|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

…

[NOISE]

This… Cyrene Sabir…

[NOISE]

…we are seeking assistance…

…Pilgrim Seed… attacked…

[NOISE]

Can anyone… hear me?

[NOISE]

Kimbal we need to boost the…

[NOISE]

…that’s better.

Repeating the message: anyone receiving this message within the Starward Belt, we are aboard the refugee ship Pilgrim Seed.

Conway Drones are attacking our flotilla, one of our sister ships, the Wind’s Long Shadow has been hit. We both require immediate evacuation.

I Repeat…

[NOISE]

Fuck it.

[NOISE]

This is Cyrene Sabir. I’m tired. I’m scared.

We’ve been running dark for a long time. Running silent, which isn’t easy for a pirate radio station.

Conway drones have been on us for as many cycles as I can remember now. following behind us like hungry wolves. Waiting to see if our drive fails.

The theory on the ship is we aren’t worth the munitions they’d waste to bring us down. They’d rather just wait for us to collapse under the pressure.

But we haven’t. We’ve made repairs, kept the drive spinning. Farmed our food from the stacks. Held out.

But we are close now, at the edge of the Belt. And we need someone to help bring us in.

[NOISE]

Last cycle they hit the Wind’s Long Shadow. We don’t know why. Maybe we are too close to making it, too close to leaving Conway territory and making it out into the Belt.

Or maybe a drone just didn’t like the signals that ship was sending out.

Either way, there’s a whole set of new holes in it now.

[NOISE]

There are thousands of us here, and we’ve been crammed into this tin-can cycle after cycle, waiting for someone to catch up to us.

And now it’s happening, and we need help.

[NOISE]

I don’t know what things are like in the Belt, but the war is coming to you now. It’s coming behind us, like a wave. Carrying us onto your shore.

Helion is no longer a system forgotten by the corporations, no longer living in the shadow of Solheim’s collapse. We are at the center of something now, and something bad is rising in the inner system.

We need to change how we think, how we act. We need to find each other now, on the edge of this system…

[NOISE]

…and right now, we need someone with a GOD DAMN SHIP to answer this call!

[NOISE]

…

[NOISE]

…

[NOISE]

I don’t think they are coming Kimbal.

We are on our own now.

…

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

[TRANSPONDER [PILGRIM SEED] NOT FOUND]

|

|

[SEARCHING…]

|

[SEARCHING…]

|

[SEARCHING…]

|

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

The story of the Pilgrim Seed, Cyrene, and Kimbal continues in Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector.

The game releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

…

[NOISE]

…Heli…

[NOISE]

…signa…isola…

…Con…tracki…relent…

[NOISE]

…you are…ference…that’s why

[NOISE]

Kimbal? How is that realignment going? The signal is coming through?

[NOISE]

Impressive. Forget all those terrible things I said about you earlier.

[NOISE]

I’m joking.

Pardon our dust Helion, things are getting a little fuzzy out here. As far as I can tell, we have re-established our broadcast, and you should be able to hear us loud and clear, but apologies for those still having difficulty. I’d love to say it was down to our own technical limitations…

[NOISE]

No, Kimbal, I’m not blaming you.

In fact, dear listeners, it’s quite the opposite. It seems Conway Extractions, in their ongoing expansion through the system, have taken issue with our little pirate radio station and have been trying to silence us.

Not only that, but the Pilgrim Seed’s crew have reported close approaches by unmarked craft. The most recent of those approaches culminated in the following public broadcast on the wide channel:

|

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

[RECORDING // CONWAY BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

MESSAGE BEGINS. Occupants of unclassified and unregistered craft, you are transiting through a controlled region of the H1 system, and we ask that you immediately make contact with our agents so that proper process can be followed and any and all needs be assesed. CONWAY EXTRACTIONS, operating in this system as the H1 CONWAY COMBINE under core legislation SS ET 31, consistent with claim 43782 [in process] which renders H1 under our supervision until proper resolution is reached, posses the sole authority to grant authorisation to transit within this region. Unauthorized transit within this controlled zone will be considered, in principle, illegal in nature, and furthermore unless an identifiable transponder is detected any such vessel will waive all rights of movement within the surrogate systems. This message will repeat on all frequencies for a duration sufficient to guarantee receipt by your vessel. After this period your vessel and occupants will be considered to have been informed of the above, and the H1 CONWAY COMBINE asserts that its responsibility of communication has been completed in the fullest possible manner, as required. After this point any vessel and its occupants continuing to transit through the controlled zone will be considered in active breach, and classified [in absence of mitigating action] as possessing malicious intent. Conway Combine reserves the right to exert all and any neccessary force to nullify such malicious intent and will do so as is determined appropriate and commensurate. This assertion is made under the full and true protection and facility of core legislation SS ET 31, consistent with claim 43782 [in process] from which the authority of CONWAY EXTRACTIONS operating as the H1 CONWAY COMBINE does derive. This broadcast is automated and no return broadcast or negotiation will be entered into. MESSAGE CONCLUDES.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

So as you might imagine, things are getting tense in this big tin-can of ours.

