Episode Title: MOSCOW
NOTE: This episode was (also) audio-recorded by Scott, rather later to appear on his Story Schtick webcast.
SYNOPSIS: The stinger featured AI being hooked up to the mainframe in the remains of NORAD by MR. BLACK and several CENTRALIST GOONS FROM THE FUTURE. Making plans to retreive the cryostasis pods which had fallen into the hands of the Cradle Monks, MR. BLACK mentioned that this was neccessary to preserve his timeline. The camera cut back to reveal that AUDITOR CUMSHAW somehow monitored this and sent a copy of it, along with a plea/demand for cooperation to CAPTAIN RAY. Back at NORAD, alarms go off and MR. BLACK realizes security has been compromised. He looks up with an angry/exasperated expression at the giant image of AI on the big board, who giggles in a naughty schoolgirl kind of way.
Roll Credits. (This time, AI appears super-imposed over the normal credit sequence, making with her own brand of computer-generated anime schoolgirl mischief.)
When the show returns, CAPTAIN RAY enters the chamber on the Ring Station where NOVICE RUSH and DR. CULLEN are working to safely revive the frozen True Humans from NOVICE RUSH's old evacuation ship. CAPTAIN RAY pushes NOVICE RUSH to hold off reviving his old crewmates and he reacts badly, starting the revival process on one pod (that of a new character named MARILYN) too soon. MARILYN perishes from the improperly-performed procedure and CAPTAIN RAY crushes NOVICE RUSH with his own guilt.
Shortly afterwards, CAPTAIN RAY reports to AUDITOR CUMSHAW, who congratulates her on a job well done and urges her to destroy the remaining True Humans in stasis and get rid of the genetic evidence. CAPTAIN RAY tries to stall, stating that she has learned respect for intelligent life since her time in the wars, and AUDITOR CUMSHAW calls in some "assistance" in the form of a fleet of battleships (headed by a reluctant WARDEN ALABASTER.)
Meanwhile, in a greenhouse somewhere, BROTHER NARAT toils in a garden (half-clothed to show off his eye-candy pecs and most-deadly-assassin-in-the-universe cybernetic implants.) He has a flashback to FATHER BEN instructing him in the ways of peaceful confrontation which is interrupted by WARDEN ALABASTER broadcasting a semi-legal extradition order for BROTHER NARAT (now positively revealed to be a wanted assassin harbored by the Cradle Monks.)
WARDEN ALABASTER hints that he already has an agent on the Ring Station and that the Cradle Monks' normally-formidable defenses have been taken care of. However, in a cut-away scene, CAPTAIN RAYLIN sneaks into the control room and confronts the assassin. A fight ensues.
Meanwhile, MR. BLACK lands a shuttle in the wintery, frozen remains of Red Square, where we discover that BROTHER NARAT's beet garden greenhouse lies, in fact, in the heart of the Kremlin. MR. BLACK demands that BROTHER NARAT re-enter his service (and the service of the Centrals) as an assassin. He introduces BROTHER NARAT to a grown-up, femme-fatale version of AI (hereafter known as TEMPTRESS AI) who explains that WARDEN ALABASTER must die in order to save NOVICE RUSH and the future he will create.
Then, we rejoin CAPTAIN RAYLIN in the control room being treated by DR. CULLEN. The WARDEN'S AGENT lies unconscious on the floor (but clearly still alive and groaning.) CAPTAIN RAYLIN enlists DR. CULLEN to betray her own people and deliver the cryo-stasis pods to MR. BLACK, hoping to avoid any more deaths.
Back on the ring station, CAPTAIN RAYLIN and DR. CULLEN enter the cryostasis pod chamber, where NOVICE RUSH is sitting, weeping, over the capsule of the crewmate his foolhardy actions have killed. CAPTAIN RAYLIN confronts NOVICE RUSH and he breaks down in tears, realizing for the first time that he's had things the wrong way around. True Humans are monsters from the past which threaten a whole society just by existing, rather than victims of their own monstrous offspring (as NOVICE RUSH has claimed in several earlier episodes.)
When NOVICE RUSH becomes more and more irrational, DR. CULLEN drugs him and CAPTAIN RAYLIN tosses him out of the pod chamber. She shuts the door on his face and NOVICE RUSH begs for her to give them all (the pods, I suppose) back. He feels a hand on his shoulder and FATHER BEN tells him to stop crying and man up, though not in so many words.
