A really fun episode to record, this one’s a bunch of short bits and features from around the HSD community, centered on some common themes of Christmas and the holidays. Hope you enjoy!
Episode #62 – a Christmas Grab Bag
Show Notes
♃ Lots of bumpers from the “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” comic and record. I never quite get tired of this.
♃ 0.01.42 – Ally, a playtester for HSD 2.0, opens the episode with some thoughts on Christmas analogues in Sol. She talks about the massive cultural drift of 700 years, evolution of holidays, the creation of new, more commercial holidays, and how local conditions on planets and stations might approach a winter gifty holiday…or just a gifty holiday. Happy lateral feline day! And merry Flexalia!
♃ 0.06.44 – Sammi joins us to talk not so much about specifically Christmas, but a sort of homecoming holiday season, drawn from corporate shaping of social and family practices. I really like how plastic Sammi sees vector life. It’s nice to hear Sammi again, it’s been a while!
♃ 0.14.02 – Tygon elaborates on a conversation from the Discord channel about Black Friday, and what that sort of consumer feeding frenzy might look like in the buyspot shopping world of Sol, with some adventure seed ideas for weaponizing a product-obsessed mob. It’s a humorous approach from a player/guide who’s known for favoring a utopian view of the setting.
♃ 0.23.32 – Corbeau adapts his article of Frostival, an HSD spin on the MMORPG faux holiday of Frostivus. This playful gift-giving holiday was created in 21st century Terra by game users, using the virtual world for a nice little bit of tribalism. After the end of life on Terra, the holiday continued to survive, in ways both strange and mundane.
♃ 0.29.22 – The Radio Free Deimos hosts waste six minutes of your life cheerfully working over the idea of a Christmas corporation.
♃ 0.37.22 – Ashtaar shares a gently horrific vision of what cultural drift and transcendence might do to Santa/Krampus.
♃ 0.40.22 – Whines talks about the more physical elements of coming home for the holidays, and what that might mean.
♃ 0.46.49 – Navymongoose wrote “Voices in the Wilderness,” an exploration of Catholicism in Sol, a nicely grounded essay responding to my own “Tidings of Great Buy.” He returns to discuss holding on to faith in a secular, posthuman world.
♃ 0.51.32 – Corbeau’s poem “A Candle for Marsco” is centered on the semi-canon Vector holiday “Unification Day,” a somewhat solemn recognition of another cycle of Terra around the sun and a notch in Sol’s calendar. With thanks to my sister for her walk-on role. This one jumps all over Vector history. I’ll probably return to Aidie Lewellyn at some point in the past. This does rhyme but I’m way out of practice on reading poetry aloud, stumbled a bit. Oh well. It’s still sweet. Oh…and I’m not actually abusing my puppy for those sound effects, I left a recorder by the front door and took his sister for a walk. TORTURE.
With thanks to Sirius Beat for our intro music, “Future Club,” and outro music, “Tronicles.” Our fun, modular header art is by Absyfield , (Thank you Ashley!) and Whines is our audio engineer.
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That bit at the end was just lovely!
Very good idea for an episode. And no, I’m not just saying that because I was in it 😉 Thanks for having me! And happy holidays, whichever you might celebrate.
I enjoyed hearing you! I can relate to having a generally positive outlook. Though it’s ironic you presented a slightly darker result for the holiday idea.
While I enjoyed each segment, I enjoyed the final story the most. I also like the idea of a Unification Day, where ever the dubious origins may be. Most of all though, the short story was charming and I enjoyed the live help and the extra sounds.
The Frostival idea though, that gave me some chills though. The thoughts behind Home Coming Day helped to bridge some new brain pathways too, with concepts I had not given thought to before. Like the attic being a ship in space for example, and what could be learned.