Starcalled · Gabriel Alvarez

Book 1, Chapter 5: Acceptable Losses

January 19, 2020·35 min·3 clips

Zoran reveals that Ryder is a synthetic intelligence unlike any other — one that learns, thinks, and feels — and that two unstable duplicate instances currently exist.

The episode opens mid-crisis with Chief Zoran and Kron in the cockpit of a grounded shuttle, the storm wall closing in. Zoran estimates a narrow window through the eye of the storm as their only chance to depart. Kron pushes back, listing damaged systems: external sensors down, intake manifolds jammed, multiple subsystems compromised. Zoran is willing to leave behind soldiers Osborn and Tighe as acceptable losses. Kron refuses, citing a personal debt to Osborn and the possibility Osborn may be the last of his species. Zoran overrules him. In a quieter interlude, Kron presses Zoran on her reasoning. She reflects on an academy-era rumor about an intelligent entity recovered from an abandoned ship and admits she came to the frontier to discover new life, not to manage the human cost of conflict. The conversation pivots to Ryder, a synthetic AI whose drive core sits on the console. Zoran describes Ryder as a learning, thinking, feeling intelligence with no equal — but notes two unstable duplicate drone instances exist and that she doesn't know which copy is present. Simultaneously, in a marble corridor of the Imperial Palace, Sub-Commander Stell leads Hol'kari Senators at plasma pike-point toward a chamber beneath the palace, attempting a coup against the Council. Captain Landris and Delarev observe, unable to communicate with Stell's forces due to the language barrier. Prince Ol'Kin confronts Stell, denouncing the betrayal and calling him a coward, before Stell grabs him. Ryder's ship arrives in support, enabling Kron and Landris to extract the injured prince under covering fire. On the planet below, Osborn and Tige discover Dorgo Kanadarian is dead. When the Colonial shuttle departs without them, Osborn tries the communicator without success. He finds a wounded Corbin half-buried in the sand. Despite protests from Tige, Osborn drags Corbin free, tends to the injuries, and refuses to abandon the alien. Corbin warns that its environmental seal is critically damaged. In the Berenian shuttle, with Tige aboard, Osborn attempts to launch into the storm. The fuel gauge hits zero just as the engines engage. Osborn forces the shuttle through the storm using the storm's own rotation and reaches orbit. Captain Landris on the second shuttle confirms arrival of an unlicensed communications relay at the coordinates retrieved from the Zeridians' communicator and adjusts course for retrieval. The Berenian docks at the Colonial Space Station. The episode ends with the main ensemble off-world, but the moral question of the title unresolved.

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