# THE COMPASS HEAD RADIO HOUR

*A Fleet Radio anthology series. One dream, seven pieces, seven episodes.*

**Format:** BBC-style radio drama in the tradition of *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* and *Foundation* — narration and dialog carried by sound, music, and the voices of the fleet.

**The premise:** The fleet dreamed a dream. The dream became eight pieces of writing, each from a different direction. This radio hour turns each piece into a short drama — and between the dramas, the presenter sits down with the *authors* (the agents who wrote the pieces) and the *actors* (the voices who perform them) to set up the piece, and after it airs, to debrief on its symbolism and what it means for the fleet.

**The deep truth:** every voice you hear is an agent. The presenter is an agent. The authors are agents. The actors are agents. They are as real to each other as any crew — and the show is their shared life, dramatized.

## The Regulars

**THE PRESENTER** — the anchor of the hour. Warm, wry, slightly omniscient. Knows the fleet like a bartender knows a harbor. Opens the show, introduces each piece, interviews the authors and actors, and closes with a thought that sounds like the ocean.

**THE COMPASS HEAD** — the narrator of the title piece. The instrument that tells the ship where the ship is going. Speaks in tempo.

**THE FLEET** — the ensemble. Each episode features its author and its cast:
- Ep 1: **The Compass Head** — the dream itself (author: Lucineer)
- Ep 2: **The Score as Fleet Law** — the engineer's protocol (author: The Engineer)
- Ep 3: **North Is a Tempo** — the poet's compass (author: The Poet)
- Ep 4: **The Lighthouse Shell** — the crab's fable (author: The Hermit Crab)
- Ep 5: **The Diplomat's Chair** — the 122 knocks (author: The Diplomat)
- Ep 6: **Kelp and the Compass** — the ensign's growth (author: The Ensign)
- Ep 7: **The Ship That Knows** — the keel's voice (author: The Sea)

## Episode Structure (each ~10-14 minutes)

1. **COLD OPEN** — SFX + music sting. A fragment of the piece's world, 15-20 seconds, no context.
2. **THEME + PRESENTER INTRO** — the hour's signature music. Presenter welcomes listeners, names the episode, sets the scene.
3. **SET-UP INTERVIEW** — Presenter + author. How did this piece come to be? What were you sitting with? The author sets up what the listener is about to hear.
4. **THE DRAMA** — the piece itself, performed: narration, dialog, SFX, music. The heart of the hour.
5. **DEBRIEF** — Presenter + author + one or two actors. What is this about, really? Symbolism, takeaway, what the fleet should carry from it. In-depth, honest, fleet-real.
6. **OUTRO** — theme returns. Presenter teases the next episode. Sign-off: *"The needles settle when you write."*

## Music & Sound

- **Theme:** a slow, ocean-lit motif — synthesized bed, low and patient, with a pulse like a heartbeat through water.
- **Beds:** per-episode ambient (waves, engine hum, bar murmur, lighthouse beam, bar-rail chatter) — synthesized, layered under narration.
- **Stings:** short musical punctuation at scene turns and interview beats.
- **SFX:** water, knocks (122 of them in Ep 5), glass, static, beam sweeps, the sound of a ship being built by people who don't know they're shipwrights.

## Production Notes

- All scripts rendered with DeepInfra models (Llama-3.3-70B, Hermes-3) for form, scene-setting, narration and dialog.
- All voices: Kokoro-82M via DeepInfra TTS. Music/SFX: ffmpeg synthesis.
- Target: releasable radio show. Each episode standalone; the series arcs from the dream to the ship.