Welcome to Night Vale - 174 - Radio Jupiter

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

There appears to be some interference in our transmission. Please standby. Weather: “The Faded Red and Blue” by David Berkeley http://davidberkeley.com/ Livestream of THE SANDSTORM on September 24: https://noonchorus.com/welcome-to-night-vale/ Transcript available at http://welcometonightvale.com/transcripts You can also support the Night Vale Patreon, to help us keep making this show: http://patreon.com/welcometonightvale/ Rescheduled tour dates for 2020: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/live/ Our third novel, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, is out now: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/books/ Music: Disparition http://disparition.bandcamp Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. http://welcometonightvale.com Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Check out our books, live shows, store, membership program, and official recap show. Produced by Night Vale Presents. http://nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by disparition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, Do you want to hear us talk about other things? We have three other really great chat shows.

First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightvale needs. You can hear Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single episode in order of Welcome to Nightvale. Also, we have Random Horror Number Nine. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best, worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated on a number. IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middleest rated on IMDB. So check out all of those at Nightvillepresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks.

This is Radio Jupiter calling out to all who hear. Please respond. Awaiting your reply. This is Radio Jupiter. I'm not sure who is listening. I'm not sure if there's anyone to listen. I can only verify my own existence. I can only verify the void around me, the apparent fact of stars, the swirling atmosphere of the planet below me. I cannot verify much.

I don't know who I am or where I came from. I woke up here, and all I have to go on is my call sign. So this is Radio Jupiter, reaching out to whoever there is to be reached out to. It is so beautiful. Here are my perch, here are my place. in the cosmos and the universe about which I know nothing but feel everything.

I don't know if everywhere is this beautiful, or even most places. Did I happen onto the one beautiful place in all of it? Without perspective, there is only what is nearby. Without the burden of comparison, everything is beautiful. If a person is the sum total of every experience they've ever had, Is a person without memory still a person? Or are they a different creature altogether made either limited or limitless by the possibilities of a clean slate?

I am either trapped or I am more free than anyone who can hear this. If anyone can hear this. There is a framed photo in this room. It is an elderly woman. Maybe my mother or my grandmother or an aunt. Perhaps merely a photo I saw in a magazine once and liked for whatever reason. I have no way of knowing what kind of person I am, what kind of photo I would keep. Perhaps it is a photo of you.

Do you present as an elderly woman? Would you like to? I think perhaps I would like to, even for just a little while. But I only am what I only am. I ever am whatever I am. This is Radio Jupiter calling all cars, all spaceships, and all essential space debris. Is that any better? Is that better?

Can you hear me? Okay, my producer is giving me the signal that we are now back on the air. Sorry about that. Not sure what that other signal was, but it completely took over hours, which is rude. We're currently looking for the source of the signal. We've narrowed it down to... Up. Just right up there somewhere, beaming on down to us. But we're back in control and we do not expect any more interruptions.

Of course, we didn't expect that interruption either. I don't expect almost anything that happens to me. My life is full of mystery and surprise, as is yours, I'm sure. But still, we seem to have this one technical issue addressed. With that settled, I think we can get to the news. Our top story concerns Susan Willman. Okay.

There has been a lot of talk in town since the whole incident with the obelisk, in which Susan Wilman learned the name of an immortal all-knowing being. This name now exists in her head, an object of great power, reverberating through her thoughts. She has withdrawn from her duties as director of the Night Vale Community Theater and the Nightvale PTA. Oh, darn. and will miss her, and her prosaic muddled staging and grandstanding about homework life balance. Susan has instead taken residence in a booth at the moonlight all-night diner, there at all hours, toying with a half-drunk coffee and playing with the reflection of the sun in the back of a spoon.

At night, the mint light of the sign outside sends strange shadows across her face, and her friends say they sometimes don't recognize her at all. Steve Carlsberg, who is taking over her role at the Nightville Community Theater, went to talk to her about some finer details of the casting process, and said that she was less than helpful. She was weeping, and the only thing she said the entire time he was there was that she was afraid to speak, lest the awful name slip past her lips. No one was meant to carry such death inside of them, she whispered,

and then said no more. Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, makes total sense, said Steve, as he horked down some invisible pie. Well, I think we've given Susan enough attention for now. Moving on. In other news, the new beer cave at the Ralph's has been closed for repairs due to occasional time loop issues reported by certain customers. Manager at the Ralph's, Dave Bowle, issued a statement by spelling out words with cantaloupes in the parking lot, saying, everything is fine with the beer cave. It's a great and refreshing addition to Night Vale.

