[MiSTed] Alter the Orbit of the Moon
Jospeh Curwen
hexagon window at the lovely countenance of the moon, the pale moonlight
illuminating them both as they take turns sighing with content.]
Mike [offstage]: Hey, guys...Guys? Where are you? Why are the lights off? I
can't see a thing!
[Mike stumbles on stage. The lights suddenly activate, ruining the
tranquility of the scene.]
Crow: Aw!
Tom: MIKE!
Mike: There! Hey, why did you guys turn off the lights?
Crow [annoyed and shouting]: Just trying to enjoy the beauty of the cosmos,
Nelson!
Tom [annoyed and shouting]: Jeez!
[Mike takes a quick peek out of the window.]
Mike [shrugs]: The moon. The same as it is every day. So what?
[The lights on the counter begin to flash.]
Tom [annoyed and shouting]: SO WHAT?! *SO WH..
[Mike hits the lights before Tom can finish.]
[Deep Thirteen. Dr. Forester is grinning like a Cheshire cat. Beside him
stands a diminutive man with a goatee wearing Renaissance clothing. Frank
is peeking over Dr. Forester's shoulder.]
Dr. F: Beauty of the cosmos, eh? Well well, if only the little bot-lings
had any idea what they were in for...[cackles maniacally].
[The stranger with the goatee glares at Dr. Forester.]
Dr. F: Ah, where are my manners? Mike, we have a very special guest today
who is going to help me with today's Usenet experiment! Mike and the
Bots, I want you to meet historically famous ancient astronomer,
Johannes Kepler!
Kepler [nodding humbly]: Hello, Michael. Hello, small mechanical wonders.
Tom: Wow! Johannes Kepler!
Crow: I just loved the Universal Laws of Planetary Motion!
Mike [looking confused]: Hey, aren't you dead?
[Kepler raises a finger and opens his mouth as though he were going to begin
a scientific lecture, but Dr. F interrupts, shoving Kepler aside and
glaring at the camera.]
Dr. F: You're going to wish *YOU* were dead after today's experiment, Mike
Meister! I'm going to show you and the Bots the beauty of PAIN! One
of the Usenet's more famous kooks, and my personal 'old-standby',
ALEXANDER ABIAN is back with "JOLT THE MOON TO JOLT THE EARTH INTO
A SANER ORBIT!" [Regains composure]. Enjoy!
Kepler: I say! I've never heard of anything so ridiculous!
[Back on the Satellite, chaos reigns as the lights flicker and alarms go
off.]
All: AAAAH! WE'VE GOT ABIAN SIGN!
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1...
>From: Alexander Abian <abian @iastate.edu>
Crow: Wonderful. Now this guy's posting from a school.
Tom: Our education dollars at work.
>Subject: ALTER THE ORBIT OF THE EARTH.
Mike: STOP SHOUTING!
>JOLT THE MOON
Tom: How does one 'jolt' the Moon?
>TO JOLT THE EARTH INTO A SANER ORBIT.
Mike: Its times like this that I'm reminded just how subjective the word
'sane' really is.
>Date: Tuesday, July 21, 1998 7:06 PM
>The entire New Guinea is devastated by the enormous, deadly
Crow: Bees?
>Tidal waves,
Tom: They're so special that we capitalized them.
>China is devastated by monstrous deadly floods.
Tom: Flood that were caused by jolting the moon into a new orbit.
Crow: What *WERE* we thinking?!
>The half of the United States
Mike: ...that didn't receive this Usenet post is celebrating this very
day!
>and Africa are burning with infernal flames of fatal heat waves.
Mike: Or it was just a Doctor Laura rebroadcast. We're not sure which.
>Thousands and thousands of people are dead due to these calamitous
>natural disasters.
Tom: All of which would be made even worse if the Moon shifts orbit!
>All these tragedies and catastrophes are inextricably related and caused
>by the decadent celestial parameters of the Planet Earth,
Crow: See how planet Earth's decadence leads it to overindulge in booze.
