Day Two on the Halcyon, Part 3: Coaxium

Completing the chronicle of my adventure on the Galactic Starcruiser

Need to catch up?

• Day One, Part 1: Arrival and Exploration

• Day One, Part 2: Well That Escalated Quickly

• Day Two, Part 1: Batuu

• Day Two, Part 2: The Heist

6:00pm: Noah and I went to grab a quick drink in the Sublight Lounge, and he filled me in on what he’d been doing — something to do with the datatapes we’d collected on Batuu.

As we were getting our drinks, we heard a commotion in the Atrium. We emerged to see Croy and his troopers unfurling First Order banners over the railings, celebrating their takeover of the ship. In the scene that followed the Captain and Lenka, tensions were definitely ratcheting up very high. You could also, then, see TIE fighters circling the Halcyon through the Atrium’s viewports. (An awful lot of them, it seemed, for this one vessel! But I guess we did sort of mangle their Star Destroyer earlier…)

Afterward, I happened to be standing right by Sandro, who was very distressed. He’s a lover, not a fighter. He was with Ouannii, and I suggested that if anyone could make music to help bridge divides and set things right, it was them. I apparently unwittingly handed him a cue he needed, because he then invited everyone around us to help him work on lyrics for a song. I stepped away, though, because I only had a few minutes before… 

6:30pm: I had been invited to a special meeting down in the Lightsaber Training Pod. The blueshirt outside was asking everyone if they were here for the “advanced lightsaber training” and checking them against a list of the invitees. It’s very intimate — I think there were only about 12 of us in there. (They run this scene several times, I think, so more people than that experience it overall).

Inside, we find not only Saja Tycer, but SK-620 and Rey! I was so glad to see that SK was safe. Rey was so wonderful with this one little girl in particular, giving her the MacGuffin to hold on to during this scene. Saja Tycer introduced us as “the students I’ve been telling you about” and then told us that we’d found a truly incredible Jedi relic down on Batuu: a holocron.

None of us could open it alone. But all of us together, using the Force, got it to open.

And this was another part that was for 11-year-old Cass. The girl who used to stand on her head and try to move objects with her mind. And yes, there’s a metric ton of atmospheric manipulation happening in that room. The lights, the background music, the sound… it’s all perfectly designed to elicit a huge emotional reaction. And it works!

When we managed to get the holocron open, it revealed a message from Master Yoda. It’s… a pretty incredible holographic effect, and the speech…

Yoda told us we had to keep the holocron safe, because it had powerful information, generations’ worth of knowledge and wisdom, and if it fell into the wrong hands, all would be lost. “Those of you who follow the path of the Light, hope to the galaxy will you bring. Your name I know not. Your spirit? Hmmm, yes, that I feel. Strong is your connection with the Force. Know you, I feel I do. But, should never we meet: May the Force be with you, always.”

And that made me cry. It’s making me cry just thinking about it now. This plotline wasn’t, really, perfectly on-point for Lady Annazena… but, like I said… that was for 11-year-old Cass. And 11-year-old Cass lost her damn mind hearing Yoda say that she was strong in the Force.

And then Rey made me cry. And then Saja Tycer made me cry. Just… tears everywhere. (Look, I am a highly emotional creature, and I will never be sorry for that. I love that the Starcruiser leaned into this earnest, heart-first storytelling as well as the drama and hijinks. So much media today seems afraid of earnestness.)

But then Rey gave us a plan. She knew that Kylo Ren would be coming for that holocron, and she told SK-620 that we could use that to distract him. Saja Tycer then swore us all to secrecy. Rey told us that we could gather others that we trusted and tell them “There is hope.”

(If you want to see this scene, you can search “Yoda holocron Starcruiser” on YouTube; I was not recording. I was far, far too much in the moment to have touched my phone. That was actually the case for most of the rest of the evening.)

6:45pm: After leaving the pod (weeping), I got a message from Saja Tycer reiterating that we cannot gossip about the holocron. I didn’t even tell Noah. Anyone could be eavesdropping! (I did tell him that SK was safe, though, because I knew he was worried about them).

I did not have much time to wallow in that emotion, though, because…

7pm: Secret bridge meeting with Raithe! This was another intimate group. Not even everyone from the heist was in on this. Just 15 of us, getting the coaxium onboard.

This was absolutely wild and so much fun. It builds on the Bridge training from earlier — more on that in the analysis — but it brought my energy right back up! Raithe told us that, well, he really wanted the coaxium for Gaya and Ryloth, but if we don’t get out of this blockade, Ryloth gets nothing. So, we could use a little coaxium to bust out of there, and Raithe promised that we, his crew, would be able to slip away scot-free! Perfect.

