Starship Australis

**"Starship Australis"** is the second episode of the first series of *Night Terrace*. It was released for digital download along with the rest of series one on 23 October, 2014, and first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra on April 28, 2019 as part of the 7th Dimension.

## Synopsis

Anastasia and Eddie still can’t control their travelling house, which this time seems to have brought them back home to suburban Melbourne, complete with friendly neighbours. But they are actually aboard the starship *Australis* - and the future of Australian society isn’t what they might have hoped...

## Plot

Having followed Sue's cryptic instructions to make the house travel, Anastasia and Sue open the door to discover what seems to be a suburban Melbourne street. Eddie takes his leave and starts door-knocking again, though he is a bit lost. Anastasia meets Morrie, one of the locals, and soon realises everything is not what it seems: they're not in Melbourne, but in the future aboard an enormous spacecraft - the *Starship Australis*. Morrie assumes she is a "freezie", which explains her memory loss, and explains that the ship is carrying the entire population and culture of Australia away from an environmental disaster known as "the cataclysm" on Earth. Now the ship is nearing it's destination planet - Borealia - the "freezies" - the majority of the population who have spent the journey in cryogenic suspension - are waking up. Meanwhile the ship has been operated by the rest of the Australian population - convicts sentenced to work during the passage.

After having little luck finding out where he is from passers-by, Eddie runs into "Sue", who seems familiar to him. She takes him back to her unusual home inside a Big Pineapple, where he discovers from a newspaper that it is the year 2153. He asks to use her voice-activated computer and, claiming he is looking up an ancestor, asks it for "Eddie Jones' fate" but it will take some time to retrieve the information. While using her bathroom he discovers schematics of the ship seemingly revealing a plan to destroy the ship through sabotage; he confronts her about it, but she knocks him out with a sitar.

Anastasia debates returning to Night Terrace and leaving Eddie behind, but convinces herself not to. Morrie advises that the best way to find Eddie is to get to the bridge; he can take her there, but he doesn't have access. They head to the Hall of Monuments, which contains Australia's great cultural artefacts, the "Big Things", as well as in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is the entry point to the starship's bridge and engine room. Anastasia quickly works out the code, but Eddie arrives, having escaped from Sue's home, and tries to warn Anastasia about the sabotage. Anastasia says they shouldn't interfere because it's nothing to do with them - until Sue appears and points out that the real saboteur is Morrie, whom Anastasia has just let into the engine room. Anastasia realises this means she has already interfered in future history, and must set things right.

Eddie heads to the bridge with some beer and distracts the captain and crew while Anastasia tracks down Morrie. She uses her advanced scientific knowledge to overload the ship's electrical systems him with Eddie's help, stunning Morrie, but the ship has arrived at Borealia. Morrie reveals his plan - he doesn't want to destroy the ship, but kill all the Borealians so that the Australians won't have to share their new home with anyone else. Anastasia and Eddie stun Morrie again, but the Borealians refuse to let them land as they don't want to accept any refugees. They demand the Australis provide coordinates so they can teleport out their engine to leave them stranded in orbit, but Anastasia instead gives them coordinates for "the Big Engine" in the Hall of Monuments, then crashes the ship onto the planet's surface, forcing the Borealians to accept the Australians as refugees. The Borealians have a change of heart and accept their new neighbours, and Eddie and Anastasia return to Night Terrace.

Alone in the Big Pineapple, Sue hears the computer states that Eddie Jones disappeared in 2014 and that there is no record of him after that date, before disappearing herself.

## Cast and characters

* Jackie Woodburne as Anastasia Black
* Ben McKenzie as Eddie Jones
* Petra Elliott as "Sue"

### Guest Stars

* Francis Greenslade as Morrie
* Chris Taylor as the Captain
* Amanda Buckley as the Ship's Computer
* Petra Elliott as the Borealian Commander

Additional voices: Andrew Waddington, Glenn Greening and Aamer Rahman and the cast.

## Notes

### Continuity

* Sue appears in this episode as one of the Australian colonists aboard the *Starship Australis*, though a physical description is never given. She has apparently been there for some time waiting for the house to arrive, as she has had time to accumulate a collection of "cultural artefacts" and uncover Morrie's plans.
* Anastasia considers leaving Eddie behind but argues with herself about whether she should. This parallels her arguments with Sue about interfering with the alien device in *Sense & Susceptibility*, and about abandoning Eddie in *The Edification of Anastasia Black*.
* According to future records, Eddie never makes it back home to 2014. Sue is the only character to learn this information.

### Australian references

* This episode contains several references to long-running Australian soap opera *Neighbours*. Jackie Woodburne has played the character of Susan Kennedy on *Neighbours* since 1994.
	+ "Ramsey Street" is named for the street in which most of the families live on *Neighbours*.
	+ Morrie's dog Bouncer is named after the famous Labrador character who appeared in the show for over 1,400 episodes between 1987 and 1993.
* The "NBN" is the National Broadband Network, an Australia government project first proposed in 2007 to replace Australia's aging telecommunications network and provide fast Internet access to a majority of the population. By 2014 it had reached very few households; as of 2021 it is largely completed but the quality and speed of the network is considered sub-par.
* Aside from the Big Engine, the "big things" in the Hall of Monuments are all real artefacts found in rural Australian towns. These include the Big Banana, the Big Mango, the Big Prawn, the Big Earthworm and the Big Pineapple.
* "Cultural cringe" is is the tendency of Australians to consider their own art and culture inferior to that of other countries, especially the United Kingdom.
* The attempt of the Borealians to tow the *Australis* back to its "planet of origin" is a reference to Australia's policy of returning boats carrying asylum seakers back to their country of origin. Eddie later remarks that he "didn't like being hit over the head with a satire".

### Trivia

* The recap at the start of the episode apparently retcons the ending of the previous episode, though it could also be that the house has left Tranquillos, but is still travelling, requiring another turning on of the taps to make it land.

## External links

* Bandcamp - Splendid Chaps Productions | ***1.2 Starship Australis***
* On the Terrace podcast: Heading Back

## References

 **Season One**
 **Season Two**
*Things That Go Bump in the Night Terrace* · *Ancient History*
 **Specials**
 **Hello! My Name is Eddie**
 **Night Your Own Terrace**
 **Horatio's Travels**
*Messages*