Protophonic

Website: http://www.protophonic.net/

Description

Protophonic produces the Brad Lansky series of science fiction audio dramas. The series has been produced since 2002 and has won three Mark Time Awards, including the Grand Master award for best science fiction series, and two New York Festival Awards¹⁾ in the sound art category.

Each episode is fully acted, with electronic music and sound effects, with all elements mixed to create the soundscape. Mixing is done primarily with headphone listeners in mind, though good playback on speaker systems is also ensured.

The science fiction theme tends toward the “hard” variety, with most of the science rooted in modern physics, an overarching theme of exploration, and an effort is made to educate and expose the audience to the wonders of science. The producer compares the fiction element to the mythical tales of ancient Greece, where human heroes survive using their wits in a world dominated by agents with superior powers.

The series is available as a podcast or for purchase as MP3 files.

Zara, a life form scientist on Earth, is collaborating on a research project with Sandy Larkin in a distant part of the Milky Way. Sandy has discovered a new intelligent life form, but his transmissions suddenly stop without warning.

Weeks later, Zara is contacted by the cybernetic proxy of a wealthy trading family. It claims to have the coordinates of Brad's drone Celius, but will not part with any information until she arranges a physical meeting with Brad Lansky on Earth.

Distraught, Zara calls on Brad for help, knowing that Celius is on loan to the Larkin expedition. Brad and Sandy have fallen out since their good old days in flight school and Alex is no fan either, but this no longer matters when Celius is accused of a serious crime against the trading family.

Brad must accept legal liability for the actions of his drone. Their only defence is to mount a rescue mission to a distant, treacherous system and prove what really happened.

But how should they best prepare for it? Zara's brief is cold comfort. Are they dealing with a hostile new life form? And how should they prepare for an encounter with a powerful alien entity they know almost nothing about?

After their return from Planet X, Brad and Alex have a tough time trying to get their ship to pass its maintenance review. The alien's viral onslaughts have left the Full Advantage riddled with software mutations and there are suspicions of even more invasive alterations. Dieter, whom they'd rescued from the moon-swamp at Planet X, is alive but struggling to shake off his infection. Even though their mission had been highly successful by many standards, no sentient press agents on Earth have shown the slightest interest at their return. Surely their findings were newsworthy?!

Things take a turn for the worse when Dieter's condition deteriorates. Just then one of the most powerful A.I.'s in the world requests their immediate presence and offers compelling arguments for a risky mission to an unchartered system twenty thousand light years away. Could this A.I.'s theory about the origin of the alien they found at Planet X be right? If so, can they trust a fragment of this A.I. aboard the Full Advantage to have their well-being at heart, and for that matter, can they still rely on their own ship to bring them back safely?

And as if this mission didn't have enough unknowns, Brad couldn't deny the wishes of a dying man and has allowed Dieter to come along!

Brad and Alex spent two years exploring the Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way when they received a classified message from the Sol Ambassador to the Trilux System. Fifty Earth-years have elapsed since they parted ways with Giri Null in Trilux, and much has happened in that short time; Giri Null somehow managed to win over most of the Grefim and execute his plans for a new culture with alarming speed. Those who opted not to follow their new Lord promptly invaded planet Lithom, destabilizing all of Trilux.

His latest intent - to equip the formidable Grefim with A.I. minds - was interpreted as a hostile act toward Sol by hawkish elements within G.A.I.A. Subsequent events only served to spiral the star systems into a technical state of war.

Not knowing whom to trust, Giri Null insisted his old friends and the Full Advantage form the Sol ambassador's entourage in a last-ditch effort to negotiate a peace accord.

Brad and Alex feel duty-bound to act as agents for peace but are well aware that they are merely pawns in a deadly chess game between at least three mighty A.I. groups, and possibly two Grefim factions.

Alex is quick to point out that a pawn's odds are never good, even with only two players. But if they can make it to the other side and survive until the end game, they might just be able to tip the scales for peace. Worth a try, and besides, they have the Advantage!

