EP001: Imperial

[Russell Nash]

EP001: Imperial

By Jonathan Sullivan
Read by Stephen Eley.

Our debut Issue!

Dennis blinked through his dripping eyelashes at the irresistible abomination seated on the blue-green grass two meters in front of him. The Pig smiled her bio-engineered leopard-smile at him and kept her right hand prominently in contact with the stun-gun at her hip.

He stared, too choked with shock, desire and tepid river water to speak.

Rated R. Contains profanity, sexual content, politics, and sarcasm.



Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!

[eytanz]

Ok, finally got around to having some time to re-listen to this story.

I have to say, listening to the very first EP intro was cool. As someone who joined after the creation of Pseudopod - i.e., when the podcast was already large enough to expand - It was pretty interesting to see how it all began. And overall, I got a feeling that EP stuck to its original mission pretty well, though the emphasis on "fun" stories seems to have shifted a bit to an emphasis on "good" stories.

As for the story itself - it's a really good one. I really liked how the tables were turned on both the somewhat insufferable protagonist, and on his rival. The "sexy cat-woman" stuff felt a bit gratuitous, but in a fun way; it felt more like an homage to pulp story writing than anything else. It really helped that for all her sexuality, the woman was more competant than the man, whose own sexuality led him to lose the race to the planet. Turned out not to matter, but still.

And I liked the tree cats. Cool alien race.

[Russell Nash]

I couldn't resist writing feedback on the first episode, so I relistened to it.  You can really appreciate the way Steve has polished his presentation over the years.  How he has either grown his "announcers voice" or how he tweaks the bass when he records his lines.

The story itself was a keeper for me.  I keep less than 10% of the shows.  Pretty impressive that right out of the gate he has a winner. 

How likely is this battle?  We have the fight between industrialization and conservancy now, but does it really have the chance to spread to the stars?

[eytanz]

How likely is this battle?  We have the fight between industrialization and conservancy now, but does it really have the chance to spread to the stars?

My guess is that the battle is exactly as likely as the chance of us finding a significant amount of other planets with biospheres of the same complexity as Earth. If they are very rare, then they will either become very precious resources to be exploited, or they will be very rigidly conserved - i.e. one position will win out completely (at least for any point in time - there could be a shift back and forth between positions, but not an active conflict). If Earth like planets are a dime a dozen, then neither position will matter much, at least not to the majority of the population (which, I should say, may be the case in this story, we don't see enough of the overall society to know). If Earth-like planets are rare enough to be precious but not too rare to be very special, then we can be facing a long-lasting philosophical conflict.

[Russell Nash]

From a realistic point of view I don't think many planets (realistic?) would be destroyed for natural resources, at least not minerals.  It will probably be far more efficient to capture astroroids near where the resources are needed. 

I think this story was more like the equivalent of Coke going into South America.  Just trying to find more customers.  Getting the people to decide between having cool future stuff or just keeping their own junk.  I don't see how they can expect anyplace to say, "no take your land speeders. I'll just walk."

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I finally got around to it, too; and wow! 

I wonder how accidental it was that the first story was about the back-handed colonization of "civilization" by an unlikely bunch of dreamers?  After all, from where I sit, that's exactly what Escape Pod has become!

Seriously, though, it was a fun, sassy story, and made me take an extra turn around the block with my confused dog ("But, the house is THAT way!") so I could finish it.  And except for  "Vicki", all the elements were in place, already; Steve ( of course), "Story time", and "Have Fun" at the end.

Gee, I really hope it stays this much fun over the next 100 or so episodes. 

[Unblinking]

And thus was the mothership launched! 

Good choice for the opening story, good conflict and well portrayed as the world was shown to me bit by bit, and good to see Sullydog involved so early on.  I've liked his stories so far--more please!

[Max e^{i pi}]

Finally got around to listening to this, and I have one thing to say to you, Mr. Eley.
"Ooking" was invented by Terry Pratchet. It's the sound of the Librarian communicating with others, or with himself. Used in a sentence:

The Librarian knuckled off, softly ooking to himself

.

Also, wow. It was really cool to listen to the first EP episode from 8 years ago coming to me via time warp.

[Liknus]

Goodmorning! It's Liknus from Venice here


This is my first post in this forum, mainly because I've discovered Escape Pod (as well as the other podcast's website) early today. So I'd like to start off by thanking the administrator and the owner of the forum as well for the chance they grant me in writing here.
Since it is almost the end of the year I would like to wish good festivities and all the goodness possible.

Now it is the time for apologizing.. This thread dated back 6 years, even though the first episode hail from much earlier! 2006!! Wow!

Now the question.. Since I'm not an English mother tongue speaker, it is sometimes difficult for me to follow the podcast if the speech is not correlated by a written version. So, I actually don't know if requesting a transcript is against forum's rules, but in the case it is not, wouldn't this be possible?

Many thanks
(forgive me for a not perfect English.. correct me too if you wish, I'd be glad of this).
Again thanks,
Cheers
L.

[Ocicat]

Welcome to the forum!  No worries on bringing back a thread for an old episode, that's what they're there for.  In fact, since the podcast started well before the forums did, at some point they went back and created threads for the older episodes, just so people could comment on them.

However - there are no transcripts for the older episodes.  The newer EP episodes, from the last year or two, do have full text on the escapeod.org website.  But that only applies to Escape Pod.  Podcastle and Pseudopod do not yet do this.

