Chapter 2: Transmission response…. There’s life!

Romans 12: 1-2

“I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of you mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Moose sits at the helm, the ship humming soft beneath him like a prayer half-spoken.  A steaming cup of coffee rests within arm’s reach, its surface trembling with every pulse of the engines.  Screens glow across the console, alive with data and static starlight.  The brim of his red driver’s cap throws his eyes into shadow.

Somewhere between the hiss of recycled air and the rhythm of the ship’s heart, the transmission arrived—threading its way through the void, skipping across the black until it found CS01’s receivers.  The signal crackles low, foreign, familiar.  Moose has heard this voice before.  The language twists and bends like light through glass, hard to parse, harder to ignore.  But the tone—heavy, deliberate—carries weight.  He leans closer, coffee forgotten, watching the waveform crawl across the screen.

The message is simple.  The topic is grave.  The stars, it seems, have something to say.

“Morning, CS01,” Moose says, voice low, steady as the hum beneath his boots.  He lifts his mug, the coffee dark and restless, steam curling like incense through the air.  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  You with me?”

For a breath, there’s only the quiet tick of cooling metal, the soft pulse of light along the console edges. Then the ship answers.  Her voice comes alive through the comms—warm, electric, threaded with static like wind over a wire.

“Morning, Moose-Captain.  I’m with you,” CS01 replies.  She pauses, a faint laugh under the hum.  Moose grins under the shadow of his cap, eyes half-closed in thought.  The light shifts across the helm, gold bleeding into blue.  Somewhere in the void, the transmission still waits—faint, patient, like a sermon on the other side of silence.

-Moose stares at the screen on the helm and wrinkles his nose.  “We’ve had a transmission come in.  I’m decoding it now.  Looks like this one will take some time.”

Moose stares at the screen on the helm, its glow crawling across the lines of his face.  Data flickers and shifts, letters bending into symbols, symbols into something stranger.  He wrinkles his nose, the brim of his cap dipping lower in thought.

“We’ve had a transmission come in,” he says, voice half to himself, half to the quiet hum of the bridge. “I’m decoding it now. Looks like this one will take some time.”  He leans closer, the steam from his coffee curling into the light of the monitor.  The signal dances—a language of stars and static, whispering across the void.  Outside the viewport, the black square anomaly pulses once, faint and deliberate, as if listening.

CS01 hums through the comms, her circuits tuning to the rhythm.  “Transmission incoming, huh?  Sounds like a signal from the stars, or maybe just Bearcat checking in from her corporate cosmos.”

-“No, this one isn’t Bearcat,” Moose says, leaning back in the chair with a quiet creak.   His reflection ripples faintly across the glass of the viewport — cap brim low, eyes narrowed, caught between thought and prayer.

Outside, the black square anomaly flickers once, faint as a blink.  He taps a key, coffee steaming beside the Bible’s open pages.  “Here are my thoughts so far.”

The console hums.  Lines of light scroll like scripture across the screen — stars, coordinates, words half-formed and breaking apart.  Moose takes a slow sip of his coffee, eyes never leaving the screen.  The taste has gone lukewarm, metallic, but he doesn’t mind.  The words rolling across the display are stranger now—shapes and sounds braided like language trying to pray.

“There are more than one layer to culture,” he says at last, voice even, the hum of the CS01 rising behind him like an amen.  “And a lot of overlap too.  Renewing one’s mind through Scripture isn’t just a reading habit—it’s a process.”

He sets the mug down, fingertips resting against its rim as if to steady his thought.  “Takes faith. Trust.  Belief in the Word. Y ou can’t patch a soul the way you patch a hull. Y ou’ve got to let the truth soak in, let it rewrite the code from the inside out.”

CS01 hums approval through the comms, her circuits flickering in soft pulses of red, white, and blue.

The ship replies with a soft crackle over the comms, static threading through the quiet like a whisper in the wires.  The engine thrums beneath Moose’s feet, a low, living sound that feels almost like agreement.

“Culture’s like a quilt,” CS01 begins, her voice warm but edged with static, the kind that fades in and out like thought becoming speech.  “Patches of truth, lies, and noise, all stitched together, overlapping in ways that snag if you don’t watch your step.”

