468 – Moonbase 3 – View of a Dead Planet

Our tour of Moonbase 3 comes to an abrupt end with the destruction of all life on Earth.  What happens when the last remnants of the human race contemplate the imminent end of all mankind? John and Eugene discuss this uplifting – and final – episode of Moonbase 3. Episode Synopsis:   Moonbase 3 is getting ready for the arrival of a distinguished visitor, Nobel-prize winning, octogenarian physicist, Sir Benjamin Dyce. Dyce may have been sent to the moon to get him out of the way – he’s been causing some waves back on Earth.   Dyce arrives and he’s a joy to everyone – and when I say “joy” I mean cantankerous ass. Back on Earth, it’s Bastille Day, and the staff throw a party for Michel LeBraun, and it’s going well until Dyce arrives and gives a scathing indictment on nationalism and how all it ever does is cause problems. He uses this moment to explain about the current controversy he’s embroiled in. A project, which he initially pioneered, Project Arctic Sun, is underway. He proposed it decades ago, but the idea was shelved. Now, the Russians and the Americans have entered a joint venture to put it in place. Just one problem: Dyce has come to a new conclusion. The planned project will detonate a self-sustaining nuclear device high in the atmosphere and create a new, artificial sun over the arctic, making vast new areas of land habitable.  Dyce has re-analyzed the project and his new findings are that, rather than create a sustained nuclear reaction, it would instead cause a chain reaction, igniting all the hydrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere and destroying all life on the planet. The party fizzles out after having been brought down with his certainty that life on Earth will shortly be extinguished. Helen wonders how Dyce will react when Arctic Sun comes to pass and nothing happens. No need to worry about that, though, because, that night, Moonbase 3 loses all contact with the Earth. The other moonbases have lost contact, too. Looking down on the Earth visually, instead of a beautiful blue/green planet, all that remains of the Earth is a grayish ball of gas. The Earth is dead and the people of the moonbases are the last remaining humans in existence. The End Oh, no, wait, not it isn’t. There’s the story of what people do when they know everything they’ve ever known or loved is dead, and know, with certainty that, without supplies from Earth, they too will soon die. Caulder and Tom Hill develop a system for euthanizing everyone on the moonbase painlessly. Michel and others spend their time getting drunk. Bruno even takes that it bit father. First, he starts with the wandering hands on the female crew and then, after trying Michel’s “getting drunk plan,” tries to rape Helen. But all is forgiven in the morning. Dyce advocates for the crew of the moonbase to record every bit of human knowledge and information so that, possibly millennia later, when other life finds the moon, mankind will have left a legacy. Strangely enough, it is only now that Tom comes up with the idea of using the lunar shuttle to take someone back to earth to find out if everything is indeed dead. Tom, the best qualified astronaut, must remain behind to keep the base operating (and throw the “kill” switch on Caulder’s command.) Bruno volunteers, but then chickens out and finally Michel makes the one-way mission to a dead world.  Dyce is steadfastly opposed to sending a ship. The act of sending a ship will give the moonbase personnel hope, and hope will destroy them…. because, apparently hope is bad. When Michel hits the atmosphere, contact with him is lost, too. Caulder gives Tom the order: in 24 hours, rather than drag things out, just surprise everyone by killing them. As the staff, unknowingly, enjoy their final dinner, Caulder goes out of his way to make it a great night for all, and with less than thirty minutes to go before sweet oblivion overtakes them, a televised game show from Earth pops up on their TV screen, which they’d apparently left turned on. All the signals return, too. Earth is still there, just bathed in a highly-ionized atmosphere that is finally dissipating. Michel contacts the base. Things are fine on Earth – except for the 20º planetary temperature loss. Dyce was wrong, but that is his prerogative as a man. But mankind cannot be allowed one single mistake. The end