[Liknus]

I see! Thanks anyway for the reply!
Happy new year

[Supernova]

Hi,

I'm new here having only just discovered this wonderful site today. Due to the moderator in a previous comment saying it's OK to resurrect dead threads I'm going to assume that's still the case and go ahead and reply here as opposed to starting a brand new thread. I may do this with some of the other stories I listen to, if I feel compelled to comment on them (hope this is ok  ) I wanted to begin with episode 1 and work my way through these stories one by one. Some comments seem to suggest this first ep was such a long time ago, back in 2005. 2005 really doesn't seem that long ago to me, then I realise it is 11 years ago...how time flies !
Anyway, just wanted to submit my thoughts on this first episode. I liked the quirkyness of the writing, being a long time Douglas Adams fan there was something about the way this was written that appealed to me. The underrunning political theme was interesting, the imperialist society ultimately becoming the captive society but arguably in a beneficial way (that's how I took it anyway).

I have now also listened to ep 2 and 3, and so far am really enjoying these short stories. The theme so far reminds me of episodes of The Twilight Zone, I could almost see Rod Sterling standing in the background, cigarette in hand, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode. Thanks for the site, it looks to have been a success judging by it's longevity which is great, I only wish I had learned of the site sooner, still, it means I now have 509 more stories to enjoy ! Better get cracking.... 

[Fenrix]

I have now also listened to ep 2 and 3, and so far am really enjoying these short stories. The theme so far reminds me of episodes of The Twilight Zone, I could almost see Rod Sterling standing in the background, cigarette in hand, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode. Thanks for the site, it looks to have been a success judging by it's longevity which is great, I only wish I had learned of the site sooner, still, it means I now have 509 more stories to enjoy ! Better get cracking.... 

And then close to a thousand more of Pseudopod, PodCastle, and Cast of Wonders. Welcome aboard!

[Supernova]

I have now also listened to ep 2 and 3, and so far am really enjoying these short stories. The theme so far reminds me of episodes of The Twilight Zone, I could almost see Rod Sterling standing in the background, cigarette in hand, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode. Thanks for the site, it looks to have been a success judging by it's longevity which is great, I only wish I had learned of the site sooner, still, it means I now have 509 more stories to enjoy ! Better get cracking....  

And then close to a thousand more of Pseudopod, PodCastle, and Cast of Wonders. Welcome aboard!

Wow, I didn't know about those ! Thanks for letting me know about them. This just gets better and better Edit: Had I looked properly at the forums front page of course, I would have seen them below the Escape Artists section, how embarrassing  Thanks anyway and for the welcome

[matweller]

Mom, I told you I was doing this almost five years ago. Are you really just getting around to listening? Geez.

[Supernova]

Mom, I told you I was doing this almost five years ago. Are you really just getting around to listening? Geez.

LOL, sorry, I'm not your mom, perhaps she needs reminding again? 

Really enjoying the stories so far !

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I have now also listened to ep 2 and 3, and so far am really enjoying these short stories. The theme so far reminds me of episodes of The Twilight Zone, I could almost see Rod Sterling standing in the background, cigarette in hand, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode. Thanks for the site, it looks to have been a success judging by it's longevity which is great, I only wish I had learned of the site sooner, still, it means I now have 509 more stories to enjoy ! Better get cracking....  

And then close to a thousand more of Pseudopod, PodCastle, and Cast of Wonders. Welcome aboard!

Wow, I didn't know about those ! Thanks for letting me know about them. This just gets better and better Edit: Had I looked properly at the forums front page of course, I would have seen them below the Escape Artists section, how embarrassing  Thanks anyway and for the welcome

Heh - you, my friend, are precisely the target audience for this wiki we're building! So far, we have episode lists for the four EA podcasts, a couple of pages about some of our other favorites (like Drabblecast and Toasted Cake), and a growing number of author and reader bios. If you get to a point where you want to see how many stories a particular reader has read or a particular author has had on Escape Pod, that's where you would go.

Have fun catching up! I'm always excited to see what people think of my old favorites.  (Union Dues? Squonk? You have so much to look forward to!)

[Supernova]

I have now also listened to ep 2 and 3, and so far am really enjoying these short stories. The theme so far reminds me of episodes of The Twilight Zone, I could almost see Rod Sterling standing in the background, cigarette in hand, setting the scene at the beginning of each episode. Thanks for the site, it looks to have been a success judging by it's longevity which is great, I only wish I had learned of the site sooner, still, it means I now have 509 more stories to enjoy ! Better get cracking....  

And then close to a thousand more of Pseudopod, PodCastle, and Cast of Wonders. Welcome aboard!

Wow, I didn't know about those ! Thanks for letting me know about them. This just gets better and better Edit: Had I looked properly at the forums front page of course, I would have seen them below the Escape Artists section, how embarrassing  Thanks anyway and for the welcome

Heh - you, my friend, are precisely the target audience for this wiki we're building! So far, we have episode lists for the four EA podcasts, a couple of pages about some of our other favorites (like Drabblecast and Toasted Cake), and a growing number of author and reader bios. If you get to a point where you want to see how many stories a particular reader has read or a particular author has had on Escape Pod, that's where you would go.

Have fun catching up! I'm always excited to see what people think of my old favorites.  (Union Dues? Squonk? You have so much to look forward to!)

Thanks I just checked out your site and I think I shall be visiting often ! A very useful resource to read up on a particular author or reader.