Spacescaping: Exploring Stellar Firma

Sometimes, as a self-imposed challenge, I like to use the unlimited access I have to Spotify Premium that I mooch off a friend to listen to any random assortment of podcasts without reading their full descriptions. Granted, this isn’t very much different from what I’ve done for a couple years now, but the difference now is that bragging about this really improves my street cred.

Anyway, there’s something very fun about delving headfirst into any number of fiction shows without even knowing the synopsis, essentially the nutrition label of any audio drama. Like grabbing a book just based off the cover, it can be a blind grab bag of options that more often than not lands me in the lap of some very eclectic listening options.

Today’s journey lead me in the direction of Rusty Quil’s, Stellar Firma, a science fiction comedy about planetary designer Trextel Greistman and clone assistant David 7 as they take up requests from clients, i.e. listeners, for a number of unique and ridiculous planet designs.

The words “creation myth” keeps coming to mind and yet it feels like such a grand term to describe what feels like a fairly basic office job in the world’s setting. If there’s any concept I’ve always enjoyed it’s taking abstract ideas and making them into run-of-the-mill tasks due to the broader scope of  the world. 

Stellar Firma’s core premise of creating new planets with the kind of discussions that make more sense over blueprints of a house has this wonderfully surreal vibe to it.

There’s actually so many factors to consider in the creation of a functional planet-weather, shape, supplies, and general line of access are all things that come to mind-and the bits of science that goes into some of the geoforming aspects makes it equal parts fictional and factual. 

Something about it just reminds me of the lovely but sadly short lived TIMESCANNER and Hadron Gospel Hour with its larger than life concepts and interesting takes on the universe and reality itself. Perhaps Stellar Firma is filling that starry void for me but not quite keeping me full.

Let me explain, Stellar Firma is a darling little show but not quite up to par with the big names coming out now, oddly enough, with a show from the same studio. When compared to the more narratively driven and ominous Magnus Archives, it feels more like a random shot in the dark of world building ideas put on shuffle, a very good one, but still a bit hollow.

It’s template is too simple and repetitive and even with the monotony and stress of work as the core framing device, it makes way for the dreaded “guy in chair” setting that’s gone out of style some time in 2017. 

The banter of the two leads is well-acted and excellently edited with simple but atmospheric sound design and their riffs can be genuinely hilarious at, but “guy in chair” is the same even with one extra “guy”. Maybe if we got a better look at the citizens of these planets, get a branching narrative going or adventures outside of such a confined space we’d get a better scope of the kind of world we’re inhabiting. 

This new, underdeveloped universe in need of planet construction is just as fascinating as the planets themselves. What kind of solar system is being devised here from a cramped room being bickered over by two awkward men? You can’t have a creation myth without destruction, after all.