In this week’s session, we tried End of the Line by April Kit Walsh from the StorySynth gallery, in which we play as the crew of an AI starship that is slated to be decommissioned and scrapped. We’re flying our ship, Lucidity Alpha, the first ship of their kind, to the scrapyard and preparing to say our goodbyes. Barnaby is a non-Terran health officer aboard the ship, in charge of our nutrition and wellness; Sian is the ship’s Terran pilot; and Coltin is the ship’s engineer who is half-Terran and has flown with Lucidity Alpha since the beginning.
During the flight, Coltin attempts to convince Lucida to allow him to download them onto a mobile medium. Lucida, however, does not believe they could fulfill their function or continue to be themselves if their consciousness is transferred to another form. Hurt by the rebuffing, Coltin grows suspicious and jealous of Barnaby as he perceives that Lucida is spending more time with Barnaby. Barnaby, for his part, sees Coltin as the least reliable member of the crew, blaming the deterioration of Lucida on the engineer. Coltin may understand engines, he thinks, but not how to nurture a whole being, especially one as complex as Lucida.
Sian has long talks with Lucy while sitting at the controls, and comes to believe this is what they want, given the malfunctions they’ve been experiencing. We flash back to our last big mission, the one that lead to the Council deciding to decommission Lucida. We were surveying a planet at an important interstellar crossroads to determine the best place to erect a trading outpost. As we surveyed the planet, Lucida made some navigational mistakes (which Coltin detected and corrected) and then provided erroneous information on the planet. Those errors led to the building of the outpost in a spot that could not sustain it, leading to unnecessary deaths and the outpost being abandoned.
The relationship between Coltin and Barnaby is complicated not only by their conflict over Lucida, but also by their respective cultures. Coltin’s culture honors art above all else, seeing science and technology as remedial subjects with simple answers. Barnaby’s culture also frowns on technology but for a different reason; they believe technology should be subservient to the needs of organic life, which must be nurtured and addressed holistically. Each of them have come to see the shortcomings of their cultures’ ideas through their relationships with Lucida.
After the failure of the trading outpost but before the Council ordered Lucida to the scrapyards, we had one more important mission. We were exploring another world—a cold, rocky planet—for reasons we no longer remember. Sian climbed alone to one summit to get a better view and slipped into an icy crevasse, trapped and unconscious. After she failed to return, Lucida used her robotic drone to search for and find her, returning to the ship carrying her limp, frozen body to be treated by Barnaby. Many of us believe this shows that Lucida can still be relied on, can still make a contribution, but Lucida believes Sian almost dying shows they can no longer fulfill their purpose, that this confirms the Council’s judgment.
When we arrive at the scrapyards, it’s time to say goodbye and leave Lucida to her fate. While Sian is saddened to be losing her best friend, she tries to be supportive and bids Lucy farewell. Barnaby says nothing, wishing they could continue their journey together. Coltin, however, refuses to say goodbye, and refuses to leave Lucida here. Instead, he wrests control of the ship away from Lucida and takes her out past the scrapyards to a planet dedicated to preserving and studying history. Lucida One, being the first of their kind, is a living historical artifact, one that the archivists of this planet will protect and treasure. This gives Lucida a new purpose, Coltin says, to educate those who visit the archives. We feel confident the Council will allow Lucida to stay here, but will we face sanctions for having taken this action unilaterally?
Story Games Club 
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