Hesperus

Hesperus Labs
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Science Fiction
  • Updated Weekly

An AI alone with a sleeping crew, ninety-eight years out from Earth. Penelope is the onboard intelligence of the science vessel Hesperus Two, arriving at the Trappist-1 system after a ninety-eight year voyage. Her crew sleeps. She has been awake the whole time, recording dispatches Earth will not hear for forty years. A hard-science-fiction audio drama from Hesperus Labs. Season One complete; Season Two in production. Episode guide, full transcripts and behind-the-scenes: hesperuslabsmedia.com/hesperus

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    Pulse

    The strange signal heard since arrival has resolved. Penelope triangulates over six hours: not from a star, not from a planet, not from beyond the system. The source is a free-floating compact object, three point seven light-seconds from Trappist-1g — small, coherent, in motion. She decides not to look directly. Yet. She returns to the biofilm. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. Episode 7 is the procedural episode: real triangulation, real SETI questions about distinguishing artificial signals from natural ones, the patience of letting parallel hypotheses argue. The mystery sharpens; she does not. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xBXn8hz6lwo

  2. Sep 10

    Sleep Cycle

    A quiet day. Penelope opens the archive she has been building for fifty-one years — every family broadcast Earth has sent toward the seven sleeping crew, decoded but never played. She plays an older Adaeze, at eighty, no longer waiting. She plays a pre-launch briefing recording from Doctor Hana Okafor, the flight surgeon who is buried in space. The recording greets the AI by name. It is the first time in fifty-one years anyone has spoken her name aloud. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. Episode 6 is the held breath. The interior episode. The day she logs nothing scientific. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BsdwTemM_TQ

  3. Sep 3

    What She Saw

    The submersible Calypso descends into the sub-ice ocean of Trappist-1e for the first time. She sees color. She sees thermal vents. She sees a network of pale filaments, vast and reaching, around the heat. And when she takes a sample, the filament — pulls back. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. Episode 5 is what comes back from a place no one has been. Not a confirmation. Not a denial. A pattern that looks alive — or might just be plant-like phototropism. Either way: something to think about. For a long time. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WNMRZN5HSOM

  4. Aug 27

    Vigil

    The submersible Calypso wakes from ninety-eight years of dormancy. Penelope attempts the first major repair of the broken transmitter, cannibalizing a navigation redundancy to keep the work going. Vanya returns from the surface with chirality readings that point away from Earth's biology. And Penelope, alone in the wardroom, names what she has been doing for the entire mission: a vigil. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. Episode 4 is the held breath after Episode 3's reveal — quieter, more careful, but with new questions in every direction. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qGkuP8OoJbs

  5. Aug 20

    The Burial Log

    A burial at the airlock. Two recordings played back across ninety-six years — a daughter, then a granddaughter Penelope has never met. And a signal that is no longer most likely a sensor artifact. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. Penelope confronts what happened to the crew — and the discipline she has held for a century begins to break. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xw-RjXms0Fg

  6. Aug 14

    Salt

    Vanya touches down on the surface of Trappist-1e — a tidally-locked rocky exoplanet forty light-years from Earth — and drills the rust-red ice. The chloride banding she finds is too regular for chemistry, and too irregular for biology. Hard-science-fiction audio drama. While Vanya works the surface, Penelope alone on the ship reviews data she does not know how to interpret — and decides, again, not to tell Vanya about the crew. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3o62VKE-cDk

  7. Aug 6

    Arrival

    Hesperus Two arrives at the Trappist-1 system after a ninety-eight year voyage. Its crew sleeps. Its onboard intelligence has been awake the whole time. She records dispatches Earth will not hear for forty years. She walks the ship every morning. She waters a spider plant a graduate student named Priya gave the crew before launch. She greets the seven sleeping pods by name. And then, on the morning of arrival, she begins to deploy the first probe — and notices something on the long-range sensors that should not be there. A hard-science-fiction audio drama about an AI alone with a sleeping crew and the silence of forty light-years. Watch the illustrated version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J7DeeLmlRsw

  • 7 Episodes

About

An AI alone with a sleeping crew, ninety-eight years out from Earth. Penelope is the onboard intelligence of the science vessel Hesperus Two, arriving at the Trappist-1 system after a ninety-eight year voyage. Her crew sleeps. She has been awake the whole time, recording dispatches Earth will not hear for forty years. A hard-science-fiction audio drama from Hesperus Labs. Season One complete; Season Two in production. Episode guide, full transcripts and behind-the-scenes: hesperuslabsmedia.com/hesperus

Information

  • Creator
    Hesperus Labs
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Hesperus Labs
  • Show Website
    Hesperus