DEAD or ALIVE
C86,000,000,000 REWARD
Notify THE GRAND ADMIRAL of the TERRAN STAR NAVY
Teddy, aka Teddy the Casket, aka Tin Can Teddy, is a lot to take in, so let's take it from the top and work our way down from there. Firstly, Teddy is not a Europan starfarer, they are the colony of cannibalistic saprophagous fungii inhabiting the remains of an unfortunate Europan colonist. Their pronouns are they/them, but in the plural sense. They see the world around them as heat and vibrations; darkness, obstruction and peripheral vision are not factors for their ability to sense other lifeforms in their proximity. They're one of the Sol system's first ambulatory fungii and they are very curious to learn about all that's developed around their quiet home in the past thousands of years. That's Teddy the Casket. So how do they work? Great question! Let's learn more about that next.
Teddy belongs to a type of fungus found throughout the Asteroid Belt. Squishy things don't tend to decay in space because the bacteria that facilitates decay doesn't exist in most places. There are an abundance of scraps of organic matter floating in space- either the remains of xenofauna or bits of starfarers scattered by the detonation of their ships- and occasionally those bits find their way into the Asteroid Belt, a body of rocks with no atmosphere for this organic matter to burn up entering. When these bits of organic matter find their way onto the surface of an asteroid, and a Ceresian fungal spore finds its way onto that organic matter, a colony of fungii will grow and spore and rot themselves, making way for the next colony of fungii to grow. In this way they are somewhat self-perpetuating, new spores feasting on the decay of their late predecessors. Miners have noted the presence of these patches of pink throughout the Asteroid Belt, and they've often been greeted with fire, not knowing that this fungus was in fact a sentient lifeform of its own.
Ceresian fungus achieves sentience when it grows in sufficient density, forming a neural network capable of producing thought and retaining memory. Not every patch of fungus grows dense enough to achieve this, but through generations of flowering and decay and flowering on the decay of one's predecessors some patches can grow thick enough that the neural network forms and they are able to process the sensations of their environment and achieve awareness of self. Ceresian fungii are essentially an unrecognized sentient lifeform which has, until recently, never had the means to communicate their awareness to the other sentients that come to extract mineral wealth from their asteroids, so their neighbors simply didn't know they could see and think and remember the vibrating shapes and the cones of searing heat they cast upon their fellow colonies. Teddy is, in a way, an ambassador for their people.
Teddy had the good fortune to tumble into a gap in the remains of a failed Europan colonist trying to establish a settlement on Ceres. A whole Europan crammed in a tight little space like that was a feast for Teddy, and so they grew very, very dense, flowering in the main compartment, in the breathing tubes and in the air tanks of the Europan evo suit. Over generations they have spread into the control panels of the evo suit and, slowly, learned that they had some influence over the container they'd flowered in. They had weight and they felt the cruel pull of gravity. They had "limbs", two kinds of them, in fact, and each pair served different purposes! Teddy grew into the suit and, for the first time, a Ceresian neural fungus colony was ambulatory. We find ourselves now at the end of our short journey. We understand what Teddy is, and we can appreciate their rich history and their important place in the Sol system. So now we will learn who Teddy's first contact with the greater universe was.
Anibelle, the Mercurian outlaw, has found herself in a position of trust leading a band of ex-United Robotics workers, one Ganymedean botanist and a metal man from beyond the stars. They sought to stop the terraforming of Venus through theft and sabotage and the Terran Star Navy has introduced lethal force upon them in an effort to squash a growing problem. The surviving workers have responded in kind, now targeting managers, overseers, captains and commanders alongside their theft and sabotage, sparing their fellow workers the pressure of hierarchical demands. These workers were now beyond the point of no return, and so the Devil's Fang Pirates were born, fully committed not just to the cessation of Venusian terraforming and the planned Mercurian terraforming to follow, but now fostering a deep contempt for any overreach of interplanetary power. Their captain, haunted by ghosts and the pull of a quantum undertow, now carried the responsibility of the crew who entrusted her with their lives. Friends were few and far between. They needed a clear plan if they were to survive.
The strategy the Devil's Fang developed was simple but weirdly effective. The crew started with one small ship, which they slammed into a cargo vessel, their Mercurian captain using her talents to guarantee the one in one trillion chance that neither ship detonate on impact. They now had two ships and a bunch of cargo. The plan was, you take your ship, slam it into a bigger ship, take over that ship and then slam that into a bigger ship, taking that one over. Spare what men you can but show the men who sent them forward no mercy. Secure a ship, invite the men to join your cause and bring the ship's cargo back to their secret hideout in a Ceresian crater. You build up a small group of ships and you have some set aside to go and fight, while others are sent to distant worlds to sell the raw materials reclaimed from raids on the terraforming project- there will always be a buyer looking for a good deal on plunder. Find trustworthy buyers, build contacts, don't draw attention. Reinvest credits towards caring for the men under your command and repairing the ships you're slamming together so they're ship-shape to sail again. When Terran Star Navy come snooping around Ceres, the little fleet of ships can scatter until they're gone and recommence operations. This became the central clockwork of Anibelle and June's machine, and it was beginning to show results.
