The Empty Man Cometh is just such a perfect podcast episode. It's a simple concept, but it gets so fucking tense and atmospheric. A million kudos to everyone involved.
Wolf 359 Season 1 Episode 9 - “The Empty Man Cometh”
[intro music]
Welcome to Wolf 359.
Eiffel: This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel, recording from the comms room of the USS Hephaestus Station. Welcome to day five thirty of our little camping trip to the Leo constellation.
[announcement chime]
Eiffel: And, you’re just in time for today’s weather.
Hera: [over announcement system] Attention, crew members. It seems that the ion wind cluster that I’ve been monitoring for the past twelve hours is veering towards us after all.
Eiffel: [sighs in frustration] Balls.
Hera: I hoped to avoid any direct contact with this anomaly but, its path is shifting faster than I can adjust our trajectory. And it’s now in a direct intercept vector. Please take a moment to ensure that all precautionary measures we discussed earlier have been properly implemented. The interior environment of the Hephaestus should remain largely undisturbed, but brace yourselves for light turbulence and impaired functionality in some of our electrical systems for the next three and a half hours. Thank you.
[announcement chime]
Eiffel: I swear to god. If it’s not a passing comet, it’s a solar flare. If it’s not a flare, it’s a geomagnetic storm. Now it’s an ion wind! Who knows there could be so much freaking weather without an atmosphere?
[door opening]
Minkowski: Eiffel. You locked down the solar panels this afternoon, right? I want to make sure that we’re ready for whatever this ion wind thing can throw our way.
Eiffel: Can we... ever really be... ready for anything, Commander?
Minkowski: I just want to know if we’re safe.
Eiffel: Define... safe.
Minkowski: Eiffel, come on. It’s a simple question.
Eiffel: Or... is it?
[pause]
Minkowski: Are you done now?
Eiffel: Yeah, I think it ran its course.
Minkowski: Did you have fun?
Eiffel: Eh... not really. Low hanging fruit. But yeah, I closed up the panels this morning, and double-checked to make sure they’re set about an hour ago. Hatches are battened down.
Minkowski: Oh. Good. Might just get through this without too much damage.
Eiffel: Riders on the storm, man. Riders on the storm.
[machine begins rapidly plinking]
Eiffel: Woah, haven’t heard that one in a while.
Minkowski: What is that?
Eiffel: Pulse beacon relay receptor. Basically, one way space fax. Looks like something’s coming down the pipeline from out friends over at Canaveral.
Minkowski: We’re getting a message from Command?
Eiffel: It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Whatever happened to those weekly calls from mom and dad?
Minkowski: What’s it say?
Eiffel: Decoding trans-galactic transmissions ain’t like dustin’ crops, farm girl. Give me a moment.
[machine finishes plinking and prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: Here we go, let’s see. [clears throat] “The golden rose is ready for melting. Proceed with designation alpha. Beware, five, the empty man has awoken”?
[pause]
Minkowski: What? Gimme that. Well that makes no sense. You must have transcoded it wrong.
Eiffel: Uh-uh. Well I won’t deny that’s totally something that could theoretically happen, if there’d been a transcription error, we wouldn’t be looking at words. We’d have like, I don’t know, random strings of ampersands and sevens. I don’t know what they’re playing at. This is the message Command wanted us to have.
Minkowski: But it makes no sense.
Eiffel: Uh, yeah. I’m kind of relieved we agree about that.
Minkowski: Well, can we radio them and ask for a clarification?
Eiffel: Unfortunately, the good folks at Goddard Futuristics spared every expense when they put this boat together. We only get high-speed cable vision for the incoming. We’re still on dial-up for the outgoing. We can send something, but it’ll take about two weeks to get a message back to Earth. And that’s if this ion thing doesn’t slow it down.
Minkowski: So then, what the hell are we supposed to do with this?
Eiffel: Hang on, I’ve got an idea.
[open intercom buzz]
Eiffel: Dr. Hilbert, you copy?
Hilbert: [over intercom] Loud and clear, Eiffel. What is it?
Eiffel: The words “golden rose”, or “designation alpha”, mean anything to you?
Hilbert: [over intercom] What? Why?
Eiffel: We just got a weird-ass telex from Command, we’re trying to make heads or tails of it.
Minkowski: Read him the other thing, the thing about the man.
Eiffel: Oh yeah, uh... “The empty man has awoken.” Ring any gongs?
Hilbert: [over intercom] Afraid not, Eiffel. Not entirely sure what that could be a reference to.
Eiffel: Hm, well, worth a shot.
