BLUE OYSTER CULT

H.323 VIDEO CONFERENCE TERMINAL 

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 [SYSTEM: H.323 VIDEO CONFERENCE TERMINAL]
 [REMOTE HOST: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN]
 [SESSION ID: 03-117A]
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> POWERING CAMERA...              [OK]
> LOCKING  UPLINK...              [OK]
> TESTING AUDIO CHANNEL...        [OK]
> CONNECTING TO REMOTE HOST...    [OK]

CONNECTION ESTABLISHED.

REMOTE PARTICIPANT:
DR. EVELYN HARPER
DEPARTMENT OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

[READY FOR CONFERENCE]
WILL
First of all, thank you for answering on such short notice.
14:02:11
DR. HARPER
No problem. Could we get right to it? I've got a lecture in twenty minutes.
14:02:21
PAUL (OS)
Still can't believe people actually go to university.
14:02:37
WILL
Please ignore Paul.
14:02:42
DR. HARPER
Well, Paul, somebody has to.
14:02:50
PAUL (OS)
How's that working out?
14:02:52
WILL
OK, Mike please kick him out. There, thank you.
14:02:56
DR. HARPER
Alright. What's this about?
14:03:00
WILL
I apologise Ms. Harper, I have huge respect for your job.
14:03:03
WILL
A group of friends contacted me through an old aeronautics forum.
14:03:07
WILL
Paul included.
14:03:11
WILL
Yesterday... something appeared in one of their packet-radio chatrooms.
14:03:14
DR. HARPER
A person?
14:03:21
WILL
That's what they assumed.
14:03:23
WILL
But it didn't behave like one.
14:03:25
WILL
It asked questions. About NASA. About the Earth. About the year.
14:03:31
WILL
It said it couldn't understand why the planet looked... different.
14:03:37
DR. HARPER
...Different how?
14:03:40
WILL
It claimed its mission was to observe Earth's environmental health.
14:03:43
WILL
And then it gave us its name.
14:03:46
WILL
"Earth Observation Probe Blue Oyster."
14:03:49
DR. HARPER
. . .Blue Oyster?
14:03:51
WILL
So you know it?
14:03:57
DR. HARPER
Everybody in the department knew about Blue Oyster.
14:04:01
DR. HARPER
It was supposed to help us save the planet, you know? After we found out we were all gonna die eventually, everything stopped in time. This was the last satellite we sent up before we just gave up on everything.
14:04:19
DR. HARPER
I doubt anyone actually had faith in it . .
14:04:21
DR. HARPER
And they were right to do so, it failed twenty-four hours after launch.
14:04:26
WILL
What happened?
14:04:29
DR. HARPER
A deployment failure left its solar arrays trapped inside their housing, deeming the project a total failure.
14:04:32
WILL
It lost power.
14:04:36
DR. HARPER
The papers loved it. Without power, the mission was over before it even began.
14:04:41
DR. HARPER
"BLUE OYSTER FAILURE: HUMANITY'S LAST HOPE DEAD"
14:04:44
DR. HARPER
"Blue Oyster: Dead on Arrival."
14:04:48
WILL
If the arrays never deployed...
14:04:51
WILL
...how did it contact them yesterday?
14:04:55
DR. HARPER
It should'nt have
14:05:01
DR. HARPER
I don't know.
14:05:03
WILL
So could it really be, Blue Oyster?
14:05:12
DR. HARPER
I don't know.
14:05:20
WILL
How can we know then?
14:05:24
DR. HARPER
We verify it.
14:05:28
WILL
How?
14:05:32
DR. HARPER
First. Give me the chat logs, timestamps and everything.
14:05:35
WILL
Mike saved them. I'll have them sent over.
14:05:39
DR. HARPER
Good.
14:05:40
DR. HARPER
Second... has anyone tried talking to it again?
14:05:44
WILL
No. It just disconnected.
14:05:47
WILL
Said something about estimated reaquisition in 13 hours.
14:05:52
DR. HARPER
Thirteen hours?
14:05:53
WILL
That's what it said.
14:05:54
DR. HARPER
Those were its exact words?
14:05:59
WILL
"Estimated reacquisition in thirteen hours."
14:06:02
WILL
Reading the log as we speak.
14:06:03
DR. HARPER
It means the system is expected to link up again.
14:06:11
DR. HARPER
Whether it's thirteen hours or twelve doesn't matter right now.
14:06:19
DR. HARPER
What matters is whether there's actually something up there.
14:06:21
WILL
Can we check?
14:06:23
DR. HARPER
We can try. There are public orbital catalogs. Amateur trackers. Archived TLEs.
14:06:26
DR. HARPER
If Blue Oyster was ever catalogued, and it should have been, we can compare its predicted orbit with where your signal came from.
14:06:31
WILL
You can do that?
14:06:35
DR. HARPER
Not from memory. But I know where to start looking.
14:06:40
WILL
What can we do to help?
14:06:44
DR. HARPER
We'll put the word out, see if there are other sightings and where.
14:06:52
DR. HARPER
So we can compare its path with its supposed orbit.
14:06:57
WILL
Okay. Let's see if Blue Oyster is supposed to be over Lake Erie in the first place . .
14:07:08
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