We still have a significant distance to the Starward Belt. Not that there’s any likelihood of us turning this thing around, even if a few on board have started to grumble about adhering to the stream of legalities we are currently being assaulted with.

The bigger concern is this: You’ve heard for yourselves, right here, that SenetSat have taken Cinza and the other sisters, meaning they have a presence in Ember’s orbit. The inner system, that ashy rock Stoker and the KAN channel that has been sending flux waves through the system, is SenetStat’s as well.

Meanwhile, last broadcast we heard of Conway’s control of Ember’s Hearth and, most likely, Song and Step will soon be swarmed with drones. With SenetStat and Conway both settling in around Ember, we are looking at a conflict around that vast, marbled giant. Finally, out here, between Sunward and Starward Belt, Conway are setting up a controlled transit zone. If you can’t map this all in your head, I wouldn’t blame you, but the message is that Helion is being dissected by lines of power. The kind of lines that kill when you cross them.

There’s something I’ve seen in all these years I’ve been around. There’s danger in power, that’s for sure, when a captain or an administrator sees a chance to consolidate whatever grip they have on a system. But the real danger? That comes when someone starts drawing lines, making judgements, be that legal or philosophical. At that point, any action can be justified, contemplated, carried out, because it is an action in service to a higher power.

So, when I see zones being sketched out across our system, territories drawn, I know that what comes next is the justification of those territories, the ascension of them to a position none of us can be measured against. Conway, Senetstat, they now have something higher to serve—the logic of borders, of territories, of sovereignty. And in the name of those logics, they would, with the stoic grimness of those who consider themselves to be enacting the law, end all of our lives at any moment of their choosing.

We’ll be going dark now for a spell, while we try to evade the Conway drones on our tail. I don’t know when we will broadcast again.

Wish us good luck and clear passage, and wish that those proxies following us have poor signal quality and as many system glitches as might befall a bad drone in our good system.

See you on the other side, Helion.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

[TRANSPONDER [PILGRIM SEED] DEACTIVATED]

|

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

Hello there Helion!

[NOISE]

Thanks Kimbal. I like it too. Hell, maybe that one’ll stick.

[NOISE]

Y’know I’m broadcasting here, right?

[NOISE]

That’s right, Cyrene Sabir here, coming through on all channels once again, still on that long sojourn to the Starward Belt.

We’re all cooped up in the Pilgrim Seed, along with thousands of other refugees, and, based on what we’ve been hearing out there, we aren’t alone. 

Since our last report we’ve heard of a whole flotilla coming out of Cinza, trying to slip the loop SenetStat is about to close around the Three Sisters. 

But this cycle we’re talking about the other, larger moons in orbit around Ember. Now, many of you are familiar with Ember and its many moons, hell, half of you probably come out of the three biggest; Hearth, Song and Step. But I also know there’s plenty that have only ever heard tall tales of those three.

I won’t get into the politics of those three satellites, especially as I am on a ship with a population from all of them and I’ve already overheard every argument you could imagine, but you might know the Pilgrim Seed itself, the ship I’m broadcasting from, came up out of Hearth’s gravity well. I wasn’t on board back then, but from what I understand…

[NOISE]

…yes, and, to give due credit, what Kimbal has explained…

[NOISE]

…that the flux events had made short work of the moon’s terraforming tech, the stuff it relies on to stay habitable, leaving the moon shedding atmosphere faster than a holed airtank. That’s why The Pilgim Seed (and other, smaller ships) set out from the moon on a desperate voyage.

So you’ll understand my surprise when I got a report from Ember’s Hearth, from the capital Passereau no less, explaining how the moon has been stabilized.

Now I broadcast this with a little trepidation, knowing that this ship is packed with Ember’s Hearth refugees who would probably love to return to their moon rather than continue with this long journey to the outer system… but if that’s you, listen to the whole thing and listen close, because there’s a lot more to this story.

Here’s the anonymous report, and as you listen spare a thought for those still back on Ember’s moons. 

With the Three Sisters falling under SenetStat control, and this report on Conway Extractions’ own gains, well, we are all under threat.

Good luck and godspeed to you all.

This is Cyrene Sabir signing off. To a free Helion. Now and forever.

[DISCONNECTED]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[LOADING REPORT EMBER’S HEARTH//H1]

|

[BROADCASTING…]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

[RECORDING // PASSEREAU ARCHIVE F22]

We first picked out the swarms as they crossed the marbled mass of Ember.

