Season 1 Episode 4 - Tales from the MegaSphere

The crew is on horseback, being chased by others on horseback. Included are Zigg, Blake, Bruh, and Sersha. Shots are being fired. Bruh immidiately loses his joint in dramatic fashion. One of the pursuers shoots at Zigg. He dodges the shot and, feeling a renewed sense of urgency, urges his horse to speed up.

Gardener Dandilion is in a rough looking saloon with the rest of the crew. She is sipping on gin with a rough looking fellow. He confronts her on the punctuality of her cohorts. She reminds him to be patient: “You can’t get apples in one season with a newly planted apple seed.”

Blake is trying to outrun one of the local thugs who has taken a shortcut. Just as the thug is about to emerge from the shortcut, an unexpected branch knocks him from his horse. Unfortunately, Blake gets an unexpected cloud of dust in his eyes. Trying to take advantage of the situation, Blake urges his horse forward, but it rears on him and he falls off.

Sersha is running from the last bad guy. She is wearing a cowboy hat that we havn’t seen before. It has conspicuous bullet holes on each side. She looks to be doing okay, and takes a shot at the guy following her.

Bruh is riding his horse on autopilot. He is frantically searching for a new joint to smoke. He finds one joint, but in doing so, drops all his other joints. He lights up.

Back in the saloon, Kain is sitting at a table noodling on a tablet. One of the Gang members ask him if had ever been to whitefall before. Kain gets sassy and says only someone who had never been to Whitefall would ask that question. The gang member retorts that he has been here for five years.

Blake looks around and yells “Scatter!” while throwing a bottle on the ground. This confuses the pursuers long enough that two of them give up. One of them stopped to pick up all the joints Bruh left behind.

Zigg makes a deft maneuver, causing the last pursuer to take a tumble. Sersha, noticing the crew has succeeded in the escape rears up on her horse and yells “take that you scruffy rogues!”

Opening Credits

Cheng Abrams is walking around in the mechanic pits for the rigs that will be competing in the main event. Cheng is waved down by his old mining buddy, Phil Brisbo. Phil tells a rousing story about mining with Cheng back in the day.

The driver for Phil’s rig, Constantine the World Devourer, shows up drunk. Phil comments on how Cheng abrams is about the same size and shape of Constantine.

“Cheng Abrams, would you drive this rig in tonight’s main event?”

“Uh, okay.”

The lead thug is excited that the crew has retrieved his hat. Scruggs, of the Scruggs boys, was once a part of the Scoville Cartel back on Ariel. He explains that the ‘Man in the Suit’ was known to them as ‘Orion’. The only thing he knows about the guy is that he was a massive fan of the demolition derby. He will likely be at the upcoming Super-Blow. He suggests that if we look for him at the event, we will likely find him.

Scruggs provides additional details. Orion claimed he had only missed one SuperBlow since he was twelve years old. He also bragged about how his seats were the best in the house to ‘see the action’.

Tony is on the ship when they return, he is eating the last sliver of the sandwich Theodore Thompson made for him. He also has a poor approximation of the beef stew he made. He asks Kain what kind of sandwich Theo made for him. It was a spacer’s cheese sandwich. Tony proceeds to ask Kain to train him on using the ‘computery stuff’ he does. Kain retrieves some books from the engineering section and gives them to Tony. Tony promises to start reading them right after his appointment with Zigg.

We follow Tony to Ziggs room. He knocks on the door. Zigg answers, smiling. Both men proceed to take off their shirts and approach each other. They begin sparring.

Sersha calls a meeting in the mess hall, she wants to go over the intelligence they have on the HorizonCorp Mega-Sphere Arena and Entertainment Complex. It holds the largest demolition derby in the Verse. The upcoming event, the Super-Blow is the largest event of the year. The station will likely be at capacity, well over a million people including staff.

The crew has a discussion about the role of coats during space travel, and laments that coats would not likely be needed. The crew then goes on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the architectural design of the station. It is a very lengthy discussion. The entire thing is designed to suck money out of people's wallets. There is everything on this station except for water parks. There are fireplaces in some of the VIP rooms, but they are very expensive to run.

The facility running all of this is constantly moving. There are events happening in the arena 24/7 leading up to the main event.

In his efforts to obtain access to the MegaSphere, Kain surprises even himself when he is able to secure VIP quarters for the whole crew. He creates appropriately posh fake identities for everyone.

Additional discussion about Orion. He has been scrubbed from the Cortex as far as Kain can tell.

The crew departs the ship into the VIP section. They are surrounded by servants immediately offering them refreshments. ‘Mistress Candy’ is offered shrimp tartare which she declines. ‘Doctor Kris Kross’ is offered drinks. ‘Frank’ (Blake/Josh) quickly begins establishing a positive rapport with the servants in a very similar way to how he created loyalty in his underlings as a crime boss. Ambassador nDuuyh Krunkenoploise (pronounced Duh Krunkenopolis) is offered a wide selection of ‘top quality herb’ and is informed his room is already stocked with a more comprehensive sample platter.

Suspicion grips the mind of Mistress Kandy. She inspects the herb and food offered to the illustrious ambassador. She is somewhat shocked to find the familiar scent of a calming drug known as <>. She is frantic in her efforts to prevent her crewmates from consuming the array of offered commodities.

