Request Line: Hi-Fi Sci-Fi

INT. RECORDING STUDIO – LATE NIGHT

The segment producer and an intern – CONNOR – stand in front of the sound board, peering into the recording booth.

PRODUCER: [yawns] You got that coffee?

CONNOR: [hands over a steaming mug]

PRODUCER: How are we for time?

CONNOR: Two minutes to air.  If you don’t mind my asking, why are we putting him on so late?  Why even have him on if we’re going to bury his segment at three a.m. like this?

PRODUCER: [raises eyebrows] You think that was management’s call?  It was him.  He’s the one who insisted!  Said he wouldn’t come on any other time; says the graveyard shift crowd are the only ones who are actually wise to what’s really going on in the world.

—[booth flies open]—

seahawks-carroll-football

 

PETE CARROLL: We ready, guys?

PRODUCER: We sure are.  On air in three…two…one…[points at CARROLL]

CARROLL: Good evening!  And welcome to Request Line, where we’re going to talk about the Majestic Twelve, we’re gonna talk about the melting temperature of steel beams, and I’m gonna tell you folks the real reason Donald Trump won’t release his tax returns.

PRODUCER: [makes circling gesture]

CARROLL: Oh, right, and, uh, play some music.  Let’s get right to it, Tabetha, you’re…[interrupted by loud feedback noise]…someone’s jamming her signal!

PRODUCER: [pushes button, breaks into call]  Turn down your radio, Tabetha.

CARROLL: Whew, for a second there I thought that someone didn’t want us to hear what you had to say.  Tabby, what have you got for us?

TABBY: Hiya, Pete.  So I wanted to call in and tell you about a really fascinating star that we’ve been observing.

CARROLL: You mean, like, a celebrity?  Don’t tell me the Can-toi have started to infiltrate our entertainment world, too, I thought they were just going after politicians…

TABBY: No no, an actual star in the sky.  It’s called KIC 8462852, it’s about 1400 light years away, and the Kepler telescope observed some very strange fluctuations in its light output…

CARROLL: [begins to reach for cutoff button]

TABBY: …that some people are beginning to theorize is caused by aliens.

CARROLL: [snaps back to attention] Go on…

TABBY: So you know how Kepler works, right? It looks at a star and watches for any significant dip in its brightness, which indicates a planet is passing between the star and us – sort of like an eclipse.  It’s not a very big dip – a Jupiter-size planet would reduce a star’s brightness by about one percent – but we can measure it.  And that’s how we’ve been discovering planets in different star systems.  So anyhow, we’re looking at this KIC 8462852, and on March 5th, 2011, the star’s brightness dropped off by 15% for a short time.  And then, two years later, it dropped by 22%.  That’s a LOT.  It’s way too much for a planet.  A stellar object that big would have some kind of gravitational effect we could see.

CARROLL: [snaps gum] So…Dyson sphere under construction?

TABBY: Well that’s the big question, right?  There’s a couple of other theories, like a comet swarm with a very strongly elliptical orbit.

CARROLL: Gonna have to be one hell of a comet swarm.

TABBY: Exactly!  What’s crazy is that of all the different potential explanations – all of which would be something we’ve never seen before in the universe – an alien megastructure is actually one of the most plausible.  But here’s where it gets even more interesting.  Based on the full-field Kepler measurements, in addition to these occlusions the luminosity of the star has been decreasing – by about 1% over the first thousand days and another 2% over the last two hundred.

CARROLL: The star is dying?

TABBY: Far from it!  For one thing, stars don’t die like that.  Now, KIC 8462852 is an F-type star – that’s a bit bigger and brighter than our own sun.  But that also means it’s going to have a shorter lifetime.  Only about three billion years, compared to our own G-type sun, which is good for about ten billion.  So if you’re going to build a megastructure, why do it around an F-type star?  It’s too hot and, relatively speaking, by the time you’ve got your house finished it’s halfway burnt out.  But what if you could siphon off material from the star? You’d be able to accomplish two things simultaneously.  First you’d cool off the star, giving yourself something nice and toasty that’s going to last…well, pretty much forever if you pull off enough to get it down to a red dwarf.  Second – assuming you have adequate control of fusion processes, which you’ve probably got covered if you’re advanced enough to siphon material from a star – you’d have all the matter and energy you need to actually build your structure!

CARROLL: Wow.  So has SETI taken a look at this?