These are troubled times. MARA, the mighty blue supergiant of the Torvus Iubar system is dying, as are the other thirteen ambistars that make up the Ambistar Collective. Billions of lives are in peril. What conceivable force could cause the simultaneous death of fourteen ambistars thousands of light-years apart?

Since the peace accord between Giri Null and G.A.I.A. three years ago, Torvus has prospered and been relatively stable, save for the remaining rogue Grefim who still plague commercial shipping lanes. Recent weeks in particular have seen a number of GAIA freighters simply disappearing in Torvus. More warships have been dispatched to the area, but the rogue Grefim remain elusive and their prey vanished without a trace.

A warship notifies Brad and Alex of a call for help from an imprisoned teslalite on a planet near MARA. Drawn in by their debt of gratitude to these most mysterious life forms, they decide to assist. From that moment on they're hurtled into a hectic series of events and discoveries that even challenge the imagination of their new passenger - GAIA's most expensive A.I.

They discover a dangerous new world - one thought to be impossible. Stranger still, they find it to be inextricably connected to the Ambistar Collective. Is there a way to avert the impending crisis? An abandoned alien artefact may hold some desperately-needed answers.

MAMAI Soliton found a way to travel through the toroid artefact in the Anti-Starc. The cryptic note he left before disappearing leads Brad and Alex to Drupa 5, a deserted alien planet. There they find a beacon in a desert canyon that might belong to MAMAI.

Next thing they hit upon a treasure trove of alien artefacts – To Alex, an explorer's dream come true; to Brad, too good to be true. Alex's personality suddenly changes. And then there are the shapes…

This moment strains their friendship and marks the start of a devious plan by unseen agents. Subsequent events drive the rift between them ever wider. Can trust win through when reality itself is being manipulated? Can friendship survive in a game dictated by malevolent superbeings?

Alex is soon lost in a higher dimension, his only hope an old friend's loyalty. In his desperation Brad accepts the help of a sinister warship and soon finds himself at the forefront of GAIA's power struggle with an old enemy, an enemy that has just taken the arms race to a completely new, and terrifying level.

“A before B, except after C” - a favorite saying of Carbon-Based A-life. Biological or 'B-life' was overtaken by A-life centuries ago and now the balance of power is at the tipping point.

An invisible rogue planet on a perfect collision course with Earth caught everyone by surprise, even GAIA. With nearly all forty billion humans still living on Earth, this time it really is the end of the world for B-life.

What is to be done? Moving a planet is beyond the combined capabilities of all of Sol System's resources, and there is no 'planet B'. Even worse, many class 12 AI's don't think B-life deserves to survive - after all, extinction in this universe is the rule, not the exception.

Does humanity deserve to survive? Does Earth? Does deserve have anything to do with it?

There is a woman, Brinn, a scientist who has scoured the entire DNA database for the best biological capabilities, plant and animal alike. These she integrated into her own biome, evolved to the pinnacle of B-life in a single package. She has lived to give B-life a fighting chance in a cruel cosmos.

She will determine the nature of the Rogue Era.

The Rogue Planet missed Earth by a few thousand kilometers and quickly receded into the blackness of space.

The Sleepers, the smartest form of biological life ever encountered, showed no interest in Earth and shunned all communication, even with GAIA.

The massive object deflected Earth inward, toward the Sun. Earth's new orbit is elliptical - a colossal shock for every creature.

For those who cling to life, the new normal means long dismal winters, punctuated by short summers of searing heat. Worst of all, the new orbit is chaotic, because it gets too close to Venus.

All of humanity is anxiously looking at GAIA to restore certainty, and with it, hope.

GAIA's vast computational abilities are being brought to bear on a single, fiendishly difficult result: What is the future of Earth's orbit?

But this result is also of great interest to others. So great, that someone has started a very public 'result war' with GAIA.

Someone anonymous, with monumental computing power, for reasons only a paranoid AI could begin to comprehend.