It took us a while before we did of course; there wasn’t much time for looking up and gazing at the storms back then. We had our eyes on the work to be done: The crops to be transplanted into barns. The barns to be sealed. The filters to be installed. The desperate attempt to keep a grip on a moon whose atmosphere was sloughing off cycle by cycle. All without the systems we had relied on, the ones the flux had scrambled. All without the thousands who had left on the refugee ships. The ones we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get on board. But, in a rare moment of rest, some of us looked up, and there they were, countless black shapes against Ember’s oche swirls.

[NOISE]

I can’t say I knew much of Conway at that time. Just another name, another faded logo you might find on a bit of scavanged tech. Just another one of the corporations that Solheim’s collapse sent fleeing from the system. But I’ve been told since that they’ve long kept a foothold at the edge of the system, some rock in the most isolated part of the Starward Belt that their machines hollowed-out and made a home of. That’s how they were ready, I suppose, to swoop in at our moment of desperation, to swarm this moon just as it was making its last, long exhale.

[NOISE]

There’s an expression on Hearth—the deeper the root the darker the soil. Well, there’s a lot of expressions about soil on Hearth, actually, probably because the biome here is a matter of pride, a hard fought for arable patch in an infertile system. But this expression in particular has come to be about more than understanding nuances of farming cycles. It’s about the weight of time. Those deep roots tap into something richer than a fresh crop. In a place of interrupted histories, a rare strand of continuity has an unavoidable power. 

[NOISE]

The irony of those swarms is that, unlike a plague of invading insects, Conway’s drones were here to save our crop. The first broadcasts followed soon after, in the mode of a relief effort. Supply drop coordinates. The offer of drone labour. Broadcasts of flux-resistant software. We were a desperate and eager audience for these olive branches. And so the drones descended, massive now they were no longer in orbit, smooth and flat like a wing, each the size of a barn. Their black hulls, which hinged back to reveal large manipulating arms, or the twisted tubes of complex interiors, were soon streaked with Hearth’s dust and mud, flecked with green leaves and pale roots.

As they worked the fields they also repaired the terrafomers. Latching onto those vast conical chimneys like leeches on the flank of a huge beast. They planted themselves in the ground, their actions unexplained and increasingly obscure. There were no people of course. Like any lump of Conway tech they were directed by operators concealed in orbit, or perhaps elsewhere in the system entirely, linked by a comm system like an invisible string between puppet and puppeteer. 

[NOISE]

The thing with roots is they can survive for a long time without a single shoot. Buried deep, fed by symbiotic fungi and a trickle of water, there’s no upward limit to how long they can lie in wait. We never even thought to dig for Conway’s roots, that they might have been beneath us for our entire lives, down there where the soil is darkest. Ember’s moons were managed by Cybele, the terraforming corporation that gave us the atmosphere, but at all the system was Solheim’s. And Solheim itself was an ecology of companies, a network of owners and shareholders, of holding companies and subdivisions. And Conway had threaded itself through that network like a parasitic vine, so that when Solheim did collapse, the skeleton was held together only by this invader. In the intervening decades Conway has been in wait, making incursions here and there, but mostly preparing for the moment that Solheim was wound up—broken apart in tribunals in the Core Systems and bankruptcy hearings somewhere light years from this place.

[NOISE]

The drones soon dug up the roots. Unspooled black cables and blocks from the earth itself and began to assemble them into manufactories and machines of unknown functions. They started to move us, gathering as much of Hearth’s population as they could into the streets of Passereau, where I record this testimony now. Hearth is theirs now, though they keep us for some unknown purpose, feed and house us. We watch the swarms pass back and forth all cycle now, their projects manifesting as dark shapes on the horizon, and gaping holes in the land from which tubes stretch like unwound intestines. They have saved us: the flux passes shimmering though our systems without damaging them, the sky is blue once more, the atmosphere breathable. But I don’t for one minute believe that this is for our benefit. 

This is the beginning of a new cycle of growth, and all growth requires fuel. I only hope we are not the next resources to be consumed for Conway’s ends.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

[CHANNEL CLOSED]

|…

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

How’s it going, Helion?

Cyrene Sabir here, broadcasting direct from the Pilgrim Seed on any frequency that’ll have me.

Our journey to the Starward Belt continues, as does the system’s shift into chaos. It’s getting ugly out there, listener, and we are here to help you prepare for the worst of it. 

Many of you will have heard our last broadcast, on the situation out in Ember’s orbit, where Cinza is reporting the Three Sisters have fallen under Senetstat occupation. This marks a shift in the system, of that we can have no doubt.