[machine begins rapidly plinking]
Eiffel: Oh, uh, un momento, por favor, Doctor Hilberto. Looks like we’re getting another wire.
[machine finishes plinking and prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: Alright, let’s see. “The Andromedas are broken. The northern light should be reversed. Alert four. The empty man approaches.” [pause] Have like a whole bunch of drugs been made legal while we’ve been up here? Am I missing out on that?
Minkowski: Alright. Hang on. Let’s look at this thing rationally. So the first two sentences of both of those messages make completely no sense, right?
Hilbert: [over intercom] Right.
Eiffel: Right.
Minkowski: Right. But then second halves followed a pattern. It’s a warning. Then something about this, “empty man”. Whatever that is.
Eiffel: Yeah. And then there’s the numbers. Five on the first one, and four on the second one.
Hilbert: [over intercom] A countdown, maybe?
Eiffel: What happens when we run out of numbers? [pause] The empty man... cometh?
[pause]
Minkowski: Look. For the time being, we have no idea what these messages mean, so let’s not get worked up about them. If Command is trying to... warn us about something, there’s not much we can do about it just from these messages. So let’s focus on what we do know is real, like this ion cloud that we’re about to go through, alright?
Eiffel: Yeah.
Hilbert: [over intercom] Indeed.
Eiffel: Good plan.
[machine rapidly plinks, then prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: [clears throat] “The frozen pages are blank. Decide what to do with the time that is given to you. Emergency three. The empty man hungers.”
[pause]
Minkowski: On... second thought... I’m gonna inspect the armoury to make sure that all of our stores are in good working order.
Hilbert: [over intercom] And I’m going to run few security checks on our airlock perimeter.
Eiffel: Right. Yeah. Good plans. I’m just gonna... uh, hold down the fort here. I guess. Um, one second, dear listeners.
[two static bursts]
Eiffel: Hi again folks. It’s been about three hours since I turned off the recorder, and things have been pretty… quiet. Minkowski and Hilbert have been checking the station’s systems, making sure that nothing is too far out of the norm. [pause] They’ve locked up all of the airlocks, and access points, so we should be... pretty safe? Based on our… limited perception of safety.
[door opens and closes]
Minkowski: Alright, just finished our third sweep through the station, and everything is locked up tight.
Hilbert: The sensory alarm system is calibrated to its most sensitive setting. If anything other than ourselves moves throughout the station, we should know about it.
Minkowski: And, I’ve retrieved two of the handguns from the armoury, so if and when this “empty man” thing shows up, we should be ready for it.
Eiffel: Only two guns? There’s three of us.
Minkowski: Hilbert’s not a trained marksman, and I’m not putting a gun in the hand of a civilian just yet. It’s you and me, Doug.
Eiffel: Oh great. The full hoo-ah.
[ship creaks]
Eiffel: What the hell was that?
Minkowski: Easy, Eiffel. We’re hitting the worst of the ion winds. That’s our scheduled turbulence. How’re you doing, Hera?
Hera: A-Acceptable, Commander, although certain systems are beginning to show signs of strain.
Minkowski: Do your best to keep things under control. Let us know if anything goes seriously wrong.
Eiffel: Hey, on the plus side, at least we haven’t had any other messages from Command, so maybe this whole thing is just blown –
[machine begins rapidly plinking]
Hilbert: You had to say something. You had to open your mouth.
[machine finishes plinking and prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: [sighs] “The broken flower is in the vase. Don’t listen to your eyes. Danger. Two. The empty man sees you.” [pause] Okay, officially now, what the hell? What’s coming towards us? What – What is this apparently indescribable thing?
Minkowski: Don’t freak. I don’t like this any more than you do, but we’re still on a space station, eight light-years away from Earth, things can’t just show up on our doorstep.
Eiffel: You know, Commander, that would be a pretty good argument, if we didn’t have a crazy plant monster living in our air vents! Or, if we didn’t get weird whispers when we lost power! Honestly, there’s a lot of stuff that goes down around here that really shouldn’t be possible, but here we are!
Hilbert: Hera! Are there any objects or crafts on approach vector towards the Hephaestus?
Hera: ... No, Dr. Hilbert. Not... at the moment.
Minkowski: Hera? You don’t sound very confident.
Hera: Well, the ion winds are interfering with my sensory instruments, and my visibility of the airspace around the Hephaestus is down to eighty-one percent. Nothing is showing up on my sensory input, but I’m working with blind spots. [pause] However, the possibility of an object being nearby is... mathematically unlikely.
Eiffel: Mathematically unlikely? That’s the best we can do right now?