Teddy recognizes people as shapes of vibration and heat. They know what a "humanoid" is. They'd been alone on Ceres for a while since they achieved sentience, trying out different ways of moving- they'd come up with all sorts of ways to control this new sensation of balance and they'd assigned different methods to different inclines or circumstances. Their arms could hold things and lift things, and twist and contort on a number of axes. They didn't really comprehend "forward" except as the direction they intend to go, as they could sense heat and vibration in every direction around them. Life alone on Ceres was quiet but fascinating, with so much to discover. One day Teddy would discover a whole bunch of big vibrating shapes in their favorite big hole in the ground.
Some of the Devil's Fang were unloading crates of goods from a recent raid, transporting them to cargo vessels to ship off and sell, while others were hard at work patching up holes in their new acquisition and the ship they boarded it with. They were all dressed in lightweight space suits allowing them to work in the thin atmosphere of Ceres, communicating over helmet radio sets. The little camp was buzzing along until a call over comms brought all work to a halt- someone was approaching from the crater ridge. It looked like a Europan? The pirates set their work aside and gathered up their weapons- the captain raised a hand and ordered them to hold as she and her first mate approached the lone intruder.
Teddy stepped along in a funny, broken sort of way, but it kept their balance so they were doing just fine. They noticed there were all kinds of little shapes scattered among the big shapes, and two of the little shapes were approaching them. Their network had recently found their way into the evo suit's front-mounted voice box, though they weren't entirely sure what to do with it yet. The two approaching shapes stopped in front of Teddy, the taller one leaning forward towards them. Then, they heard a sound- a bodiless vibration. "heh LOUH thaYerr". The neural network lit up- this was a sequence of specific little sounds unlike the howl of wind or the rumble of rocks colliding. They seemed special. The network accessed that new sound box they found and attempted to recreate the vibrations they heard. HehLOWUH theyuhr. The tall shape stood upright. The shorter shape turned to the taller one. They began producing a lot of these little vibrations inside some kind of container, emitting a kind of wave between themselves. These sounds weren't projected like the first one. Teddy took note of the little vibrations being fired off.
Anibelle and June looked to each other, speaking over their helmet comms. "What is it? Is it a fish?" "No, I think the fish is dead. I think the pink stuff is talking." "The pink stuff?? Oh, yeah for sure that's definitely possible if they seep into the controls like that." "Look, it's trying to keep its balance. I don't think it's harmful." "We should talk to Bixy. I think Bixy might know if it's dangerous." "Yeah. Let's bring it over to Bixy." The pair turned to face Teddy again, switching on their external speakers. "FOLLOW US", Anibelle gestured with her hands, turning to head back to camp. June jumped ahead to go track down their little botanist. Teddy paused a moment and then began to follow in their favorite herky-jerky sort of way. It seems they found themselves a new colony to belong to.
It's been about, oh, like thirty years? since Teddy met the Devil's Fang, and since then they've taken the neural colony in as one of their own. They'd bolted their chassis shut so no one could open the door and disrupt their neural network, and they spoke to them like a person rather than scorching them with flame like a weed. Speaking to Teddy helped Teddy build an understanding of language, and soon Teddy was able to speak back to the pirates and hold rough little conversations. Teddy comprehends ideas but struggles a bit to form ideas into words, so their speech is a bit rough and they struggle with metaphors or abstract meaning. Their jerky movement and scratching voicebox manipulation freaks out some of the crew but they learn to get over it in time, that's just Teddy's Way. Be friendly with them but be careful around that suit or you might catch "The Tedness". That's more or less how Teddy got their name, someone caught the Tedness, but that wasn't Teddy's fault. They didn't know yet.
Teddy remembers mining crews and the cones of fire that burned their fellow colonies. Teddy understands what the Devil's Fang are fighting for- that you can fight back against the shapes and the fire. The crew have given them a pair of flashcasters, a pair of homemade laser pistols with minimal kick for them to fire. Teddy joins the Devil's Fang when they raid a Terran ship, stepping out into a hangar with their own idea of balance, their arms angling forward and behind them and to the sides, firing back at the shapes shooting beams of heat at them, their suit's voicebox roughly emulating the vulgarities they'd overheard other pirates say to one another. "The Towering Scythe Man" was already a story that defied belief, but now Star Patrollers report "a walking corpse that screams at you in a computer voice while it shoots laser beams at you" among the boarding parties. The sight of a band of angry Mercurians and Venusians wearing their forms started rumors that they were vengeful Devils, but the inclusion of a wrought-iron man of flame and an angry sarcophagus has convinced the more superstitious Terrans they encounter that the Devil's Fang were literally from Hell, from the actual Terran Hell. Morale was in shambles, and the Grand Admiral began to take notice.
Teddy has friends now. Teddy has autonomy. Teddy has a welcome place aboard the Coelacanth and no particular job whatsoever to do. Life is beautiful.