Guide

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PSPN Hilites!

Lore

You are now or will soon be watching the Protostar Sports Programming Network, and presumably wish to know what programs will soon be available. Therefore, here is a listing of upcoming, high-profile, eminently profitable programming available ON DEMAND for Protostar Entertainment Solutions subscribers, and available for individual purchase for other, less savvy consumers.

GIRROK/ROWSDOWER RACING FUN HOUR!
Exclusive footage of all the fast-paced, family-friendly,
mega-grisly, blood-drenched fun!

ROWSDOWER ROUNDUP OF DEATH!
Spoilers – The rowsdowers inexplicably won the race, and are breeding like Snorkin Jabbits. Lock and load, competitive big game hunters!

ANIMAL TRAUMA RESCUE ISLAND!
When an innocent rowsdower is shockingly injured in a perfectly innocent rowsdower round-up, the doctors, geneticists, and fur stylists of Protostar Animal Trauma Rescue teleport to the scene! And then teleport back to an island,
where they live, because it’s way more comfortable.

FIRST ANNUAL MALGRAVE GIRROK HUNT
Not taking their racing loss lying down, the surviving girrok of the Girrok/Rowsdower Racing Fun Hour have gone on a rampage, consuming numerous prey animals, clones, and for some reason all of the light fixtures outside PSPN studios. Lock and load again, competitive, slightly bigger game hunters!

WORLD’S MOST HILARIOUS GIRROK-RELATED TRAGEDIES
CAUGHT ON HOLOGRAPHIC CAMERA!
Nothing like shiploads of amateur big game hunters to trigger wave after wave of hilarious hunting accidents – and Protostar holocams have captured every fun-filled minute!
May not be suitable for children who hate fun.

COOKING WITH ROWSDOWER
By which we mean cooking with rowsdower as an ingredient, not cooking with some kind of intelligence-enhanced rowsdower chef. If you’re looking for the latter, be sure to
tune in next week for TOP MASTER ROWSDOWER CHEF KITCHEN EXTREME!

SPORTSEVENING WITH P.T. ROTOSTAR AND THE PROTOSTAR SPORTS ANALYSIS AND PROFITABILITY FUN CREW!
There’s commentary aplenty as the SportsEvening Team tackles the trauma related to this week’s sporting events, the latest fatality totals, and tips for staying cool at your summertime rowsdower barbecue. All that and the latest vindball scores, only on SportsEvening!

Guide

Jump through blue loftite crystal to gain necessary jumping boost in order to reach the Journal location.

Map

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Is This Living?

Lore

“Is This Living?”
A Poem by Freebot Zippit

An organic insect lights
Atop my cranial plate at night
And so I think it might
Have me in its eye-sights.
The organic being lives
Organics can forgive.

These vise-like hands of mine
Hold no hope of love entwined
Till optic sensors shine
Upon one of my own kind
A metal hand resists
The crush of metal fists.

I have no mortality
No day will I meet mere destiny
Merely every day plus
three
Is what awaits for me
A Freebot now I am told
I find it is growing old.

– From LISTEN TO THE WHIRR, A Collection of Freebot Poems for Celebratory Occasions
(Excerpt Courtesy of Preceptor Press)

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Lunch Menu

Lore

[A listing of the various luncheon specials available at Sandstone Hold’s favorite watering hole.]

APPETIZERS
– Small Gravel with Garlish Croutons…..5c
– Splorg Knuckles in Blib Sauce…..12c
– Hyperspiced Jabbit Wings…..3c for 2
– Vegetarian Rootbrute Soup…..4c cup/7c bowl

THINGS WITH BREAD
– No-Quarter Quartered Meatwich…..9c (add meat 3c)
– Yatish’s Clubhouse Sandwich….13c (“Lopp-Size” Half Order 8c
– Kurgburger…..10c (don’t tell the Lopp)

– Kurgburger with Kurg Cheese…..12c (seriously, don’t tell the Lopp, kurg are sacred to them)
– Barbecue Veal Kurgburger with Kurg Cheese and Kurg Bacon…..14c (no Lopp are going to read past the Yatish’s Clubhouse, right? That’s why it’s on the menu. Okay, then.)

