technology commonly treated as quasi-sacred.
  • Core tenets: Belief in a cosmically large robot, usually depicted as a mechanical dragon, wolf, loong or jaddat that is searching space for humanity with the aim of its destruction, as described in their quasi-sacred text ‘The Lore’ (authors unknown). This robot, referred to by names including (but not limited to) Big Bad Z, Big Z, Z, Zain, Zayn, Zed, Zed of the Dead, Z the Destroyer, Z the Winged Serpent, can only be combated by humans merging with zeos to become a ‘superior race’ of cyborgs called ‘nuhu’. Several dates predicted as ‘the Coming of Big Bad Z/Z-Day’ have come and gone without incident, with several more still to pass.
  • No adherents known to have become ‘nuhu’ beyond minor, superficial, amateur implants. Innumerable images, videos and holos on the omni-net claiming to be of nuhu individuals have all been proven hoaxes.

These journals were recorded via Tymphony Aural Augmetics… TAA: Listen Up!