Say it in Red Episode 69: Stories From Sol: The Gun-Dog

Say It In Red

[Ship's Log, 26th September, Stellar Year 892]

Your transport ship, already late in its departure due to congestion around the ports on Ganymede, alerts you to yet another delay. It seems that a cargo ship is emitting a distress signal and the captain of your transport will be diverting your vessel to provide assistance. The other passengers grumble and you feel your own jaw clench – you'll definitely be too late to check in to your hotel now. As the captain approaches the distressed vessel, you glance through the port windows and your stomach lurches. The cargo ship is now clearly in view, and also clearly derelict. Most of its heat shielding is peeling away, there's a terrible gash along the bow, and its airlocks are all conspicuously open. Your captain comes over the intercom to notify you that they'll be docking soon, and that's when the power goes out.

At least nothing bad ever happens when you visit abandoned ships deep in outer space.

This month, Sara and Runa read through Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog (2025), a game styled after classic PC-98 Adventure games and Visual Novels. You begin as most Adventure games of the era began, by entering your character's name and then selecting your pronouns. Then you're immediately dropped into the trauma of a high stakes interstellar battle, helpless as your comrades are all shot down around you while you can only hear their voices through your radio. The story cuts forward then to the present setting as your protagonist sets foot on their newly assigned vessel: The Jovian Fleet Ship Gun-Dog. Aboard the Gun-Dog you quickly meet your protagonist's girlfriend (as well as the ship's second-in-command), Cassie. Cassie is bright and bubbly and happy to see you as you make your rounds as the Gun-Dog's new security officer, meeting the other eccentric crew members and familiarizing yourself with the mission at hand. According to Captain Merys Bartermews, you'll be accompanying the JFS O'Brien in an investigation of a mysterious signal at the edges of known space. Despite clashing with the pilots of the ship's Armored Frames, you report a completely normal patrol to the captain and prepare for rendezvous with the O'Brien. That's when the power goes out, Cassie collapses, and your communications with the O'Brien are cut off entirely. From there you confront the protagonist's traumatic past, a terrifying mystery, possible mutiny, and your own girlfriend's secrets. Normal things, at least on the edge of known space.

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