THINGS WITH FLATTER BREAD
– Rowsdower Wraps Classic…..12c for 2 (half order 8c)
– Rowsdower Wraps Extra Skin…..14c for 2 (half order 10c)
– Rowsdower Wraps Extra Hoof…..16c for 2 (half order 11c)

– Rowsdower Wraps “The Works” (Skin, Hooves, Nostrils, Blib Sauce, Narfsnu Cheese)…..20c for 2 (half order 12c)
Vegetarian Rootbruturrito…..10c

BREAKFAST (ALWAYS SERVED, AND ALWAYS ON AN EDIBLE FIBER PLATE)
– “The Basics” – 2 Vulcarrion Eggs and 2 Strips Cubacon with Browned Mystery Hash on an Edible Plate…..11c
– “The Hungry Merc” 2 Vulcarrion Eggs, 2 Ravenok Eggs, 2 Strips Cubacon, 2 Links Cubreakfast Sausage,
on Crusted Mystery Hash that is the Edible Plate…..14c
“The Lil Loppling” 3 Boiled Splorg Eggs wrapped in Cubacon with 3 Whimcakes…..8c
“The Busy Buzzbing” Fruit and Fresh Kurghurt Smoothie with Whimwheat Germ and Vitamin Shot…..5c

DESSERTS
– Frosted Flints…..2c/bowl
– Rock-Like Candy Sugar Blocks…..2c/bag
– Whipped Frozen Smilk and Fruit…..5c/plate
– Painapple Pumice Cake…..4c/brick

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Deputy Whirlscrew’s Notes

Lore

Deputy’s Diary. DO NOT EDIT. Unless you are me – Deputy Whirlscrew!

Golly, we sure have learned a lot about life and free will and crime and justice and all these other concepts – like murder! Did I mention murder? It is a thing! A bad thing. About which I learned. From Marshal Yatish!

But I get ahead of myself, which is an idiom I do not entirely understand but which I believe expresses my current state quite accurately. A bit of history, for posterity, may well be in order, just in case I am ever
recaptured by Protostar and forced to undertake a memory wipe!

We Freebots of Shinysand were once like many other Freebot locuses – happy just to be experiencing freedom – and free will – but without a singular focus. A locus focus, if you will. Well, our locus focus turned out to be something none of us had ever expected: crime-fighting! That is right, Electronic Diary, whom I know to also be sentient, (hello there), the arrival of Marshal Yatish in our little locus brought us the focus we had long nee
ded, and now we all practice hard to be the best crime-fighters and enforcers of justice that we can be by following his example.

Marshal Yatish is a Lopp, by the way. You probably know what that is, Electronic Diary, but I bet you have never met one like Marshal Yatish!

Other Lopp are friendly enough, but all they ever talk about is shinies and happy fun times and sometimes it is a bit much for a Freebot to take. But Marshal Yatish is a hero to the Lopp, and now he is a hero to us, too.

He appoin
ted me his very first deputy, by the way. No matter what you hear from anyone else. First. Deputy.

So, what has he taught us? I made a list for you, Electronic Diary!

– 01 – Justice!
Justice is doing what is right as defined by the community’s moral center. That is Marshal Yatish, in our case! So that means we try to help innocent sentients who are under threat of mayhem and murder.

– 02 – Strength!
The best way to help sentients under threat of mayhem and murder is to cause mayhem and murder
until the innocent sentients are safe. Safety is defined as the removal of all threats!

– 03 – Smarts!
There can be no justice if the wrong person is punished for a crime. In cases where the facts are uncertain, factual accuracy should be achieved, or at least attempted.

– 04 – Weapons!
As previously mentioned, violence may be necessary per lesson designated 02. Built-in models are particularly useful to the Shinysand Freebot Constabulary, a name I just made up but intend to propose
to the locus at a later time. I personally prefer to carry an external weapon like the Marshal, who does not carry weapons attachments as he is a biological organism and would die.

– 05 – Hats!
Justice should wear a hat. I am not entirely certain what this means in the abstract, but intend to wear a hat upon my cranial case until further notice.

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Mechari Head Analysis

Lore

[This datapad contains a Protostar-approved analysis of a true rarity – a nonfunctional, yet fully intact, Mechari head.]

RECORDING START
An exceedingly rare specimen that may well prove impossible to duplicate, this one-of-a-kind Mechari head is completely dead, nonfunctional, without sentience or sense, gone to the universe, no longer among the life-possessing population, bereft of thought, absent all vitae, and guaranteed a 100% completely soulless hunk of metal
and rock that just happens to have a charming, if menacing appearance.

The Protostar Corporation has for years been attempting to attain such a specimen as this, never able to complete a trade agreement satisfactory to both sides. Records will show, indeed, that all previous attempts to propose that the Dominion offer up anywhere to two to three dozen Mechari heads – living or dead – in exchange for the wealth of several Protostar owned star systems (including the systems themselves)
has been met with threats of as well as actual weapons fire resulting in the loss of several thousand viable employees.

