transcript of interview TQ5626.3562
transcript provided by quester E11-15

[high tempo drum roll introduction]

Tonight on our show we've got 2oak from Imperial Center and you will not believe the mental scoop this guy has for you. Literally mindblowing!

[a string of high pitched nonsense sounds leading into the host's introduction]

Host: Welcome all! Folks, we're gonna dive right into it today because our guest has some startling information. Here with me in the studio tonight is a self-proclaimed "truthseeker" from Imperial Center known only as the mysterious moniker "2oak." I'm Anu Yon and you are listening to TruthQuest. 2oak, tell us what you've seen.

2oak: Yeah, seen. You hafta like, gotta see what's really going on man. Why are they giving away all this tech? At first maybe we were like so okay, they're gonna flood the market and somehow tank/control it, right? But then that didn't happen, and they kept pumping out free tech. Why? I'll tell you why, because every piece of free tech they offer has some kind of device or activator or, or, something along those lines. It's the only thing that makes sense. So yeah, enjoy your free upgrades while you can, before you get the call command and your body and mind are no longer your own.

Host: Well we've all heard the horror stories about the Automata. Children abducted in the dark and returned with metal legs, lungs, and livers.

2oak: Yeah! Exactly! Everyone's all "Automata this" and "Automata that" and it's like, wake up people! And you wouldn't believe some of the things I haven't just heard about, but have confirmed through trustworthy sources. All of it's awful, but some of it's just plain nuts!

Host: Well then share the craziest first, in case they cut us off! Remember, listeners. The thing that They want is your worship, your devotion, but most of all your Fear. There is a conspiracy out there, and the conspiracy is that They are out to kill You.

2oak: Truth! Wake up! Don't you see what they are doing to us? Our lives and our homes? Our very bodies? We have to resist them, we have to. You have to, you me, all of us!

Host: Absolutely. Now why don't you share the story with us, me and our listeners. Tell us what's up.

2oak: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so, listen, I got this buddy. Let's call him mike. Mike's a pilot. Flies recon routes for some CSA outfit. They've always got people out looking for valuables to steal from indigenous people. Anyway, these guys all kinda know each other, you know? Even if the guys from corp a and the guys from corp b are scouting the same planet they think of it more like a friendly competition, mike says.

Host: Mike sounds like a real knowledgeable guy

2oak: Yeah, mike knows what's up. He's no sleeper. So mike, he has this buddy. A fellow scout pilot by the name of Druhmah. Now, mike and Drumah, they're both the top scouts for their employers, so they often end up scouting the same places at roughly the same time. Mike says they quickly became friends.

Host: Well, some people think it's good to make friends out of your enemies.

2oak: Sure. So Drummah and Mike, they're out on this one planet. Mike wouldn't say where exactly but I did some digging later and found out on my own.

Host: So which planet were they scouting together for separate employers?

2oak: I'll get to that in a minute, first lemme tell ya what mike told me about Drummah.

Host: Sure, Sure, let's hear it all buddy.

2oak: Great, so mike, he's a real stand up guy, I'd trust him with my life. So we're chatting one day over drinks and he starts talking about this Drummah guy, and how he'd never seen anything like it and never wants to again. As he tells it, he's scouting this planet, knowing that Drummah is scouting it simultaneously. So he expects to see him or hear from him once in a while, right?

Host: If you say so, I'm not sure how these scout pilots operate.

2oak: Well mike knows for sure, so listen. He says his buddy just straight up vanished, and before he's even home with the results he gets orders to space the findings.

Host: Space the findings? Like, just jettison them out into the void?

2oak: Yeah man! He said the reason was some kind of new cost analysis they were testing that rated that planet as worth looking at but then they find out the math is fluxed and it was a huge waste of everyone's time, right?

Host: Sure seems that way!

2oak: But here's the thing Anu,

Host: Mr. Yon.

2oak: Sorry, Mr. Yon. Here's the thing dude. These corporate types have tons of shady business going on, so surely they're trying crazy new algorithms to get first claim, but two different corps sending scouts to the same planet, thanks to faulty math?

Host: Well it certainly sounds preposterous.

2oak: You got it, that's exactly the word. So mike, he says it was kinda weird but whatever, following orders and everything, so he spaces his findings as instructed and heads to the next system on his list, but before he's finished plugging the astrogation figures into the navicomputer, he sees his buddy's ship. Drummahs.

Host: I thought you said he never saw him again?

2oak: Right! He never did see him again. Just his ship.

Host: Just his ship? So what happened to the pilot? Why didn't your buddy go back for his friend?

2oak: See man that's the thing! He was going to! Mike says he was fully intending to scour the entire planet for Drummah. They were the only two scouts there you know?

Host: And mike knows that for a fact? Couldn't some other scout have been responsible for whatever happened to Drummah? It's not like these CSA goons have much in the way of morals

2oak: Nah mike never thought so. Mike never bought into the CSA wookiewater, it was always just a job to him and he found the work that paid the best.