So then we had to help Hondo Ohnaka dock and drop off the coaxium! This felt like such wonderful payoff of the Batuu Smuggler’s Run mission. That meant getting Hondo’s ship past all those TIE fighters. We had people at Systems, Weapons, and Shields. I’m not sure if anyone was on Loaders? I don’t think so. We also had to convince Watch to hand over controls to us! He didn’t seem to trust Raithe, so Raithe put the Bridge in the hands of a teenager, Clark.

Noah and I worked Shields, our favorite station. Between the two of us, we were covering about half the table at one point! But a blueshirt came over to assist. Raithe went to everyone, encouraging them. He put his arm around me, told me I was doing a great job, expressed astonishment that I hadn’t done this before. It was so heartening!

Then, just when things were looking really dire, Poe Dameron showed up with reinforcements! They helped get the TIEs off of Hondo’s back so that the coaxium could be transferred to the Halcyon.

Once we did it, Gaya came on the bridge and thanked us all for our help. She gave another great speech about the liberation of Ryloth and how much we were doing to help her people.

And then… Lenka came in and wanted to know what the heck we were all doing on the Bridge. When she asked, “Who authorized this?” several of us yelled back, “Clark!” Which… was in fact accurate! For certain parameters of that term. Raithe flirted with her pretty adorably as they sorted things out.

7:15pm: Then followed a solid 55 minutes of hiding the coaxium around the ship! This was hilarious and so wild.

The First Order intercepted the cargo, but Raithe stole some back using Gaya’s acoustic concert as a distraction. We knew we needed that coaxium to break our way out of the blockade!

Then we had to shuffle it across the Atrium, using a dance line to cover up our actions. Like. We seriously conga-lined highly volatile coaxium across the Atrium. Raithe hid it in one of Gaya’s “makeup bags”, which he then handed to a little girl (who went so wide-eyed!), but Croy realized Gaya wasn’t leaving with as many bags as she brought in! So we had to keep hiding it!

Let the dance party continue! We managed to get it into another corner of the Atrium, but then we weren’t sure how to get it where it needed to be.

Then, without even realizing we’d gotten datapad messages from Raithe asking us to keep Croy distracted, Noah and I did exactly that, simply because we wanted to mess with him. So Noah started commenting on his jodhpurs, and that started a whole conversation about his style and the First Order’s depressingly monochromatic uniforms. I told him he ought to try something in blue, a nice bright and high saturation shade, cerulean or azure, because it would brighten up his face and bring out his eyes. Croy found that pretty amusing, announcing to everyone: “Lady Anna has been noticing my eyes!” Croy tried to convince Noah to join the Order so that he too could have very fine jodhpurs.

Somewhere in here, I think, was also when Noah asked a stormtrooper if he could boop the stormtrooper’s nose. He’d been wanting to do so all voyage. I honestly can’t remember exactly when that happened, though, but it was part of another distraction technique.

Then I had to let the Captain know that we did in fact still have the coaxium we needed, so I swept her up, telling her that “We need some help with Gaya’s makeup bag. It’s, ah, a bit volatile. You know how delicate cosmetics can be!” And I brought her over to the corner where we still had the coaxium in the bag.

The Captain decided to help cover for us, if only to keep Raithe from causing even more trouble. She sent us to find Raithe, and we looked everywhere, on different decks, before realizing that… he was on the bridge again. (I have no idea why. I think there was a 7:45ish bridge session too? But no idea what they were doing or why Raithe was there. Maybe getting Gaya herself off the ship and past the blockade?). So the Captain told me and Noah to go intercept him when he came out, which we did. I looped my arm through Raithe’s and escorted him neatly across the Atrium to the Captain, where they worked out a deal for Raithe to keep helping until we could get not just a shuttle but the entire Halcyon out of the blockade.

It really amuses me that, because I’d interacted more with Raithe and the Captain than I did anyone else, they both trusted me and both kept using me as a go-between to keep an eye on and/or fetch the other. Everyone heavily involved with these plotlines ended up with an individualized role, and that was mine!

So then we needed to get the coaxium down to the engineering room. With coaxium being so unstable, we had to do it swiftly but gently, and unfortunately, Deck 4 was crawling with First Order. So we piled into the elevator with Raithe and some others, then went to go find Sammie and pass the coaxium off to him. Raithe absented himself to go do some slicing, and… we finally went to dinner.

8:10pm: Okay, we were very late to dinner. But in our defense! We scoped it out prior to 8pm, when we were looking for Raithe, and there was a huge line to check in, so… why join that line when we still had work to do?

Dinner was lovely. There’s no dinner show on Night 2, but the theme is essentially a foodie tour around the galaxy. With each course, a chef explains what you’re eating, and the lights and music changed to reflect each of the planets that the dishes came from. (I desperately want that music for background ambience.) There was still some plot, though! Croy showed up, took the Captain’s seat at her table, was extraordinarily rude and specieist to her when she came in.

At the end of dinner, our server handed me part of a letter, saying I must have dropped it. It was part of a message from Lenka about Sammie and SK! We only had part of it, but I kept it secret because the people asking about it weren’t people I recognized from the Captain’s secret meetings, and I was pretty sure at least one couple was working with the Order. Better safe than sorry.