Hera: I’m sorry, I’m dealing with a rather extreme weather condition here. And a boarding party isn’t exactly something I prepped for this morning. Visibility down to fifty-six percent.
Eiffel: [sighs] This just keeps getting better and better.
[machine rapidly plinks, then prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: “There’s no way out. There’s no way out. But there is a way in. Danger. One. The empty man shall knock.”
[pause]
Eiffel and Minkowski, at once: Hera?
Hera: Still at zero sensory contact. Visibility down to thirty-seven percent.
Eiffel: Is there... anything we can do to get out of here? Can we... put the station in reverse and back out of this cloud, or something?
Minkowski: Hera’s already using all of her engine power to compensate for the ion winds. If we tried to change course now, we might end up in –
Hilbert: [whispered] Shh! Quiet! Don’t you hear that?
[distant sound of rhythmic creaking]
Eiffel: What was that?
Hilbert: Could just be side effect of the ion winds. We’re going through the worst of it now. It might be exerting enough energy on the ship to cause temperature fluctuation. It could just be metal in the ship’s hull expanding a bit.
Eiffel. There are a lot of “could”s in that explanation, Doctor.
Minkowski: [whispered] Hera. Is anything going on with our hull?
Hera: ... Not... as far as I can tell, Commander, but visibility is down to nine percent. I’m basically flying blind for the next few minutes.
[hiss of escaping air]
Hilbert: [whispered] Just the Hephaestus compensating for the weather conditions. Atmospheric regulators, parametric stabilisers, all just doing their job. It’s all regular noises in process of keeping interior of the Hephaestus warm and stable environment.
Minkowski: [whispered] Are... you... sure about that, Doctor?
Hilbert: [whispered]...No. But I like the sound of my voice better than the sounds of what’s going on out there.
[rhythmic clinking of metal]
Minkowski: [whispered] Hilbert. Thoughts?
Hilbert: [whispered] Well. That sounded like one of two things. Option one: simply the hull cooling after coming into contact with a... unusually warm pocket of gas that’s been swept up in the wake of the ion winds.
Eiffel: [whispered] What are the odds of that being the case, Doctor?
[pause]
Hilbert: [whispered] Within the realm of the possible? Barely.
[rhythmic clinking of metal]
[pause]
Minkowski: [whispered] What’s the other option?
Hilbert: [whispered] Something’s walking on the outside of the Hephaestus.
Minkowski: [whispered] Shh! Stop that! We don’t know that, Eiffel! Listen to Dr. Hilbert, it could just be the station reacting to the ion cloud. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation here.
Eiffel: [whispered] Come on, Commander. After all the crazy wabba-jabba we’ve seen on here? And with Command breaking radio silence for the first time in months to warn us? Yes. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation! And it is that the empty, hungry thing is out there right now! About to go big, bad wolf on our straw house!
Minkowski: [whispered] Hera. There’s nothing moving inside the station aside from the three of us, right?
Hera: That’s correct, Commander.
Minkowski: [whispered] And all of the entrances to the station are still closed, right?
Hera: Rig- uh, ah, yes, sure! Probably?
Minkowski: [whispered] Probably?
Hera: I-I... I’m having some trouble connecting to aft deck airlock number three. I’m getting some low-level electromagnetic interference. Climate and pressure controls register as normal, but... I cannot confirm that the airlock has not been opened.
[machine rapidly plinks, then prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: [whispered] “Zero. The empty man is with you. Extreme danger. Zero. The empty man is with you. Extreme danger.” That’s all it says.
[long pause]
[hiss of escaping air]
[distant tapping noise]
Hera: Not to alarm you all, but my systems indicate a power fluctuation is immin – [power cuts]
Minkowski: Right!
[crew shouting over each other frantically]
Hera: Hold on, hold on! Hold on! Lights back to nominal in exactly one second!
[sound of powering up]
[machine rapidly plinks, then prints]
[paper tears]
Eiffel: Oh god damn it!
Minkowski: What?
Eiffel: You have got to be kidding me!
Hilbert: What?
Eiffel: Those sons of bitches!
Minkowski and Hilbert, at once: What?
Eiffel: [exhales angrily] “The preceding six pulse beacon relays that you’ve received, have been part of a psychological experiment. Please disregard the content of these messages. And return to regular operational activities as soon as possible. Please record, and clearly label, any unusual crew behaviour, deviation from protocol, or undue lack of decorum that resulted on account of the transmission of these messages in your daily logs. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Hera: Well. Following that, this is going to seem a lot less sexy. But I’m happy to report that we’re finally starting to move past the ion wind cluster. Visibility is returning to normal, and systems are stabilising. I can confirm that there are no outside presences, or lifeforms with any degree of nutritional insufficiency at this time.