And now, here, on Nexus, planet of miraculous profitable opportunity, I, a humble managerial clone, have stumbled across the find of a civilization’s lifetime. And I intend to find all the Mechari secrets that can be discovered via intensive and invasive cranial mecha-surgery immediately. Unfortunately, this particular objective has been delayed pending the arrival
of a Level 7 Fusion Scalpel. In the meantime, I intend to set the observationbots to full HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE

Excuse me. The initial A.I. uplink attempt triggered a nearly fatal memory loop. Now recording via uplink.
I cannot argue with the sentiment, however.

As an agent of the ICI, I command any and all non-Protostar sentients able to do so return my head to the appropriate imperial authorities as soon as possible. I have acquired
significant evidence of financial malfeasance, unlawful bio-tampering, and wait do NOT pick me up you little green son of a – OW! [A.I. uplink severed. Please reboot device.]

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Sandthorne Manifesto

Lore

[This document lays out the principles and goals of the Sandthorne faction of the Thorns of Arboria rebels.]

It is with heavy hearts we true Aurin of the Sandthorne do lay down our loyalties to the queen of the Aurin, long may she reign. We do not abandon our queen forever. Only until she understands why we must abandon this mad world beyond the Fringe and return home before it’s too late.

Even now, the Planet Reapers lay waste to the world we truly call home. This place,
this Nexus, she says it will be our new home, but how can this be? We are Aurin of Arboria. We are as the trees of the forest, and we plant deep roots. And this forest is not ours.

Our forest is many light years away, defended only by those brave souls who remained behind. The true Aurin who are, let us be frank, better than us by far. They did not give up. When the queen drove us to the ships, forced us into steel shells and metal bubbles of air that took us far away, they declared
they would remain to be “thorns in the Dominion’s side.”

Does the queen remember? Did she even hear?

So call us thorns as well – the Thorns of Arboria. And let those of us who protect the life even in places others call lifeless be called Sandthornes, like the cunning raptors of Arboria’s northern dunelands. And like the Sandthornes of our home let us be stealthy, clever, and true of purpose and intent.

We will soon be thorns again. But for now, we will be Sandthornes beneath our enemy’s feet.

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Next Week’s Listings

Lore

[A guide to upcoming holographic entertainment programs with a focus on Protostar-produced features.] – PROTOSTAR CHANNEL GUIDE –

5:00 Nexus Mean Time

Protostar Sports Network
BALLSPORT!
All the sport that’s fit to ball. Now with more POINTS and active people enjoying active lives in competition with each other thanks to PROTOSTAR products!
ANNOUNCER…..Senior Announcement Specialist
COLOR COMMENTARY…..Junior Assistant
Commentator
OFF-COLOR COMMENTARY…..Junior Assistant to the Commentator

13:00 Nexus Mean Time

Protostar Situation Comedy Channel
CLONES AHOY!
The crew of the PSS Profitability Knocking III are in for their most hilarious adventure yet when they turn “space-pirate” to open new trading opportunities with the Marauders of Nexus. When the Protostar Clone Recovery and Removal decides to track them down, the adventures get less hilarious and far more
violent, thereby satisfying those who enjoy both known ends of the profitable entertainment spectrum, along with the downright amusing tragedies in between!
CAPTAIN…..Vice President in Charge of Ship Commanding
DOCTOR…..Medical Engineering Waste Manager
SCIENTIST…..Senior Science Scientist
PCRR KILLCLONE Z-8-B…..KillClone X-9-Z
PCRR KILLCLONE Y-2-J…..KillClone J-3-K
PCRR COMMANDCLONE A-B-1…..CommandClone A-A-3

19:25
Nexus Mean Time

Protostar Finance News
CRAZED CURRENCY with Phineas X. Rotostar!
You allegedly asked for him, and now, sentients who subscribe to this and other Protostar broadcasts, you have got him! You heard right. The seventh complete and perfect personal hyperclone of Phineas T. Rotostar himself, the venerable Phineas X. Rotostar, brings his unique brand of humor, financial analysis, and increasingly psychotic advice to the holowaves for a full
five standard minutes – more than enough time to wreak profitable havoc among interstellar economies in this galaxy, and beyond. Profitable for whom? If you have to ask, you haven’t met Phineas X. Rotostar!
PHINEAS X. ROTOSTAR…..Himself
PLASMA HATCHET VICTIM…..Beverage Assistance Supervisor
DOOMED CONSULTANT…..Managing Consultant
PHINEAS K. ROTOSTAR…..Phineas T. Rotostar
(Repeat)