Senetstat are here to claim the remains of Solheim’s infrastructure, its remaining assets… but the thing is that this infrastructure is the foundation of our habitats. These assets are our homes. We were abandoned with them when Solheim went under, and there’s no way we are going to give them back after keeping them running for this long. The Helion system belongs to its occupants by right, and anyone who says anything different is a turncoat.

[NOISE]

Look it up, Kimbal. It’s a word.

[NOISE]

As always, we are open to your reports, your warnings, your missives to this system we call our home. So, on this cycle's broadcast, in the spirit of hospitality, Kimbal has once again been trawling the corridors of the Pilgrim Seed, our ship for this starward voyage, to capture something of the texture of our lives here. 

Voices are important to us, Kimbal and I, they are what we seek to elevate and amplify. To broadcast resistance, solidarity and testimony, until we can’t any longer.

And those voices shouldn’t always be listing the crimes committed against us, shouldn’t always have the names of our oppressors on the tips of our tongues.

We deserve to speak about each other, about our lives and their rhythms. About ourselves. To ourselves. For our own purposes.

So here are the voices of the Pilgrim’s Seed. 

[DISCONNECTED]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[LOADING REPORT: PILGRIM’S LABORS]

|

[BROADCASTING…]

|

[AUDIO FEED: ELLIOT KIMBAL / VARIOUS]

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

|

[AUDIO FEED: IONIE BROWN] 

|

What do I do out here? Well, I’m one of the few who actually knows how to keep a kelp stack working, so that’s a lot of it. This place had half a dozen of the things, some from the Eye and some from elsewhere, loaded onto it when I got on board. But… they were barely keeping them working. 

[NOISE]

That’s the thing, most people think stacks run themselves. Just give them power, water, nutrients, and they cycle them through their system and produce a solid yield. But these things have been working since the collapse, with no new parts, no replacements. Ones that run dead can be reseeded from those still living, but that doesn’t mean the filters and mechanisms are fixed, and they probably killed the kelp in the first place.

[NOISE]

Stacks need care. Need monitoring, paying attention too. Once they hit a toxic cascade, when the nitrogen cycle is way off, then it’s too late. So that’s me, watching those golden fronds for signs of rot, checking the tank flow for dead-spots, and shouting at idiots who think they know better.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EREN DEMIR]

|

I’ve joined a work crew.

[NOISE]

Yes, I was surprised too. It’s been a lot of cycles out here and I was losing my sense of time. Now they come wake me up for a little food and conversation, and we go out and get an assignment from the list. Usually they post it up by the bridge elevator, but sometimes one of us has heard about something needing doing off the books, so to speak, and we go take a look at that.

[NOISE]

I’m no engineer, you understand. I am slow to learn, but the rest of the crew appreciates my eye, my considered pace. I don’t like to rush jobs, I sit and think them through. Some of the younger ones want to weld up whatever break or gap they see, before they even get a look inside. Before they get to the source of the problem. I tell them to slow down, to think a few steps ahead. Like they were playing tavla. Consider the outcomes.

[NOISE]

I don’t think I know anything they don’t. But sometimes it’s not about knowing, it's about approach, you know? Either way it keeps me busy, and I get to hear all the newest jokes from those on the crew that are half my age. So I’d say I enjoy it. 

|

[AUDIO FEED: EMMET FENIX]

|

Me? I’m a singer, friend. This place is in desperate need of levity, and I provide.

[NOISE]

I’ve never been to a place where a singer isn’t welcomed. It makes the work quicker, the nights longer, the food sweeter.

[NOISE]

There’s a few of us now, we found each other in all this mess and we’ve been teaching each other. Songs and stories. Keeping things going that ought not to be left behind.

|

[AUDIO FEED: OREN TELLER]

|

You‘re asking what I do? What is there to do? Wait for rations. Eat rations. Wait for water. Drink water. Wait for sleep. Sleep. Is there something else, am I missing something?

[NOISE]

I see the work crews, I see the assignments go out, but there’s no way I am volunteering myself for that. Make this journey more miserable with the addition of hard labor? No thanks.

|

[AUDIO FEED: MARIA MICU]

|

The shifts are staggered, because preparation can be pretty time consuming. We are working mostly with raw, stack grown produce, so there are a lot of stages to go through to make anything like food. Kelp needs soaking. Algae drying. Washing. Peeling. Then there’s the rations we have, which we have to stretch out. Mostly everything needs to be prepared cycles in advance, processing not cooking, so to speak. We don’t have the set up for that anyway.

[NOISE]

I’m proud of what we do. I know not everyone is happy, but there’s too many people to be happy. Too many preparation teams working at the limit of what we have. Everything is too little or too much, but we make it work.