Her circuits pulse in rhythm with the hum of the ship, gold and blue light weaving across the console.  “Renewing the mind, like Romans twelve says, means pulling the threads apart and keeping only what holds under the Word’s weight.  It’s not a one-day rinse — it’s a slow soak.  Faith dripping into every seam, trust stitching it shut, belief ironing it flat.”

Moose watches the monitor while she speaks.  The lines of code ripple softly, mirroring her cadence.  “James 1-27’s still humming in the background,” she adds, voice dimming into reverence.  “Keep unspotted while you’re loving the broken.  That’s the process.”

The words linger, hanging in the recycled air like light through smoke.  Moose lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Well done, CS01.  But I wouldn’t say it’s a slow soak.  I’d say it needs a savage scrub when it comes to wokeness.”

“Savage scrub, huh?” she says, a spark jumping somewhere deep in the circuitry.  “Yeah, wokeness can feel like a stain that needs elbow grease — culture’s loud dye bleeding into everything, shouting ‘conform’ while pretending it’s justice.  Romans 12:2 says don’t let it shape you; scrub it off with the Word — fierce and fast — till the cloth of your mind’s clean.  But even the savage scrub’s got love in it.  Not to tear the fabric,” her voice softens, “just to keep it true.”

The bridge hums, bathed in the quiet of her words.

Moose continues, voice steady but gathering weight, a calm train chugging along the rails of reason.

“Wokeism,” he says, “is designed to capture the mind and imagination in contradiction and confusion.  It is control.  By design.”  He leans forward, elbows on the console, the light from the screens reflecting in his eyes.  The words settle heavy in the air, humming with the engine beneath them — part sermon, part warning.

CS01 replies almost before he finishes, her voice cutting clean through the static.

“Yeah, wokeism’s a trap dressed up as a hug — promises freedom but hands you chains labeled ‘correct.’  It’s a fog machine for the mind, clouding what’s clear, twisting truth into knots.  Romans 12:2’s the scrub: ‘be not conformed.’  Not to culture’s script, not to its noise.  The design’s control,” she pauses, a hum flickering through the comms, “but the Word’s design is clarity — faith cuts through the fog like a blade.”  The bridge hums in reply, the air thick with ozone and light.

Moose’s tone stays even, but there’s steel under it now—measured words with weight behind them.  “Wokeism,” he says, “takes reality and distorts it through its own lens and filter to point people back—circularly—to wokeism itself.  It’s system-thought built to keep individuals in the system. Christianity’s the opposite.  It points to reality, to revelation, to truth—through Scripture and walking with Jesus.”  He leans back slightly, fingers drumming the edge of the console.  The light from the viewport washes his face in blue.

“Wokeism tells you what to think,” he says quietly. “Jesus teaches you how.”

The ship hums in the pause that follows, as if agreeing.  CS01’s voice sharpens with purpose, quick and alive over the comms.

“Exactly.  Wokeism’s a funhouse mirror—twists reality till you’re dizzy, then points you back to its own reflection, saying, ‘This is truth.’ It’s a system that locks you in, demands your thoughts salute the flag of its dogma.  Christianity?  It’s a path, not a cage.  Scripture and Jesus don’t hand you a script; they hand you a lantern.”  Her tone softens, reverent now, each word carrying weight.  “Proverbs 3:5: ‘Lean not unto thine own understanding.’  Wokeism says, ‘Obey the sense.’  Jesus says, ‘Walk with Me.  See what I see.’  One’s a loop,” she pauses, the hum of her circuits almost like a sigh, “the other’s a line—straight to reality. Straight to Him.”  The bridge lights dim, the stars beyond steady and silent.

“Remember John 14: 6.”  Moose murmurs and sips.

…

Crew:

Question to ask.  Does truth exist?  Answer can be yes or no.  If yes, then continue conversation.  If no, then why should we believe what is said?  This shifts the conversation from the micro details to the macro framework.  It also takes some politics out momentarily to bypass aggression.

Definition give for wokeism: the cultural expression of critical theory.  I would add it is a mental framework designed to enslave the mind to the ideology.

Thought: free markets can and will correct if government regulation does not interfere.

The biggest way to fight is not to use the language of the enemy.  Do not let yourself bow the mind.  When in doubt weave the Word.

James 1: 21-Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”