Host: Very enterprising of him. So your friend mike says he's about to leave this unknown planet when he sees his friend's ship. Was his friend on board?

2oak: See man that's the thing that's got mike so rattled. He doesn't know.

Host: What do you mean he doesn't know?

[2oak sighs with audible exasperation]

2oak: Mike says he tried hailing his friend's ship. He said that, judging from the way it was flying, it was like, like it was on autopilot or something. Anyways he's pretty sure Drummah ain't inside but he goes ahead and hails anyways.

Host: Yeah, so what happened? What's the scoop?

2oak: Sure. Yeah. Okay, so here's the scoop. Mike says he got a response. Not from Drummah, exactly, but from the binary translator aboard his ship. Drummah's ship was sending him a signal.

Host: A signal you say? What sort of signal?

2oak: A message. Directly to mike. From Drummah. Telling him to get the hell out of there, the planet wasn't safe.

Host: Well it certainly sounds unsafe!

2oak: Buddy you got no idea! So mike gets this crazy message from his friend's ship, right? But that's the thing that still bugs mike to this day. They were flying corporate Z95's, all job and no fluff. So if you pull up alongside another ship of a similar nature...

Host: You'd expect to see the pilot in the cockpit, right? They never seem to pay for the electrostatic dimmers on those corporate ships.

2oak: YES! Mike's flying close to this ship, they're still in orbit, he says. So he gets close to see if Drummah is alright... and Drummah isn't in the ship.

Host: What do you mean, not in the ship? Wasn't he broadcasting a message from the ship?

2oak: That's what he said! So he does a quick surface scan of the vessel. You know, the basic stuff. Leaks, lifeforms, and the like. And in the lifeform reading he sees it.

Host: Sees what? Some sort of new or unidentified alien?

2oak: Not quite Anu, not quite.

Host: Mr. Yon.

2oak: So sorry, my bad, just excited to finally tell someone about this. To tell the whole galaxy.

Host: Right. So, something happened, he scanned the ship for lifeforms and found something. What did he find?

2oak: He said the only living thing in the ship was a brain and its stem.

Host: What?

2oak: That's what he said! And if that weren't weird enough, when mike went over the translation logs from the message Drummah's ship was sending to him, he saw a pattern. Drummah kept switching back and forth between talking about himself and talking about his ship, but he kept saying things like "me, I." My wings, fuel...

Host: So what you're saying your buddy told you is that someone took his friend / rival, scooped his brain out, and what? Made it fly his own ship? Turned him into the ship? What are we getting at here?

2oak: I don't know man, but I can tell you something. I know for a fact that the Automata were involved.

Host: Oh really?

2oak: Yeah. See, this never sat well with me, I never met Drummah but he seems like a legit dude and mike's been real down ever since this happened. So I thought, hey, maybe I could find out what happened for him, you know?

Host: That's a fantastic gift idea.

2oak: Yeah! Something like that. So, I pay a guy that works at that company, and he gets me the flight logs from that trip, and using that I can extrapolate, roughly, where mike dumped his survey.

Host: Talk about a needle in a haystack.

2oak: It was! It took me like a year, but I finally found it. And that's how I know the Automata have to be involved. The planet that mike kept talking about? The one this all happened at? Turns out it wasn't a planet, it was a moon. The fourth moon of Yavin, to be precise.

Host: Yavin 4? So you're talking about Autopia? That crazy city those freaks are building out of what, crystals?

2oak: Yes. Now, obviously this had to all happen before Autopia opened its doors to the public, but here's the final kicker. The date data on mike's flight log? This happened before Autopia opened its doors. This happened before Autopia was even built.

Host: So maybe they were already there? We've heard many conflicting rumors about their origin.

2oak: Maybe, but I don't think so. I think there were three scouts on that planet, and Crummah had the poor luck of encountering the Automata scout before Mike did.

Host: Why an Automata scout? That seems a little far fetched, even for me.

2oak: Well, it's their HQ now after all, isn't it? And they're famous for their crazy science, right?

Host: Yes, and Yes. Wherever you're going with this, take me with you!

2oak: I'm just going to the truth man, I gotta get it out there. It all adds up to the Automata scout, or the Automata members already living there, whatever the specifics were, Drummah somehow got his brain removed and installed into his ship and retained control over parts of himself. That's why he warned mike to stay away, to get out of there.

Host: Well it certainly seems to check out. We're almost out of time here so if there's anything else you want to add to this you'd better do it now.

2oak: Yeah. So, everyone says the Empire invented Biotics but what if it was the Automata? What if they've been putting people's brains into their tech, the same free tech that's getting out there more and more every single day. Millions of people walking around with little brain bombs in their arms, their eyes, their hearts...

Host: Well I don't think we're gonna find a better ending for this episode than Brain Bombs, so thank you 2oak for being on the show with us here tonight and for all of your insight into this crazy series of events. Strange stuff indeed.

Host: I'm Anu Yon. This was TruthQuest. good night.

[more nonsense sound effects at obscene volumes]