TABBY: Well, yeah, and they didn’t find anything, but that’s pretty much irrelevant because that would really only deal with intentional communication in the electromagnetic spectrum…

CARROLL: Yeah, and SETI is in the Rand Corporation’s pocket, anyhow.

TABBY: …and odd are good that – if these are indeed aliens – they communicate in ways we’ve never even considered.  Unfortunately, that’s all we know so far.  So hopefully in the next couple of years we’ll be able to find some more answers.  But as you can imagine, it’s INCREDIBLY exciting to consider the prospect of an alien race, especially one technologically advanced enough to engage in stellar engineering over this kind of time scale.  But if that is actually the case, you can start imagining all kinds of things, maybe even that they’ve started exploring the rest of the neighborhood and have even visited Earth…

CONNOR: [knocks on glass, makes eye contact with Carroll and points to coffee cup]

CARROLL: [glances at CONNOR] Well.  So I’ll be honest, Tabby, that’s all very interesting, but that’s not really what we’re looking for here, so I’m gonna shut you down [hits cutoff button, which is followed by a flushing noise] so we can move on to a new theory about how the Warren Commission was compromised.  But before we do that, let’s rock out a bit.  This one’s for you, Tabby, you old kook! [pushes play button]

PRODUCER: [through intercom] Nice work, Pete.  I’m surprised, though, I thought you’d find that interesting.

CARROLL: [eyes glazed over] Nah, sounds like…nonsense…to…me…[trails off].

PRODUCER: [long pause]  So…Pete…your eyes are starting to water a little bit…maybe you want to, uh, blink.

CARROLL: [shakes head, blinks repeatedly] Yeah.  Sure.  Huh, don’t know what came over me there.

PRODUCER: No worries, we’re good.  Connor, maybe some coffee for the man?

CONNOR: [breaking eye contact with Carroll] You bet.  Be right on that.  Next caller is Howard from Chino, wants to talk about Princess Diana.  That should be a lot more fun that a bunch of silly nonsense about aliens, right?  You sit tight, Pete.  I’ll go grab that coffee.

Today’s topic: Science Fiction!  Drop all your favorite songs about aliens, technology, and other science fiction concepts into the comments and we’ll give ’em a spin.  

 

 

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly
Law-abiding Raiders fan, pet owner, Los Angeles resident.
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Don T
Don T

Parliament – Mothership Connection
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcw5U5kRRro

ArmedandHammered

Really? Unless I missed it earlier –

William Shatner “Rocket Man”
https://youtu.be/5hARDXYz2io

ArmedandHammered

I call that skirt the highway to hell because following those curves could get you wrecked.

ArmedandHammered

Gorillaz-Every Planet We Reach is Dead

https://youtu.be/6LDEm8mC-Nw

ArmedandHammered

Talking Heads – Moon Rocks

https://youtu.be/8195fn_toLQ

scotchnaut

Digable Planets has to qualify, right?

https://youtu.be/cM4kqL13jGM

laserguru
scotchnaut

Space Lord by Monster Magnet

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIHWybY5TqQ&w=560&h=315%5D

ArmedandHammered

I just love this song I think Beck has been one of the best artists to come around in awhile.

Beck – Gamma Ray
https://youtu.be/NgzfncwjcCE

SonOfSpam

Queen – ’39 (one of my top 20 favorite songs about time dilation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU

Don T

Barkeep, make it a double: Don’t Stop Me Now
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
ArmedandHammered

I was going to post it but decided to see who would be the one to do it. I loved that it seemed to be the theme song for Ash vs the Evil Dead.

ArmedandHammered

Did you see that Lee Majors is going to play Ash’s dad in Season 2. I can hardly wait.

SonOfSpam

I like how “I mean come on” works as a nod to the lyrics and as PFTCommenter.

ArmedandHammered

KMFDM – Virus – (Ghost In The Shell)

https://youtu.be/HXUcwdXEtm4

laserguru
ArmedandHammered

Pink Floyd – Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
https://youtu.be/3zuEfmmCA5s

jjfozz

Husker Du
Books About UFOs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKYngRjbQc

laserguru
theeWeeBabySeamus

Fricking awesome!!!!

theeWeeBabySeamus

What? Biological science is still science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnC88xBPkkc

theeWeeBabySeamus
laserguru
theeWeeBabySeamus

And by the way, regarding the new template/format….
That comment box down there, which seems to incessantly want to tell me to “Start Typing”…..? We gotta get that outta here.
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/911/544/6ae.gif

Senor Weaselo

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer–Karn Evil 9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLS0Med0s6E

Futuristic carnival? Computers taking over and humans fighting the computers? Finally getting to use this in a Request LIne? Check, check, and check.