[NOISE] 

There’s a limit though. And we see that more than anyone else. We see exactly, EXACTLY, down to the last cycle, how long this journey can go on for. That’s hard. Some people left because of that, found other work. They didn’t want to be reminded.

[NOISE]

I keep my mind on what my hands are doing. That’s what I do. And maybe on the hands nearby, how they might need help. That’s all. Anything else is a bad idea.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EMMET FENIX]

|

You know who I met the other day? Someone from Ember’s Song! I thought they all up-and-left us, but it seems like a whole bunch joined us at the Eye. 

[NOISE]

They have good stories, those folks. I could listen to them all cycle. And they are LONG, all filled with detail and life. I like those kind of stories, the ones that notice things. That make YOU notice things yourself. They tune the eye, the ear, into some other frequency.  

[NOISE]

I suppose some of the others think of me as a layabout. A dreamer maybe. But I’m working on something, I am. Songs and stories, and little jokes to tell them when they look pale and drained. Things to feed em. 

|

[AUDIO FEED: IONIE BROWN] 

|

The worst are those idiots that think they need to work harder. To push the stacks, increase the yield. Hammer away them, churn up the kelp, dose the algae. That’s what’ll get us. A few too many people like that one day those stacks will just stop producing. And they’ll have a whole ship of hungry, angry people.

[NOISE]

I tell those people to find another job. Work on the bulkheads. Work the kitchens, with all those hot heads. Fire up a torch and build someone a new berth. One cycle workers. They work for today and that’s all. 

[NOISE]

The stacks need slow minds. Careful tending. There’s life in those things, in the tanks. And life needs a shepherd. Those golden waving kelp, in their hermetically sealed stacks, how different are they to us? Out in the black with this tin can full of air around us. All of us need a steady hand now and then. 

[NOISE]

That’s me. I’m steady. My stacks run steady. My people work steady. 

[NOISE]

Here, come see. Smell the sea in those stacks. It’ll slow you down nicely. Bring you down to kelp speed. That’s what we all need.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

[CHANNEL CLOSED]

|…

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

What’s happening Helion?

[NOISE]

I’m trying something out Kimbal.

[NOISE]

Yeah, well, I’ll keep trying.

[NOISE]

This is Cyrene Sabir here, broadcasting from deep within the Pilgrim Seed, a refugee ship out of the Eye, on its way to the Starward Belt.

It’s cold and damp in this big old drum, but it's our home… and like everyone in Helion, we will defend it if needed.

And that need is coming, be sure of that, because just a few cycles ago we received a series of encrypted reports out of Cinza, one of those lesser moons they call the Three Sisters, in orbit around Ember. 

When we decrypted them, and tried to repair the heavily corrupted data, we found one name that comes up again and again, one that is about to become an unavoidable one in this system. 

SenetStat. 

It’s a name we’ve been asking about all around this motley ship of ours, from talking to those from XPR platforms that still had a comm link with the Core Systems when they left, to those with long memories and corporate data sets. Here’s what we know:

Originating as a company undertaking large-scale, data-driven, fundamental market analysis--their words not mine dear listener--Senetstat shifted towards exoplanet extraction and investments at some point in its history, something I’ve heard mentioned in relation to the development of their heuristic-based Surrogate Systems model… 

[NOISE]

No Kimbal. I sure as hell don’t know what that means. 

[NOISE]

Look, in short they made a big success of predicting which of the Surrogate Systems would shift in value and when. They claimed systems that seemed worthless and then time and again a shift would come, and somehow SenetStat would be the beneficiary.

So when they come calling to our little system, the forgotten product of a corporate collapse, you know our stocks are on the rise…

[NOISE]

No Kimbal, that is not “a good thing”. Not. At. All.

Listener, the key context you need to know is SenetStat is huge, and make their money by predicting the future. How they do that? I can’t tell you. But I can tell you how they go about “securing assets”, or at least these reports out of Cinza can.

I won’t keep it from you any longer, but be warned, this isn’t easy listening. The people of Cinza are in a fight for their lives and we all will be soon if we don’t come together. Be sure of that.

So listen well, and stay safe out there. This is Cyrene Sabir signing off.

To a free Helion. Now and forever.

[DISCONNECTED]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[LOADING REPORT CINZA//H1]

|

[BROADCASTING…]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 01: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

This is Mariel Covo, Leyte Chief Shipfitter, daughter of […] Denzel […] Covo […] Cinza councillor […] presumed dead […] daughter of Mariana Covo […] also presumed dead […] I […] They […] It’s all gone to shit. […]

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 02: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

[…] Maybe we should have paid more attention. […] There’s always been a certain influx of residents on Cinza and the other Sisters […] runaways from XPR platforms, visitors from Ember’s larger moons, the spacers that run the trade routes. […] It’s part of what keeps us going on these grey and empty rocks, building and rebuilding, fashioning something new from the detritus of The Collapse. […] Whether they slipped in among the arrivals, their intent already clear, or SenetStat found and recruited them here I don’t know. […] Since the Flux there were so many arrivals every cycle, and I was swamped with requests for new habitation modules, expanded public areas, repairs and refits. […] So I missed what led to this. I took my eyes off this place for a moment and… that was it […]

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 03: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

First it was the support groups that sprung up, welcoming new arrivals, hushed meetings in closed bays. […]  Talk of change in the Helion system, framed as an opportunity […] and questions being asked of the council, of the way Cinza was run. Of the influence of the other Sisters […] as if there weren’t ALREADY channels, there weren't ALREADY dialogues. […] This was shrugged off in Cinza; you don’t survive The Collapse, or life on the Three Sisters for that matter, if you are prone to mutiny. The endless repairs, the reclamation and rebuilding, either you understand that serves everyone, or you leave soon enough […] betrayal would not take root here. […] So then the sabotage. Then the undercutting of our systems. Then the accidents. […]

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 04: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

The council, my father, […] they were slow to recognise. […] I can admit that. We admit our faults here. A bad weld. A loose seal. We know that keeping a mistake secret only compounds it. Like laying a trap for those that trust you. […] By the time they started to track the groups that had been turned to SenetStat a takeover had already begun. […] Ships in orbit giving commands to those that served them, with the promise of a great reward. […] Perhaps change had been coming anyway, but this was a closing of possibilities, not their expansion. […] SenetStat. […] A siege of sound. Offers and threats mixed into the broadcasts. […] Behind that, the scrambled news that part of […] just went dark. A whole section venting its occupants into the void. Three Sisters, now two. […] Then I knew where this was going. […] We braced ourselves. But it came all the same. […]

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 05: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

Cinza doesn’t collapse so easily. We don’t fall apart. First we admit our mistakes, then come the repairs. […] We’re tunneled in now, welded in. […] sleeping in dark bays or wall cavities. Scavenging. Hit and run. […] We are the ghosts of Cinza now, and they can’t have this place without us. SenetStat’s occupation will be impossible. Expensive. […] I know they want the Shipyards. They want to build ships with our people, our tools. […] They want a fleet. […] But they cannot hold a place that they do not know. We built Leyte Shipyard, and we built the rest of Cinza in its bays. […] If you are hearing this, then expect the same. […] SenetStat are a parasite. They wish to eat this place out from under you. But we will not let them.

|

[EMERGENCY BROADCAST 06: LEYTE SHIPYARD]

|

This is Mariel Covo, Leyte Chief Shipfitter, daughter of […] Denzel Covo, daughter of Mariana Covo […] leader of the Cinza resistance. […] Know that I am here beneath your feet. In the walls. […] SenetStat cannot offer your home to you. It is not theirs to give. […] It is mine, and if you find me, I will share it with you freely. […] because Cinza cannot die while we breathe within it. […]

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

|

[CHANNEL CLOSED]

|…

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

Hello Helion system! 

This is Cyrene Sabir once again, broadcasting from a wide channel transmitter we built OURSELVES on the Pilgrim Seed, a refugee ship making the Starward Transit from the Eye to the edge.

[NOISE]

The “we” includes you too, Kimbal.

[NOISE]

I just mentioned you by name.

[NOISE]

Are you going to do this every time?

[NOISE]

I’m ignoring you now.

Welcome to Helion Dispatches, the lone pirate radio station in your broadcast range, covering everything and anything that might help you stay safe in this moment of transition.

And we say transition because things are changing out there. If you were listening last time you would have heard the report coming out of Stoker — Helion’s most sunward world, for those new to the system — of the old Solheim KAN Channel coming online. Thank you again to Dustin Desta for that.  

Those of you who have been around a while, like myself, will know what that means: some Core corporations are taking an interest in Helion. And that ain’t good.

In order to keep you informed we are broadcasting any reports of corp activity we receive. You can get those to us on H 1, dash triple 7, dash k m b l.

[NOISE]

That’s how I’m going to say it, Kimbal. 

We are working hard to process those reports coming in for public consumption, but this cycle I wanted to do something a little different. We are among thousands of souls out here on the Pilgrim Seed, and I wanted to take this chance to give a little insight into our lives out here.

Kimbal has been out with his recorder gathering testimony from across the ship, and we have prepared a little something for you that I’m loading up right now.

And while you’re listening, Remember who speaks for this system: It’s you and me listener, it's the matsutake farmers of the Eye and the icecutters out in the Belt. I’m here to amplify that voice, to run it through layers of encryption and clarification, to upload and blast it out so that it fills the gaps between Stoker and Cinder, Ember and Olivera.