While an enormous chunk of the ring station detaches, BROTHER NARAT sneaks into WARDEN ALABASTER's quarters on one of the gunships surrounding the ringstation. The two nemesis battle and BROTHER NARAT wins, but before he can deliver a death-blow, WARDEN ALABASTER appeals to BROTHER NARAT's pride and talks NARAT into giving himself up to prove a new commitment to peace. It becomes clear that FATHER BEN has been interceding on NARAT's behalf for some time.
We go next to the far future, where a one-eyed, three-armed version of AUDITOR CUMSHAW fawns and capers in front of his new masters, the Central Agents (headed by an older, more sinister version of NOVICE RUSH, who we'll call MASTER RUSH to avoid confusion.) MASTER RUSH orders MR. BLACK to return to the past and make sure the cryostasis pods are returned to Cheyene Mountain in order to awaken the army of the Centrals (and eradicate the impurity of the transhuman races.) AUDITOR CUMSHAW clearly expects to be rewarded by surgery which will transform him into a True Human. MR. BLACK teleports to the past by means of the phone booth outside NORAD and walks out to greet DR. CULLEN.
Back in Moscow, NOVICE RUSH trudges through the snow with a pack of tools to his crashed evacuation ship (which doubles as BROTHER NARAT's greenhouse.) He enters to make repairs, but runs into MASTER RUSH, waiting for him there. MASTER RUSH explains that time is in flux and NOVICE RUSH can change the future right now. Outside, FATHER BEN and WARDEN ALABASTER meet and make a mysterious bargain. NOVICE RUSH, convinced by a visit from a future CONNIE (his frozen, long-lost wife) to launch a bloody rescue of BROTHER NARAT, tries to sneak aboard the WARDEN's shuttle, but FATHER BEN turns the NOVICE off by means of a remote control brain-scrambler implanted in the base of the NOVICE's skull (when he was rescued from the crash by BROTHER NARAT, it would seem.)
Switching back to the depths of Cheyene Mountain, MR. BLACK, DR. CULLEN and CAPTAIN RAYLIN meet to bargain over CONNIE's cryocapsule. MR. BLACK wants all the capsules back but CAPTAIN RAYLIN refuses. In the background, young (modern-day) AI is bound-and-gagged (by a mute button) on the big board while a flesh-and-blood version of the TEMPTRESS AI tries to seduce and poison DR. CULLEN. Fortunately, he sees the struggling eye and hits the mute button, allowing her to shout a warning. CAPTAIN RAYLIN realizes that the Centrals are no better than her own people, the Unity, and hits the activation sequence on the cryo-capsule, releasing BROTHER NARAT (who has lain in wait as part of FATHER BEN's meddling.)
Unwilling to face the deadly assassin alone, MR. BLACK and the CENTRAL GOONS FROM THE FUTURE back off, along with the TEMPTRESS AI, while CAPTAIN RAYLIN and her friends rescue AI's memory bank from the computer core.
Outside, they find two versions of NOVICE RUSH blocking their way into the ship. CAPTAIN RAYLIN removes both their masks and they both look identical (although, presumably, one is MASTER RUSH or a temporal duplicate that will become MASTER RUSH in due time.) They both claim the other is lying but JEREMIAH CULLEN (the son of DR. CULLEN who got rescued from MR. BLACK and the CENTRAL GOONS FROM THE FUTURE last episode) shows up and mows down the alternate-timeline-version of NOVICE RUSH in a rather bizarre Deus Ex Machina.
On entering the pod chamber, however, CAPTAIN RAYLIN is shocked to discover that every single pod she stole (there must have been hundreds) has vanished. Back on the Ring Station, FATHER BEN revives CONNIE, saying that just because NOVICE RUSH doesn't know what he needs, that's no reason to avoid getting it to him.
The episode ends with CAPTAIN RAYLIN looking through the massive trans-temporal library of the Cradle Monks and discovering that the Monks exist to protect the present from those who would cheat the future. She discovers several timelines where her recent choices make The Unity a better place to live. The voice of the squinty chick narrates the moral to us (the audience) that all changes begin with the smallest things we choose to do.
So that's it. That's pretty much what happened in our imaginary little show, except for the bits I accidentally left out (of course.)
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