Tom: Its drunken, lopsided orbit causes all life on the planet to burst into
flames.
Mike: Is *THAT* what the author is talking about?
Crow: He did shout 'JOLT THE EARTH'.
> i.e., by the abominable orbit of the Planet Earth and its Tilt.
Crow: Carl Segan is rolling over in his grave right about now.
Tom: Tilt? God's been playing pinball with the solar system again and was
caught bumping the table?
Mike: I think so. That's why its capitalized. I get a 'tilt' on the machine,
God gets a 'Tilt'.
>Yes, even Tidal waves,
Crow: Sprinkled with random capitalization.
Tom: This guy must think tidal waves are pretty important.
>even some earthquakes,
Mike: *NO*! NOT EARTHQUAKES!
>yes some earthquakes
Crow: Yeah, Mike. Sheesh.
>are caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon on Earth.
>How long the humanity is going to allow
Tom: ...God to tilt the machine?! It's time for you to say NO to God
Tilting the pinball machine of the cosmos!
>to be mortified, plagued and persecuted like speechless slaves by these
Tom: ...rebroadcasts of Dr. Laura?! Will the heat wave ever end?
>oppressive natural disasters. How long?! How long ?!
Crow: Isn't that a rather personal question?
> It would take a totally blind fanaticized slavish mentality
Mike: ...to allow the decadent Earth access to a wet bar.
Crow: Please drink responsibly, planet Earth!
>not to be convinced that there is no way that the traditional methods of
>combating the awesome celestial devastating forces
Tom: Traditional methods?! There are traditional methods for jolting the
moon?
>could by an iota diminish
Crow: ...the scientific illiteracy of net kooks!
>the resulting and ensuing calamities and catastrophes fatally plaguing the
>human race!
> WE MUST ALTER THE ORBIT AND THE TILT OF THE PLANET EARTH
Mike: I think he means 'the Earth's axis' when he says that.
Tom: Its times like this I really wish schools would restrict Internet
access.
>AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE MOON
Crow: Make them fall in love!
Tom: Mike, how do we play matchmaker to two celestial bodies?
Mike: I guess we're supposed to write love poems to the Moon and sign them
'Earth'.
>-.
Tom: And top it all off with rotten punctuation!
Crow: Thanks Abian, you're a champ.
> THERE IS NO OTHER WAY
Mike: Actually, there is. Just use grammar check.
> - Enough of 20 million years of unrelenting and inexorable global
>disasters fatally plaguing the human race.
Mike: Even though humanity as we know it hasn't been around that long, we've
had enough!
> WE MUST JOLT THE MOON TO JOLT THE EARTH INTO A SANER ORBIT AND
>INTO A SANER TILT !
Crow: I'm getting deja vu, here. Didn't he just shout that?
>WE MUST DO THAT AND WE SHALL DO IT !
Tom: We can't do it! We mustn't do it!
>
> The genius of the human race is capable of
Mike: ...little more than inciting European Football fans into riots that
crush women and children!
>achieving the above alterations of the celestial parameters of the
>planet Earth which are holding the entire human race in a disastrous and
>infernal conditions.
Crow: Abian is obviously a regular viewer of the Bob Enyart show.
>The genius of the human race will alter not only the decadent celestial
>parameters of the Planet Earth but also will judiciously and rationally
>alter the entire Solar System!
Tom: So *HOW* are we supposed to do it, exactly?
>I am sure of that!!
Tom: That doesn't answer my question!
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ABIAN TIME-MASS EQUIVALENCE FORMULA
Crow: Let's hear it for self-insertion into net lunacy.
> T = A m^2 in Abian units
Tom: Didn't I see Abian units in some Star Trek fanfic?
Crow: Naw. Even Steve Ratliff wouldn't stoop to such an unbelievable plot
twist.
> ALTER EARTH'S ORBIT AND TILT - STOP GLOBAL DISASTERS AND EPIDEMICS
Mike: So the Earth's orbit causes diseases as well, huh?
Crow: And pollution.