Listen out for it. 

Stay safe out there. This is Cyrene Sabir signing off.

To a free Helion. Now and forever.

[DISCONNECTED]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[LOADING REPORT: PILGRIM’S TRANSIT]

|

[BROADCASTING…]

|

[AUDIO FEED: ELLIOT KIMBAL / VARIOUS]

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

|

[AUDIO FEED: SENYA TEM]

|

What do I do on the Pilgrim Seed? [NOISE] I wait. Wait for water at the distribution center, wait for rations. Wait for the quiet hours to sleep. Wait for this all to be over.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EREN DEMIR]

|

I came here off the Eye. It’s taken me… a while to get settled in. The zero-g is a little tough at the beginning. I’m still pretty clumsy after so many cycles. But the people here are good, maybe not the same energy as the Lowend, but where in Helion can you find that? I’ve seen Lowend Tavla games end in fistfights. Here they tend to end with at least a bit of mutual respect.

I suppose we know we are all tied together here. There’s nothing we can do but make the transit together, so that makes people think of themselves as connected. Dependent. I mean, it’s hard to forget that when you are all crammed in here like algae in a stack.

[NOISE] 

|

[AUDIO FEED: SENYA TEM]

|

I don't want to sound ungrateful. I know we have to wait. I know this is the best place we could be. But time passes slow in this great big drum. When we arrive in the Belt I’m going to find a place to run. To feel my speed, my size again. I am waiting for that most of all.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EMMET FENIX]

|

Listen, listen. You out here recording? You gotta hear this.

[NOISE]

That’s singing, friend. You ever heard anything like that? Down in the drum they are singing while they work the stacks. And it comes up the pipes here like it was being pumped out to the whole ship. Listen, listen. That’s the soul of the Pilgrim Seed.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EREN DEMIR]

|

There’s some weirdos here, sure. Some angry ones too, that everyone knows to drift quietly past, unless they feel like an earful.

[NOISE]

No stories, well none I’d be happy to put on permanent record. But we protect each other and we do OK.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EMMET FENIX]

|

You ever been to Hearth, friend?

[NOISE]

The Pilgrim Seed came up out of there, half the people here are from Ember’s Moons. Ember’s Hearth?

[NOISE]

That was a place. A real place. Cities. Bars. Gravity. Hell, weather, more weather than you could know what to do with. Dust of all kinds, sand and cloud, shapes in the upper atmosphere like you wouldn’t believe. All this tin-can’s got is five kinds of damp and two kinds of cold.

|

[AUDIO FEED: SENYA TEM]

|

No one in Helion is new to the idea of instability. We are born into it. It’s our introduction to the place. No two orbits alike. That’s what they say on Song. But some of us, we see the shift.

Some cycles, in the observation deck, I see patterns of lights. Out there in the black where they shouldn’t be. And I think of my family who stayed back on Song. I think of my friends who got off at the Eye. I think of all of us. And what orbit we are straying into now. But mostly I try not to think like that. Because when I think like that, the waiting gets harder.

|

[AUDIO FEED: EMMET FENIX]

|

The Seed’s got life though. A thrumming rumbling kind of life, like the chamber of a heart. You could find someone from any orbit of Helion here and talk. That’s got to be worth something right? Otherwise why are we all out here?

[NOISE]

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

|

[CHANNEL CLOSED]

|…

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!

|

|…

[SIGNAL LOCK]

|

[BROADCAST WIDE CHANNEL]

[ORIGIN: PILGRIM SEED]

[VECTOR: STARWARD]

|

[TRANSCRIPTION ACTIVE]

Kimbal, are you sure this is working? Kimbal?

[NOISE]

WHAT is hot?

[NOISE]

Mic is…? Oh. Shit, shit…

[NOISE]

Hello, hello! Sorry for that, we are LIVE from the belly of the Pilgrim Seed, the biggest ship making the Starward transit in the Helion System. 

This is Cyrene Sabir, and this is Helion Dispatches, the only pirate radio station broadcasting in the starward passage. We had a few hiccups there but you should be hearing us on any open channel in this orbit…

[NOISE]

That’s Kimbal, he’s the one who rigged up this transmitter out of the goodness of his heart, and for half my rations for the duration of the trip. 

[NOISE]

What a hero. 

[NOISE]

Together we are here to get the word out on what’s happening in the Helion system, to spread it so we can all work to protect ourselves and our communities. 

If you are in range of this broadcast you’ll know that the system is in the middle of a shakeup. We are on the refugee ship, Pilgrim Seed have just come out of Erlin’s Eye after a string of flux events threatened to collapse the station entirely, taking our chance instead with the long passage to the Belt. 