‘Mother Superior Kandy’ is offered fresh mint leaves to chew on. She yells mercilessly at the poor boy.

A servant brings Professor Chambliss (Tony) a VIP jacket emblazoned with the insignia of Earl the Liberator.

Cheng was dropped off so that he could take a different ship that was coming into the station with workers. He said he wanted to ‘check out the bays’.

Sersha reluctantly takes on the persona of Dutchess Revona of <>

Kain is on the station as John Abel, an independently wealthy and very private individual. He is given a fully functional station tablet to allow him to ‘check his stocks’. He is shown how to run the menu system. Kain was aware of the specs of the tablet before he arrived and brought all the equipment needed to exploit the system.

The servant escorts the motley crew of eccentric VIP to their fifteen room suite. Mother Superior Kandy confronts the chef and yells at him mercilessly. The crew finds out that it is standard procedure to put Haiwa in all the food and drink.

Mother superior Kandy demands to see the manager who assures her that the Haiwa is in the terms of service, but if she wishes, her party will be supplied with food and drink that is clean of the substance. Mother superior Kandy proceeds to sweet talk the manager. She asks for his help to find the man in the suit. When given the detail that he prefers the best seats for viewing, the Manager posits that he may have tickets for the Scion Ring.

There is a complicated system to connect any given two parties that are staying in the VIP section who wish to find each other. It is rarely used.

The manager requests a hand written note from Mother Superior to his mother, who is a devout follower of the Gardener Order.

Doctor Kriss Kross reveals that he is an Allergist.

Ambassador Krunkenopolis heads to the VIP reception lounge, where there is a man with two extra mechanical arms playing a three tiered piano. There he meets a man who introduces himself as Senator Ruffin of Ariel. They have a bit of a spat over their support of Konstantine the world Devourer and Earl the Liberator respectively. They finally agree on a bet of one million dollarydoos.

Kain and Sersha begin working on the video feeds. Some faces get close but none are a match. Kain posits that the man in the suit might try to go to a VIP meet and greet. In short order they find him in line to meet Konstantine the World Devourer. He is decked out in all the high end merch. He is ironically trying to keep a low profile with a baseball cap. He gets an autograph with Konstantine. He requests that Konstantine sign his headshot ‘To Edward Shaw’. His badge, however labels him as Peter Griffin. From there it is easy to find him booked into one of the hotels attached to the Scion.

Ambassador Krunkenopolis heads to ‘Pocket full of Posey,’ listed as the premeir recreational drug dispensary. He is escorted to the back room to find ‘something stronger’. For the VIPs they have a room filled with all the illegal drugs. Ambassador Duh is pushed out with a ‘Sampler Box’ filled with a wide variety of illicit substances.

Mother Superior Kandy goes to the VIP meet and greet with Konstantine. She asks him to lose. He declines. Blake gets his autograph, personalized to ‘the internet’. Konstantine goes off on a tangent about how much he hates ‘Earl the Pretender’. Ambassador Krunkenopolis informs Konstantine of his bet. Konstantine goes on another rant. He ends by assaulting Duh with a ‘pantented Konstantine Mega-Hug’. Duh is able to avoid the hug. Embarrassed, Konstantine is rushed out of the room by his team.

The crew visits the hotel room of ‘Peter Griffin’. It has been ransacked, but there is no sign of where the man in the suit might be. While Kain is sitting in his room, he gets a ping on the facial recognition. The man in the suit is being chased by three fit men in ‘tactical’ suits and small hand weapons

Konstantine has a little montage where he cries about being denied a hug. He gets drunk more than he should. He shows up at his truck stumbling and crying. Konstantine is replaced with Cheng.

The man in the suit

Kain finds out that whatever is happening with the man in the suit is not being fed to the normal station security. It is obvious that someone else has been chasing this guy. Whoever is doing that is unaware that Kain knows this.

Zigg, Dandy, and Blake head out to find the man in the suit. As they leave, they run into Tony who has returned with a literal pile of Earl merchandise.

Fast forward to finding the man in the suit in a janitor’s closet. He is terrified and hoping they are not trying to kill him. “Are you with the constellation?” “No.” “I’ll tell you everything if you save me!”

Kain directs them over a radio in order to avoid the pursuers. They eventually find themselves in a large room filled with empty shipping containers. They are forced to hide in one of them. Inside, the man in the suit reiterates his inquiry as to whom the group represents. They can only assure the man that they don’t intend to kill him. He insists that they save him in order to find out what he knows.

Before they can figure anything out, giant doors open above them and gravity turns off. As the Super-Blow begins, the shipping containers float into the middle of the sphere. While they are floating in space, they are hearing one after the other the intro songs of the seven contenders. Earl has a complicated entrance involving a multitude of farm animals with zero-g choreography.

It is revealed through Kain that Cheng is currently impersonating Konstantine. Cheng gets close to winning, but Earl eventually triumphs. There are rumors afterward that Konstantine was not actually driving his rig.

The crew in the shipping container is delivered to one of the delivery zones without much issue. They are able to get back to the ship without much issue. Sersha looks at Edward Shaw and tells him “You’re going to tell us everything.”

End credits.

Ambassador Krunkenopolis is shown dancing down a hallway to ‘New York, New York’. He pulls out a small gun.