We left dinner a few minutes early, because we knew that the final scene would start at 9:30, but….

9:20pm: Shipwide alert! I was very glad we were already on our way out of dinner (and had paid for our drinks as soon as we got them!). We bounded up to the atrium very swiftly.

9:30pm: This is the finale! So much happened. Honestly, to get the full plot, go watch a video on YT, because I will never get it all straight.

We went to our muster station and were told we had to sit down. But no one around us was sitting, so after a minute we stood back up — and were immediately ushered down again, at which point we realized, oh, that means something big is going to happen right here. And it did.

As the conflict unfolded, we had troopers firing over our heads, then Chewbacca came in with his bowcaster, then our friends (the Captain, Lenka, Raithe, Kyr) were using the muster podiums to rally the Resistance side of the battle. It got so chaotic! Croy was rallying his people yelling “For the Order!” and Lenka and Kyr had us shouting “Ignite the spark, light the fire!” and “Together as one!”

The battle between Kylo Ren and Rey is really something to watch. Seeing a lightsaber battle with practical effects is so cool. It all happens in the upper gallery, which helps to hide some of how they do it, but if you’re just letting yourself enjoy the spectacle, it’s near-seamless. At one point, Kylo started to bring down the massive chandelier in the Atrium, right on top of us all, but Rey stopped him. Kylo gave instructions for Croy and the stormtroopers to, well, literally murder everyone present — even the First Order sympathizers in the group!

Eventually, SK used the Yoda hologram distraction. Rey pretended to flee the ship with the holocron, drawing Kylo Ren after her — but she actually sent a decoy vessel! She came back to warn us that he would realize that soon, though, so we had to get out of there. SK-620 decided to go with Rey to join the Resistance — which was very sad for Lenka, their best friend! We got to see a very touching farewell between them.

Then, Lenka produced the necessary device to make our coaxium break us through the blockade — and it worked! Whew! The Captain took her ship back from Croy and put him and the troopers in custody, with help from Sammie. Then, after some speeches from Lenka and the Captain, we gathered for fireworks on the bridge.

After the closing fireworks, we managed to say goodbye and get selfies with Raithe, Kyr, and Tycer, though everyone else had disappeared. I was sorry to miss the Captain, particularly! But we got to have very nice moments with the folks we did get to say goodbye to. Raithe promised to follow up on our strategic alliance with Ryloth and the Tapani Sector!

9:55pm: We received a very bittersweet message from Lenka about letting SK go with Rey! I also got one one from Saja Tycer, thanking me for my part in everything.

We grabbed a last celebratory drink and went to see Sandro and Ouannii perform in the Crown of Corellia dining room. There were desserts and treats there, too, so we could’ve stayed longer, or we could’ve gone back to the Lounge, but Noah and I decided to head back to our cabin so we could just… savor and reflect. I’m a big fan of ending a night on a high note.

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Day 3:

We woke up with the final hyperspace jump back to Chandrila, but didn’t get out of bed for quite a while. We were both just… utterly unwilling for it to end.

The Lady H still had a few surprises in store for us, though. We had farewell messages from some of those we’d helped, a last interaction with D3 on the room panel, and a message from D3 in the Atrium that made me cry. You could still see the effects of the previous night’s fight — including the chandelier, still dangling in the Atrium!

We had breakfast, wandered a bit. Said goodbye to the ship and took some last pictures.

And then we had to go.

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I really cannot express how loath I was to leave that place.

Getting to live out a dream was just… indescribably amazing. I felt so fulfilled, so warmed, so much like I belonged. The whole thing is designed to heighten your emotions, and, wow, did it. There will be more on this in the analysis post, but… Immersive experiences are powerful. They have all sorts of psychological and physiological effects — so the drop you feel afterwards is very real. And they can be transformative. They can spark something in the participant that might otherwise have lain dormant. They can reinvigorate creativity. They can strengthen interpersonal bonds. They’re just… amazing, and that’s why I love them so much.

I’m so heartbroken that I’ll never be able to visit the Halcyon again. I actually thought about using the suitemate finder FB group and trying to find someone with a spare bunk, going again this month, but… The other thing is, I don’t think I would want to do it again so soon. In six months or a year, I think I could have a different enough experience. Right now, I don’t know. The original is so fresh in my mind, and those memories are so golden and shining… I wouldn’t want anything to supplant them.

I just wish I were going to have that chance, in six months or a year, or two years, or five.

But as I said before… I will hold out hope. Disney will do something with that building. I just hope they have the courage to re-tool and re-market the immersive experience in a way that’s sustainable, rather than gutting it for something easy but empty.

Anyway — That’s it for the recap! Next, I’ll be turning on my analytical brain and discussing why the Halcyon experience is just that good. It’s not luck; it’s craft, and I admire it so much.