SonOfSpam

Rush – Manhattan Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zP7l2NFKs

ArmedandHammered

Walking On The Moon – The Police
https://youtu.be/mbv-LcdLY-Y

laserguru
laserguru
ArmedandHammered

Because of the robots –

Herbie Hancock – Rockit
https://youtu.be/GHhD4PD75zY

theeWeeBabySeamus

Nice

theeWeeBabySeamus

As usual, I’m gonna fuck this up now.
(and yes, there’s one for every planet…well, at least one for every planet known at the time of the composition….behave yourselves or I’ll post every one of ’em)
((fortunately for you all, there are few country songs about science because…never mind, that’s self-explanatory)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmk5frp6-3Q

The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

Mike: Now now, we must not hate.
Croooow: At least not so overtly.

https://youtu.be/HgKwPrm7DYQ

ArmedandHammered

Peter Schilling – Major Tom
https://youtu.be/N1Hs2AQwDgA

ArmedandHammered

Love this AV from FLCL –

Lords of Acid – Deep Sexy Space

https://youtu.be/N23ZkXoTI14

theeWeeBabySeamus

I haven’t scrolled back. As usual, I’m lazy.
Apologies to whomever’s toes I’m stepping on this week.
/sorry not sorry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Xfch1oERc

ArmedandHammered

Hawkwind – Interstellar Overdrive
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGh0oRrWsK0&w=420&h=315%5D

ArmedandHammered

Not sure if this one fits
Flock of Seagulls – Space Age Love Song
https://youtu.be/jYnpisHe0X0

ArmedandHammered

Man or Astro-man? – Cyborg Control
https://youtu.be/0tmGv5LZYiQ

ArmedandHammered

Double Shot –

Man Or Astro Man? – Journey To The Stars
https://youtu.be/CQF1ocQiEks

theeWeeBabySeamus

Ha!!!! When I read the topic this week, it occurred to me that we should conspire against RTD and post nothing but MST3K clips.
Well done, Sir.

SonOfSpam

Beastie Boys – Intergalactic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilnnMzK_m8w

The Right Reverend Electric Mayhem

It’s a terrible example of the fart-sniffing self indulgence that infected rock in the 70s (it was the first song of an entire “space opera” album). But it’s obligatory.

https://youtu.be/_YL7ALghfi8

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

They should have met their end by MEANS OF A GIANT LASER SNAKE WITH FUCKING LEGS, PEOPLE!!

http://67.media.tumblr.com/7c0c1d62ae2cc853eb2a9a3cd950d4a9/tumblr_obluy6DYD71s9b5lko1_1280.jpg

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Spaceman wonders “Is this planet really worth invading?”

http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1xaxpwci41qzxzcso1_500.gif

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
SonOfSpam

“Say, you don’t mind if I explore Uranus, do you?”

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

That’s why they take the rednecks……. they LIKE it and need an excuse.

nomonkeyfun
SonOfSpam

They’re very sciencey and that’s ok.

ArmedandHammered

I read a story years ago where the captured protagonist defeated his telepathic captors by singing their songs in his head for several days. It drove them insane as the lyrics made no sense to them.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

That happened to me on a date once.

SonOfSpam

David Bowie – Life on Mars?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v–IqqusnNQ

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
whorootbeerdatbe

There’s one band who this category is made for:

The Aquabats – Mechanical Ape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FreSUn2P5Ak

SonOfSpam

Oingo Boingo – Weird Science (gonna go see a Boingo cover band tonight at the Fair – WOO NO LIFE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-upHSP9KU

SonOfSpam

Any idea how to de-bigulate the video?

SonOfSpam

Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science

For some reason, the original isn’t on the YouTubes, so here’s the original:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11lvw_thomas-dolby-she-blinded-me-with-sc_music

And here’s the YouTube crap version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMWGXt979yg

SonOfSpam

OH MY GOD I CAN EMBED YOUTUBE VIDEOS NOW O FRABJOUS DAY!!!

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh