Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri
October 22, 2020

Interview with Rome II - Part 5 of 9

As Steve Fisch and I get the scripts ready to sell Rome's Revolution as a streaming series, he asked me for a lot of background information that I did not have. So I took some time out to interview Rome and Rei. Rome was very talkative so I had to break up her interview into two parts. Here is the second half of Rome's interview, part 5 of 9.
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Rome: Yes. It was place where you had to painstakingly prove that an idea originated with you. Like an audit trail. It was difficult and really fell out of favor. Most Vuduri just don’t bother anymore. It’s so much easier to let the Overmind do the thinking.
Perry: And that stifled creativity?
Rome: Exactly. And that’s why Earth has fallen behind technologically. All the major advances of the Vuduri people occurred before the Overmind was fully established. After that, it was only in areas that the Overmind deemed important. That’s why it took so long for it to research why the stars were disappearing.
Perry: Well you certainly took care of that, your expedition did. One wonders what would have happened if you had failed.
Rome: Everyone would have died.
Perry: It seems that that was kind of short-sighted to put the entire fate of mankind in a single mission.
Rome: The Overmind thought of that. No one really talks about it much anymore but there was a second expedition, a backup.
Perry: A backup? I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. Tell me more.
Rome: As you know, we were sent to Tabit, which was 10 light years under the Galactic Ecliptic, aboard the Algol which is the flagship of the Vuduri fleet. Another crew was sent to Escobar, 12 light years above the ecliptic, aboard the Cobol, another starship.
Perry: I’ve never heard about the Cobol. Is that still around?
Rome: No. It never returned. The crew never returned.
Perry: What happened to them? Do you think it was a Stareater?
Rome: Possible but unlikely.
Perry: Do you have any guesses?
Rome: A guess? (Rome sighs.) I can guess.
Perry: What?
Rome: The Cobol was not as powerful as the Algol. It wasn’t quite as fast. It left Earth about 10 days before we did. It was led by Commander Cassi. There were only 60 Vuduri aboard.
Perry: And do you think they made it? To Escobar?
Rome: I don’t know. But if they did, they would not have experienced as much time dilation as us. Which means after they deployed their equipment, it’s possible that they were still ready to observe the disappearance of Winfall, unlike us. Stupidly, we had just finished packing up our equipment when the event occurred.
Perry: Well, if they were able to record the event, then it seems to me that they would have come home sooner.
Rome: No. Quite the opposite.
Perry: I’m confused. Why not?

Tomorrow, part 6