Episode 54: The Watchtower

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Welcome to Wolf 359. Red Line. This big blue thing. It's really something. Pretty soon it's gonna blind me and sear all the flesh off my bones, isn't it? Yeah. There seems to be... almost like the stars like a part of its

Then he woke up. And then he woke up? After everything? After all the crap you've put me through? You're really gonna insult me by giving me and then he woke up? Can you believe these guys, Hera? Oh. Helmet's gone. No transmitter. Well, on the off-off chance that you can somehow still hear me, let's take a look around, shall we? nice it's the little touches that really make you feel at home now where the heck am i looks like

Some kind of hotel room. I love what you've done with the place. Nice walls. Paintings are cool. Chair. Looks sturdy enough. Ooh, mirror. That's real good. Can't have a creepy-ass hotel room at the end of the universe without a mirror. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Self-repairing mirror. That's... Pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Oh, fright. I get it. I get it now. Creepy hotel room beyond the stars. 2001. Space Odyssey. Very, very nice.

You can't have seen this. Even if you are avid filmgoers, I don't think it's had its intergalactic release yet, so... Oh... That doesn't matter. Because I've seen it. Right? That's how this works? Now that I'm here, anything in my mind's fair game for you? That's what those flashes were about?

This isn't your place, is it? You just went into my mind and picked the place I'd most expect to be having whatever's about to happen, right? Whoa, whoa, what the... Okay? Okay... Are you going to be chill or what? Right. Note to self. Earthquake insurance. Never leave home without it. Okay, Doug, keep it together. Keep it together. Maybe less talking to yourself. Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Maybe less. Okay, stop it.

Now would be a really good time for something to happen. Well, are we going to do this or what? Star children. Creepy black monolith thing. Come on, let's get our probe on. Dear listeners, hello. That's a... That's a nice face you got there. In fact, that's my face you got there. So... What now? Do I help you? Do I help myself? Isn't that the idea here? Help me, help me, help me.

Tell me this isn't where I die and you take my place. My dad always said I'd get myself killed if I wasn't more careful, but this would be two literal even words. Say what? Speak more words. Um, is there anything in particular you'd like me to wait? Hold on, where are you? Stop that! Stop it! Would you cut that out? How are you doing that? There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, a peck of pickled peppers, Peter Piper picked! All along the Watchtower Princess kept a few more wild women getting lent in barefoot serving soup! God damn it! Damn, Bob. That's a good trick you got there. How are you doing that? How are you? Oh, okay.

I think I get it. Mirroring. You're learning. Absorbing the language. You just... You just... You needed some live demos, didn't you? Fascinating. You are still crippled by a language based on accusative morphosyntactic alignment. And yet you've achieved rudimentary interstellar momentum. Exceptional. Anything else I can get you, Bob? What is the symbological base set of your language? Uh, sorry, what? are the individual units that form your speech. But you want the alphabet? In order.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y and Z Got that? Anything for dessert? Would you like me to- Die. Whoa, what? Keep away. Stay away, bro. I'm warning you. I know karate. Which, if you don't know what that is- What is die? The concept is unknown to us. What? You said die. That you might be here to die. What does that mean? Wait, you really don't know what that means? Jeez. Different paradigms. I hate it when Kepler and Jacobi are right. Well... It's... It's...

You know when something or someone just sort of stops? Stops? Stops what? Existing. Their body breaks down, stops working, and then sets over. The band breaks up. No more performances. That is an incomplete understanding of the universe Bob buddy Pal, I'm trying really hard to not totally freak out on you, but this... This is a lot. So I'm gonna need, like... 35% more kid glove action than what you're giving me now. You don't know what death is? You don't die?

Explain. Please. All matter is reused and repurposed. Cessation of existence is not possible. Okay. Okay, sure, sure. No energies ever created or destroyed, only transformed. First law of thermodynamics. I remember that much from high school. This high school... Sounds like a wise being. Yeah, you'd be surprised. All right, but hold up. I am speaking to one or more of the dear listeners we've been in contact with, correct? Correct.

You got a name? I do not. Well, we'll just keep calling you Bob for now. Pick out a date for the baptism later, alright? Whoa, hey! What the... What the hell is that? Creating the space for this encounter requires a massive amount of energy. We have limited time before it becomes unsuitable for your biology. unsuitable for my biology. Well, congratulations, Bob.

I think you may have just found my least favorite sequence of words in the entire English language. Speaking of which, your English has gotten better. Yes. did it get better additional reference points once you were in the network we were able to directly access your neuro electrical patterns Okay. I'm gonna need a moment. Okay. I've had a moment. Once I was in the what? Network? What network? How was I?

networked and you directly access my neuro whatness? We do not have time for all these questions. Why don't we? Okay, fine. Kid love this just for me. You were able to... what? Read my thoughts? My memories? A rudimentary understanding, but not inaccurate. I don't remember giving you permission to visit the attic, Bob. There's stuff in a man's brain that's really not safe for work. So, what, just from that, you know how to speak English?

Correct. It has also led to some debates about whether you can speak English. Hey, cut that out. I got enough of that from Minkowski. I don't need to feel judged on a cosmic scale. Alright, so what are we doing here? Am I just here to get you some fresh new memories for the carousel? No. You are here so that we can execute the process. And what does that look like? I evaluate. You are evaluated. Well, that's not creepy at all.

Bob, baby, you gotta put it in terms I can understand. That may take some time. Well, while we're... waiting. Where are we? Where'd you park the Kubrick Hilton? We are in orbit around another star. You know it as Gliese 163. Wait, really? That was where the transmissions were coming from? We actually got something right? Well I'll be. So is this where you're from? Is this home? It is not. We come from a place very, very far away from here. So... this is... We call it the Watchtower.

It is the border, the farthest known point away from civilized space. And everything beyond this is what? The Wild Wild West? God damn it! Bob? Should I be concerned? This space is deteriorating. If we have not concluded by the time it is gone... your body will undergo. I really don't think I need the details. Thank you. All right, well, if we're on the clock, then in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye, let's get it on. Process time.

Hold still. Uh, why? Hey, come out with the... Hey, stop that! I said... Jesus! What the hell was that? Any discomfort you are feeling should pass quickly. Holy crap, my head's on fire. Where did my species originate? Mother. Planet. Far away. Pretty close to the galactic core. Christ. Give me a moment. B-b-bob? How? Oh, did I know that? Subconscious mental transfer. Most efficient way of disseminating information. Buddy...

I don't care if it can do the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Don't mess with my head. I got enough friggin' voices knocking around in there as it is. So what? You just beam volumes one through five of Encyclopedia Galactica into my head? Is that how this works? Subconscious implants. The knowledge will assert itself when you need it.

So what? We gotta wait until... How did my species come to be here? You were isolated at first, just living in your own little corner of the universe. Holy crap, that's freaky. And then... You had a breakthrough. New tech. Fast travel. Really fast. Like, practically instantaneous, even between different starses. Whoa. Was that that bumpy-ass bullet train you sent me on? Correct. And you can do that with any star? Can we? Haha. Very cute.

You can only network certain stars, younger ones, or ones with cooler temperatures. Wolf 359 just happens to have the right conditions. Okay, so let me guess. Red light means... Stay out. Danger. Very hot. Blue light means... All aboard. This is the express train to Grand Central. That is the basic concept. So... when you first turned on the railway system and tried to haul our asses into Wolf 359, you weren't trying to kill us. Correct. You know, you could have made that a little bit clearer.

What happens next? Hey, I have questions too, you know. wander around for a while, get the lay of the universe, and eventually, you find someone. Another species. One at a comparable stage of scientific development. But they... bunch of stuff you didn't. They knew how to rearrange matter, turn things into other things, snap of a finger, and...

Oh, you started your own damn Trade Federation? A technological symbiosis between multiple other species, each with their own unique advancement. Remote neurological surveillance. Mental transfer of information. Limited temporal manipulation. Don't suppose you could matter me up a paper bag to breathe into. It has led to the joint development of our species. Um, look, Bob...

I would love to keep going with the hardcore history of the universe, but to be polite about it, it's wigging me out. So can we talk about this process of yours? What happens when someone new moves? to the neighborhood what does happen well you keep an eye on them for a while just kind of see where they're at examination Evaluation. Remote in the early stages, then through surrogates. By which you mean duplicates.

Replicas of individual specimens, return them to the larger population, and... You send in a wolf in sheep's clothing is what you do. An unnecessarily dramatic description of a necessary- No, very necessary drama. In fact, it may need to be even more dramatic since the wolf doesn't even know it's a wolf. Do you have any idea what you've put poor Captain Loveless through? We arranged atoms. It was a purely functional... You brought her back from the dead. The distinction is irrelevant.

Think it can't be, Bob. Otherwise, you're watching this whole foreign film without subtitles. Continue. Can you at least understand that it matters to us?

that it matters very, very much? Continue. No, I don't like this train of thought. You make them radios. Everything your surrogates see and hear, it all goes back to you. It provides invaluable analytical data. Hooray. Okay. You spy on people. If you like them, they get to go back and be part of your super mathletes. What happens to the ones you don't like? To the technologically backward ones, or...

The ones that don't play well with others. Bob? I can't help but notice that I'm not getting a mental flash here. and put that in my head, which means you're hiding something. Open up or send me home. What happens to the ones you don't like? In an ideal case, isolation. And if they can't be isolated, redistribution. Into different groups. Into different atoms.

You kill them if you don't like them? They are given a new purpose. You've killed others? Redistributed. Semantics, you've redistributed others? Yes. species? Yes. Well, that's... That's just great. That's... That's sarcasm, Bob. This is... This... This is... This is Judgment Day, isn't it? That's what your process is? You deciding whether we're good enough to live or not. Tell me I'm wrong, Bob. Your terminology is inadequate.

But you grasp the basic concept. Well then, I... I guess that's it. What is? Just... It. Everything. Oh, come on. You've seen what my species is like. It's all violent impulses and bad decisions, and even when we think we're doing the right thing, we end up being careless or hurtful or... Look, let's just say that we've got... a lot of growing up to do before we get our symbiosis on with anyone. Our interest in your species is not moral. It is technological.

What in the name of God could we possibly give you technology-wise? You can leap over tall galaxies, turn back time, and death is a momentary road bump. What have we figured out that you haven't? This. The first time we encountered your species. The mission leader, Commander Zhang. She valued this technology more than anything else. You haven't figured out sound recording? you haven't figured out music order design tension composition balance harmony

Tchaikovsky's been talking about Sondheim again. These are qualities which we have not yet achieved. Christ. So... That's why you've been sending out those transmissions all this time? You've been looking for the people who would recognize this? Trying to find the beings that can replicate this advancement. You've been mirror-

Bob, my man, you gotta check out some of the latest advancements. Otis Redding. Zeppelin. Taylor. Sir Mix-a-Lot. I think he's been doing some of the best scientific work in the last 50 years.

Yeah, so what? Do I make an impassioned speech about why humanity's worth saving? That will not be necessary. No, so what happens now? Now you go... Wait, really? Don't mess with me, Bob, because we tried to do that and you clock stopped our- You were not ready. You did not understand the process. I am sorry. We could not lose another chance to establish contact. It had been too many years and we were so close. Again, could have been clearer. Go home. Tell the others what you have seen here.

Point the way. Take our construct with you, and we will see your next steps. This is just the beginning. In time, we will learn more about each other. How's that gonna happen? The way it always has. Slowly. Gradually. Bob? How long does this... process of yours take on average 14,000 years Wow. Damn. Well, someone... Everyone's gonna be happy to hear there really is a very, very big picture out there. Are you ready? To go home? Amen, brother.

Close your eyes. Alright, they're closed. Now what? Focus on my voice. Now you are going to leave this place. Once and for all. You are going to return to your people and tell them the story of the first man to speak to beings beyond the stars. And do you know how that story begins? And then he woke up.

Commander! Hello there, Officer Eiffel. Oh, it's so good to see you. Come here, give us a hug. Boy, have I got a story for you. But wait a minute. What happened here while I was out there? What caused that... Power outage? Is everyone okay? Everything is completely fine, Eiffel. Everything is completely under control. Oh, good. Where is everyone? What happened with... I know. Hira? You okay? What? Why do I... No! Ow! Commander, what the hell are you... Everything is going to be alright.

Why did you... Listen to the smart lady, Doug. Everything is going to be alright. After all, I'm here now. This has been Wolf 359 by Kinda Evil Genius Productions. Tonight's episode was written and directed by Gabrielle Urbina. The role of Eiffel was played by Zach Valenti. The role of Minkowski was played by Emma Sherjarko. The role of Hero was played by Michaela Swee. And the role of Cutter was played by Scotty Shoemaker. Original music by Alan Rohde. An audio recording by Jared Paul.

Tonight's space transmission was Sonata Pathétique by Ludwig van Beethoven. Want to help us return our people and tell them the story of the first man to speak to beings beyond the stars? Do so by supporting us on Patreon. at patreon.com slash wolf359radio. Thank you to Rina Sarame, The Gravo Situation, Roosh Farm D, Bridge, Sarah Skramek, Strewn Duncan Wilson, and all our patrons for your support in our search for the latest technological advancements in pop music.

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