Mothership: Episode 1
Our story follows the mission of the crew of The Nellie, including Captain Foster, Doctor Zarkov, Doctor Dudley, and Arcturus, the android as they travel to planet Yatima and face the unknown consequences of retrieving the alien archive. The stakes are high, and the team must work together to survive and complete their mission.
Quick note: ChatGTP generates Arcturus’s actions and dialogue.
Doctor Maximillian Zarkov wakes up from a nightmare of all-consuming darkness to a call from security. The CEO of Kind Corp, Rajesh Kumar, has requested his presence. Meanwhile, Captain Cain Foster also has a nightmare about his team exploring a Hab and being attacked by a woman and two siblings who are filthy and covered in sores and lesions. In the dream, the crew is killed when a spacecraft crashes into their vessel, The Nellie.
Arcturus is activated and asked to demonstrate his free will by accepting the mission. Arcturus repeatedly asks for the parameters of the mission, but none is provided. An unseen and unheard person argues with Arcturus’s creator, and in frustration, Arcturus is deactivated.
Doctor Zarkov meets with Rajesh Kumar and promises untold riches and fame if he accepts the mission to travel to planet Yatima and retrieve an alien archive. Doctor Dudley, who has a daughter with a rare disease, is offered a cure if he joins the mission. There is no room for failure.
Rajesh Kumar introduces the team to his fellow executives and explains the stakes of the mission.
The team meets at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for their mission briefing and learns that seven years ago, a survey team discovered an alien archive and sent word back to Kind Corp, and were never heard from again. The team is tasked with retrieving the archive and determining what happened to the survey team. Dudley voices his apprehension about the consequences of meddling with alien technology and gets into a heated argument with Foster. Arcturus attempts to defuse the situation and tells a joke, which fails to get a laugh.
Captain Foster gives a tour of The Nellie, a weaponized science space vessel. The ship’s AI comes online and names itself Catalina. The team goes into cryosleep, but not before Zarkov sees additional occupied cryo chambers loaded into the ship. They say you don’t dream in cryosleep, but Zarkov dreams of the darkness again, and this time a smokey tendril snatches his leg and pulls him into itself. A scream is caught in Zarkov’s throat. It will be seven years of cryosleep before he can release that scream.