Tom: Don't forget war and hunger.
> ALTER THE SOLAR SYSTEM. REORBIT VENUS INTO A NEAR EARTH-LIKE ORBIT
> TO CREATE A BORN AGAIN EARTH (1990)
Crow: Now we're on to Venus, huh?
Tom: I think at this time it's pointless to mention that Venus'
inhabitibility lies in its runaway greenhouse effect, and its
greenhouse effect has little to do with its orbit.
Mike: Lets get out of here, guys.
[Mike picks up Tom and all three shuffle out of the theater.]
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[SOL. Mike enters the screen to see Tom and Crow in white lab coats. A
mobile of the solar system made from plaster dangles from the ceiling,
each planet labeled in big red friendly letters.]
Mike: Hey, guys. What're you doing?
Crow: We've decided to try to alter the solar system like in the Usenet post
we just read!
Tom: Yeah, and we constructed this ultra-realistic and scientifically
reliable model of the solar system to prove it!
Mike [examining the Venus model]: It looks like a plaster mobile to me.
Crow [annoyed]: No, Mike. It's an ultra-realistic and scientifically
reliable model of the solar system.
Mike: Alrighty! So, what's your hypothesis?
Crow: Huh?
Tom: Okay, we're trying to prove that a nuclear rocket motor attached to the
Moon will nudge, or 'jolt' if you will, the Moon into a safer,
better...
Crow: And *saner*...
Tom: Yes! Saner orbit.
Mike [turns the Moon model to reveal several fat red firecrackers]: And this
bundle of three M80 firecrackers attached to the Moon?
Tom: Represents the nuclear rocket motor!
Crow: Sheesh!
Mike: Okay, then! Well, let's see it go.
Tom: OKAY! Crow, let us make *SCIENTIFIC HISTORY*!
Crow: Yes! *SCIENTIFIC HISTORY*! [Lights the firecrackers]
[Tom and Mike step away. Crow turns to walk away, but the firecrackers
explode before he can. The Moon model is completely destroyed, reduced to
plaster dust. The Earth drops from its string and shatters on the counter.
Crow's head and eyes are blown off, leaving only his beak.]
Crow: AHHH! What happened?! I can't see!
Mike: I think we've seen the validity of altering the Moon's orbit.
Tom: Well, it was just a plaster model.
Crow: AAAHHH!
Mike: No, Tom. I believe that was an ultra-realistic and scientifically
reliable model of the solar system!
[The light on the counter begin to flash.]
Tom: Oh! Look!
Crow: I CAN'T!
[Deep Thirteen. Dr. Forester is grinning, and Johannes Kepler is wide-eyed
with terror.]
Dr. F: Well well, it looks like there's hope for the bots yet, Mike. Their
first injury during a frivolous and dangerous experiment.
Kepler: I have never seen a more outrageous display of scientific idiocy!
Dr. F: Now now, the bots' experiment wasn't THAT bad! Look at the
destruction!
Kepler [grabbing Dr. Forester by the neck and shaking him]: I WASN'T
SPEAKING OF THE BOTS' ANTICS! I WAS SPEAKING OF THAT TRASH BY
MISTER ABIAN!
[Dr. Forester grabs Kepler by the throat, and the two begin to choke each
other. The melee knocks Frank onto his backside, and all three begin
fighting. The battle knocks the camera onto its side, giving a closeup view
of Dr. Forester getting his shins kicked repeatedly by Kepler.]
[Frank's face bops into the eschewed point of view of the disabled
camera.]
Frank: Uh, see 'ya later Mike!
[The screen blacks as Frank pushed The Button.]
<<KEEP CIRCULATING THE NET LUNACY>>
MST 3K, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the characters portrayed are
copyrighted by Best Brains. All rights reserved. This work is no way
intended
to be a violation of that copyright, and is for entertainment purposes only.
Thank you for the marvelous coma.
>How long the humanity is going to allow to be mortified, plagued and
>persecuted like speechless slaves by these oppressive natural disasters.
>How long?! How long ?!