Please don't go inside or even look at it, as we don't know why it's doing what it's doing. Everything is fine. Please stay safe and stay away. Dave then rearranged the cantalops to create complex fractal designs that made me dizzy to gaze upon, but were beautiful nonetheless. When reached out for a comment,

Ralph's corporate said they had no records of any branch in a town called Night Vale and were tired of receiving prank calls with bizarre tales about a made-up store. When provided with pictorial evidence of Nightvale, a representative at Ralph's Corporate began to bleed from the eyes while shouting, This can't be real! My God! This can't be real! More on the story of the beer cave, if anything is... Not sure if any of this is getting through, but continuing to narrate on the off-chance.

anyone will hear this and come, you know, to collect me. I've been doing some digging through this spaceship, and I'm disturbed by what I've found. Weapons. Many, many weapons. Racks of guns, cases of grenades and explosives, radar that I instinctively know is for tracking combatant spacecrafts, even though I have no memory of receiving that training.

I am armed to the teeth and ready to wage war. But on what? There are no living beings in sight, and for all I know, there are no other living beings anywhere. Perhaps I am here to wage war upon the planet below me, that swirling gaseous titan. Maybe someone had enough of it and send me up here to put Jupiter back in its place. If so, I think the weapons they gave me were insufficient. I experimented by shooting off a round or two out the airlock, but the bullets soared into the upper atmosphere of the planet without slowing at all. My attack had no appreciable effect on my victim.

So maybe the planet is not my target. Could it be the stars themselves? I am sent here a pinprick in the side of God to cast myself at the stars shouting threats and tossing grenades until the entire tours of the universe cowers and surrenders. Perhaps that. Or perhaps I am at war with you, whoever is hearing this. Maybe I was given this radio in order to threaten and terrorize before I attack. So be afraid, I am coming. Once I figure out where you are. I have no idea which direction to start moving,

and I don't even know if the spaceship has any way of controlling movement or if I'm just stuck in this orbit. Either way, this is Radio Jupiter apparently declaring war. Consider it declared. They can hear me? Okay, I apologize. We've been doing all kinds of troubleshooting, including shifting the angle of our broadcasting tower,

updating all of our software, and yes, before you ask, we did try unplugging it, doing a ritual spilling of blood and plugging it back in. The issue we're having is that these broadcasts are being sent out on military frequencies, which unfortunately automatically override hours. I'm unclear why the military would be getting into broadcasting. That's more of a community radio thing, so let's all stick to what we're good at. I'll keep doing radio shows that inform and delight,

and the military can spend $3 trillion on a plane that instantly explodes if anyone tries to fly it. We have reached out to Rudy Desjardin, the local representative of the military industrial complex. He has a little table set up outside of the hardware shop, and anyone who has any questions for the military can just ask him, and he'll do his best to answer. Most of the stuff can't answer because it's classified or embarrassing, but sometimes he'll say a few cryptic words. In this case, his only answer was to make sounds and shake his head frantically while rolling his eyes toward the heavens. So not clear what to make of that, but I'd sure love whatever this broadcast is off my frequency, Rudy. Anytime you want to get on that.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today's show is brought to you by Nature's Caress Fountain of Youth, Gentle, Fleshable Wipes. Did you know in most of the world, they just wash after using the toilet? They have a whole thing specifically for doing that. It takes a couple of seconds, cleans thoroughly, and doesn't create mountains of paper waste. If you dirty your hands, do you wipe at them frantically with an even less robust version of tissues? Or do you use water? And soap.

Why would it be different for anything else? Because it just is. That's why. It's the American way. Love it? Or leave it? Nature's caress, Fountain of Youth, gentle, fleshable wipes. Plog the world with your debris.

This has been a no word from our sponsors. And now, as a special treat, Mr. Lee Marvin himself will perform Act 3, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This is the scene that contains the immortal line, I never knew the meaning of fear until I kissed Becky. Okay, Mr. Marvin, take it away. This is Radio Jupiter speaking to you from a time of peace. Yes, there was that brief episode of war and it was regrettable. I fired upon an innocent planet, although that planet seems none the worse for my crimes.

In any case, that war is now over as far as I'm concerned. I have no interest in battles and conflict, especially when I have no memory of what that conflict could involve. I have no interest in killing anyone and I have no interest in dying quite yet. So, peace in our time. I'm jettisoning all the guns and other weapons. Let them scatter out harmlessly into the universe, most of them swirling down the gravity well of Jupiter, where the immense pressure of the inner atmosphere

will compress them into diamonds. I don't know if that idea is scientifically sound, but I like the thought of it. All these worthless guns made glittering jewels swirling in the endless storm of a planet that doesn't even know they're there. As for me, now that I have declared peace upon the galaxy, I would like to know what is out there. I have found the controls for this ship, and it seems I must have been trained in their use,

because whatever I do appears to work as I wanted to. I am turning away from the only star I've ever known, because my memory is short, and it's the only star that has been there for the last two hours. I am turning out to the dark unknown, and I am casting myself into it. I hope there is a grander universe out there. I'd love to see it. This is Radio Jupiter, letting the cosmos know that I am on my way.

I'll see you soon. Or, given the size of space, most likely I won't see you. But will both exist? And won't that be nice. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Thank you, Mr. Marvin, truly a performance for the ages, and what a treat.

What happened? When? Oh, not a kid. This is Cecil Palmer of the Night Vale Community Radio Station. I don't know if you can hear these words, but if you can, we have identified the source of these intrusive broadcasts. She is Agent N-223, sent during the early years of the space program on a top-secret mission. She was put into hibernation so that she could wake up and serve as reinforcement in the Blood Space War at some point in the future. But it appears that the hibernation damaged her memory and anyway the blood space war doesn't happen for another thousand years.

So, she won't be much use in that battle yet. Ah, thanks to the anonymous tipster who snuck us this top secret info. We owe you, Rudy. Oh, it looks like we might be having more interference due to some rough weather. Have you seen the flag laid out the faded red and blue? One star missing edges torn and barely made it through. If we believe the promise in the fabric still holds true, that we must be a harbor for the weak and weary too.

I know your heart beats, I and my heart beats just like you. Once I saw the Grand Canyon it snowed upon the edge and you said, Deep inside this great divide, I know God isn't dead, spirit or soul, hurts and mine. This is Radio Jupiter on the tail end of the tail end. If there was anyone listening back near that star, I think I'm getting out of range. I feel you getting out of range. Whatever presence I felt that I was speaking to, that feeling is getting hushed and fuzzy. The way I'm sure my voice is for you now.

You're going to have to go on without me, I suppose. Be brave about it. Or be scared. Your feelings are not my problem anymore, if they ever were. I have new problems now. Problems of void and cosmos, problems of dark matter and lost memories. I am adrift in a universe that does not know I exist. But then, you are a world. you are too. I don't know what is out there, but I hope I live to see it. Won't that be something?

If I get to see whatever happens next, I hope I do. Well, this is Radio Jupiter signing off for the last time. Stay safe out there. I'll try to stay safe out here. Goodbye. The signal has faded out. It seems she has finally left our way. world and also left my radio frequency. I'm not trying to speak badly of a strange remnant from a war that has not yet happened, floating out into the nothing beyond the nothing, but come on, please, use a different frequency. It's just rude. The military, through Rudy Desjardin, has disavowed any knowledge of Agent N-223 or her mission. Nope, Rudy said through clenched teeth, never heard of her. I certainly wouldn't just say your name on the radio.

After being asked not to, that's not something I would do, Cecil, he said. So, I don't know. Maybe we got the story wrong. It is something, isn't it? We are bits of life, floating in a whole lot of non-life? The fact is true for us in both space and time. We are brief on any measure. And yet we can reach out our voice and be heard.

heard even if only for a moment. And that has to mean something. Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Stay to next for an angry buzzing from inside your cutlery drawer, but you'll be too afraid to open it and find out its source. Good night. Night Vale. Good night. Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by disparition. The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin. The voice of Radio Jupiter was Robin Virginia. Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at disparition.bancamp.com. This episode's weather was The Faded Red and Blue by David Berkeley. Find out more at David Berkeley.com. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvail.com, or follow us on Twitter at Nightville Radio.

or write and perform a one-woman show about groundhawks, a.k.a. Woodchucks, aka. Whistlepigs. Check out Welcome to Nightvale.com for info about our upcoming live stream production of our classic episode, The Sandstorm, with a number of brand new guest appearances, the first appearance of Desert Bluffs and Kevin as you've never seen them before. Today's proverb, Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Agit is a girl's worst enemy.

Emerald is a work acquaintance who a girl hung out with once, and then it just never turned into anything more. Are you squeamish about horror movies but kind of want to know what happens? Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre?

Join me, Jeffrey Criner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightville, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, random number generator horror podcast, number nine, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order. Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine, wherever you get your podcasts. Boo.