But all over the system there are reports of new corporate activity and we are here to beam those out on every available channel, so you can stay informed. 

It's been decades since the Solheim collapse, and Helion became a free system, but it seems Solheim’s creditors and inheritors have finally come to claim their property. 

Well… we won’t give it up, this system is ours and we’ll do everything we can to stay free.

We want you to know we are out here, and know that we are going to start broadcasting anything and everything that might help keep people safe and informed.

If you have any tips, recordings or reports yourself, send them on our secure channel: H 1, dash triple 7, dash k m b l… 

[NOISE]

Kimbal! did you actually put your name as the ID of our secure…?

[NOISE]

I swear to god.

[NOISE]

Look.

We need to get the word out, and I need your help for that.

The report I am about to play you comes from Sofia, out of Olivera. She passes on this recording on behalf of Dustin Desta, the voice you are about to hear is his.

Not many of us hear much from Stoker these days, that hot rock closest to our star. But thankfully Dustin was there, because what I’m about to play you will change your idea of whats happening in this system.

I’m going to let Dustin speak for himself.

Stay safe out there. This is Cyrene Sabir signing off.

To a free Helion. Now and forever.

[NOISE]

Kimbal, did that sound OK…?

[NOISE]

Give me a break.

[NOISE]

You do it then!

[DISCONNECTED]

|…

[SIGNAL SWITCHING…]

|

[LOADING REPORT STOKER//H1]

|

[BROADCASTING…]

|

[SUIT AUDIO FEED: OCCUPANT DUSTIN DESTA]

[TRANSCRIPTION BEGINS]

Sofia you are NOT going to believe this.

And I’m SERIOUS this time. This time isn’t like when I said I’d found a Solheim shipmind and it was actually a spent core. Or that time I thought I’d recovered a bonesuit from that Conway derelict and it was just a cargo loader. 

No. This shit is REAL.

And I know, I know, when I told you I was making another run to Stoker you said it was too crazy.

And I know I said it was just another run, just with thicker heat shields and bigger suits, and I told you not to worry because I knew boys who did it every 50 cycles. 

I know that. I know I said there would be no surprises… I know…

But that was before I saw this, because this is one massive, jumbo-sized, surprise.

The KAN channel? That hulk of core tech orbiting the star like some vast, half-broken eggshell. It’s started up.

Someone turned that thing on.

That’s not something that happens Sofia. Not ever.

The last run, Emmerson told me that back in Solheim days they used to use that thing to send thousands of tons of raw palladium, platinum and whatever else they were extracting straight back to the core in an eyeblink. Something about collapsing spacetime between two points.

Like making it be in TWO places at once and then making it be in ONE again… it's just that one place is now some spot in the core.

This time, THIS run, I was digging through one of the ruins on Stoker, following the signature of some pristine looking old tech in a collapsed hanger when…

Whoosh.

This thing rippled through my suit, through me. Like a shiver that passed through the spine of the universe. 

I looked up and saw the KAN channel, the broken sphere of it, silhouetted in front of H1. And it was shimmering, and glowing, and all around the void of space was sparkling like ice dust in torchlight.

It was beautiful… for a moment.

Thing is, my suit immediately goes into backup power, the helmet lights all crimson, and it seems this thing has fried everything. Life support, jump jets, cutting torch, you name it… I’m lucky to be breathing. 

And so I bounce my lucky butt back to the Resonant Black.

Now we are here, waiting for the ship to reboot, Emmerson is deep in its guts trying to figure out what’s fried and what’s not.

And that KAN channel? Its pulsing, its glowing. That thing is ON. I’m looking at it right now.

I don’t want to worry you Sofia. We’ve got this. But I wanted to send this out because people need to know. The KAN channel is up and firing. And if it's up and firing it's not sending stuff out… it's bringing it in.

Now I don’t know what it could be. But only technicians from the Core could be starting that thing up, and if the core is starting it up, they have plans, Sofia, and when the core has plans?

No no. Those are not good plans.

And people like us? We get screwed.

So let the folks in Olivera know. Something’s coming to this system, and it is NOTHING good.

And Sofia, I’ll see you soon. 

I gotta believe it.

And so do you.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

|…

[SIGNAL LOST]

|

|

[CHANNEL CLOSED]

|…

|

Read the Next Episode

💫 Turn your Eyes Starward

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector releases Jan 31st 2025. Wishlist it here!

💬 Join the Citizen Sleeper community!

Looking for a community to discuss the Helion Dispatches with? Feel like speculating on the future of Citizen Sleeper? Have a burning question to ask me? We’ve recently expanded the Fellow Traveller Discord to include a whole new Citizen Sleeper section for fans to hang out in.

Click here to join!