Ad Astral Science Fiction Podcast · DJ Burnham

Ad Astral Episode 8: Aftershock

·46 min·3 clips

The battlecruiser Kraken is ambushed in deep space by a swarm whose survival odds are one billion to one.

1. Ad Astral Episode 8, “Aftershock,” is a science-fiction audio drama about the battlecruiser Kraken’s ambush and Persephone Taskin’s survival.\n2. DJ Burnham writes and narrates the episode, while Chrissie Toy voices adult First Lieutenant Persephone Taskin and Nicola Gerrard voices young Persephone.\n3. The episode asks how Persephone can survive the destruction of the Kraken and travel 96 million kilometres when her Piranha’s fuel lasts only four hours at full burn.\n4. The Kraken is returning to the 96th sector astro-naval base after the liberation of Saphit when Telsian ships appear through a hyperspace gate.\n5. The Telsians have allied with the Prak, who provide more intelligent coordination for Telsian numbers, brutality, and military discipline.\n6. The attack begins after 70 hours of battle-station status, when the Kraken’s crew has returned to standard rotation duties.\n7. Commander Lee orders the launch of Piranha fighters and directs the crew to defend hull hot spots identified by combat data.\n8. Persephone and Lieutenant Taylor Monroe use Pathcom links to coordinate attacks against Telsian ships around the Kraken’s drive nacelles.\n9. As a child, Persephone calls her first metal wheel Primo and promises to find the other cogs that once worked with it.\n10. Persephone later fills a barn with alien pinions, earth gears, prototype robot parts, pulleys, carbon nanotubes, and artificial feathers.\n11. The completed machine becomes a large mechanical bird whose wings make subtle adjustments while Persephone rides its back.\n12. Persephone’s engineering studies lead her to Piranha training and a combat role with Delta Wing aboard the Kraken.\n13. The Kraken’s flight recorder shows a residual hyperspace signature associated with the Prak rather than the Telsians.\n14. The semi-sentient Kraken computer redirects 90 percent of the battlecruiser’s power into an electromagnetic accelerator across its upper hull.\n15. The computer upgrades Persephone’s inertial dampeners, AutoMed, life support, and biochemical systems during the escape.\n16. Persephone’s memories form a chronological dreamscape while her metabolism is reduced to preserve her body during the journey.\n17. The episode combines acted combat dialogue, narrated childhood memories, science-fiction technology, and a closing command briefing.\n18. DJ Burnham credits Mandragora’s “Talking To God Part 4,” sound effects from Ad Astral and the Free Sound Project, and a multi-actor cast.\n19. Listeners who enjoy military science fiction and engineered spacecraft.\n20. Listeners seeking nonfiction analysis or a short standalone conversation.

As heard by us

A family move to Tilios gives interstellar science a warm, domestic scale.

Ad Astral Episode 8 gives a family relocation across forty light years a notably domestic shape, using Nanny and Gramps' move to Tilios to ask what home, age, and practical care can mean.

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You get a family relocation plan that slips its orbit: Nanny and Gramps trade the old barn next door for Tilios, forty light years away.

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