the ruby yacht is a named exploratory space vessel with a crew consisting of renegade outlaw poets. their mastery of music and word is magic. they can cast spells and alter reality through performance.
they travel galaxy to galaxy and planet to planet being poetic and free. sometimes a liberation force, sometimes an antagonist to the errant techlords dominating space and all of the time bopping and whimsical.
the hijinks that follow will be explored in depth but this story is separate from that one for now. it may come to intersect with the story of the ruby yacht however for this moment we must look closely at you and your story.
there is an isolated desert planet in an unknown universe. it is a colonized planet used mostly for the farming and raising of obedient slaves. there is a premium on human labor even in a multiverse teeming with other life forms and fully conscious computerized bots with complete range of motion. much of the bureaucratic staff on this planet are robots with AI brain and a disdain for humanity and its silly ephemera like art and culture.
on this planet, many of the human beings are mentally exhausted and have been for generations. reading is illegal for human beings and all signs directed at humans are pictoholograf. by extension writing is illegal for human beings. this knowledge has been lost for hundreds of years to the laymen.
the code for acceptable slave conduct is colloquially called THE SCRIPT.
most slaves relax to white noise. if they are creative types, they tune into one of the code approved satellite stations and listen to AI generated sounds organized temporally to imitate the idea of muzak. most slaves unwind watching static. they even try to dress like it.
humans speak predictably, comfortably from a conception of acceptable words, phrases, lingos and combinations herein that are only ever implied and inferred by management. due to the intended vagueness of this code, the planets mechanized authority figures can dispatch discipline (violence) at will.
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you awake in a bedroom in a row house at wager view farms.
you can hear the breathing of at least one other human in your room.
you feel the cool displaced air of a small observation drone, the size of a bat, hover-propelling by.
the bed is comfortable.
there are personal artifacts scattered about the room attempting decoration, some are yours. posters, pictoholograf, of cop bots and comedians. little figurines of mutants besting humanoids.
you reach over onto a small bedside table and check your commlink. 3 hours until emotional suppressants and trade classes. learning to repair transport pod lateral thrusters. this breadth of education and discipline is what makes wager view farms slaves so sought after in this unknown galaxy.
but something feels entirely new about today. you have awoken to a truer nature of self. your mind is racing with ideas that seem to come from other places, an altered destiny. they are certainly not part of the script.
perhaps it was wise, foregoing yesterday’s allotment of emotional suppressants and rationality stimulants. it is unclear where that impulse came from, what unknown force conjured such rebellious inspiration.
you sweep your legs to the right and rise from bed.