Minkowski: Thank you, Hera.
Eiffel: Those... bastards! How dare they put us through something like that? It’s cruel! And sick! And… other adjectives! What kind of person is deranged enough to call that an experiment?
Minkowski: Relax. We’ve all had enough excitement for one evening. Come on, let’s all just take a moment to cool off, gather ourselves, and... really reflect on how horrible what was just done to us was.
Eiffel: Commander, you’re not going to just... leave things at that, are you?
Minkowski: Oh don’t worry. I think you’ll find that – what did you say it was? Two weeks? Two weeks from tomorrow, the folks at Command are going to get a fantastically worded message from the three of us. Telling them exactly what we thought of their little test. I just wouldn’t want to spoil something like that by rushing into it. I think, gentlemen, we need a proper night’s sleep to really let our anger reach its full potential.
Hilbert: I concur wholeheartedly, Commander. If you require any sentiments beyond reach of the English language, I am happy to supply alternatives in Russian, Norwegian, German, Swedish, or Afrikaans.
Eiffel: Aw hell, speaking of logs. I guess you caught all of that, so... You might be able to pick up on the effect your twisted experiment had on us. Hint. It. Was. Awful! Sorry if things got a bit... crazy for a while there, dear listeners, but... you see the kind of things we have to deal with! And I used to complain about my boss at Pizza Hut. Anyway, from the USS Hephaestus Station, this is Communications Officer Doug Eiffel, signing off. Goodnight, folks.
[outro music]
This has been Wolf 359, written and directed by Gabriel Urbina. The roles of Eiffel and Hilbert were played by Zach Valenti. The role of Minkowski was played by Emma Sherr-Ziarko. And the role of Hera was played by Michaela Swee. Original music by Alan Rodi, and audio recording by Jared Paul. If you enjoyed tonight’s episode, please consider taking a moment to leave a review on our iTunes page. Reviews will only be used to let other people know about the show. Not as the basis for a creepy… psychological experiment! We… promise. Visit us at wolf359.fm, or follow us on Twitter at @Wolf359Radio for more information on our show.
Hey, it's episode 9 of my Wolf 359 re-listen, which means it's time for a particularly iconic episode:
The Empty Man Cometh
In which Eiffel freaks out, Minkowski freaks out and Hilbert freaks out. Seriously, that's the whole episode.
This episode, like I said above, is iconic. It's memorable, it's tense, and it's funny, in a dark, weird sort of way. Plus, it's the example par excellence of why Command are the Actual Worst. I had some very fond memories of it, going in, many of which it didn't entirely live up to, even if I generally enjoyed the episode.
As the episode begins, though, it does set its situation up really well. We have an ion storm incoming, after all, which works as a handy bit of spacey technobabble. We kind of suspect, until the final reveal, that the ion storm might have something to do with this Empty Man thing, which encourages us to view the episode's biggest threat as something vaguely external to the Hephaestus, something coming from the vast, impersonal void of space.
After this groundwork, however, all we get is essentially one long build-up and release of tension. We've already seen Wolf 359 trying for a horror episode - hello, Super Energy Saver Mode - so we already know this is something the show can do. And unsurprisingly, it does it pretty well here too, only using the "aaaargh, there's something weird out there" monster film model instead of the "aaargh, there's something weird in here" ghost story model. It's a simple idea, and it plays out pretty much like you'd expect, right until the end of the episode.
The messages the Hephaestus receive, I have to say, are amazing in their sheer weirdness, and I have a real affection for the moment where Eiffel shoots down the idea that they're somehow mistakes. He's 100% right that a real error would just be random letters or numbers, and pointing it out feels like a nice genre-savvy touch. Plus, after several episodes of Eiffel walking straight into horror movie clichés, it's nice to see some common sense from him.
Unfortunately, knowing that they're deliberate only makes the messages more mysterious, since they give the crew literally nothing to go off. The messages are clearly warnings, but beyond that, it's very hard to figure out what, if anything, the crew are supposed to do off the back of them. The messages put pressure on the crew by counting down ominously. But apart from that, it's essentially meaningless input. There are no instructions for the crew, no useful bits of information. There are just some very confusing words on a printout.
And, given the revelation that it was all a psychological experiment, might this not be the point? Perhaps Command want to know how humans react to their own powerlessness in the face of the totally incomprehensible, the terrifying Unknown. In fact, given that Command have a real interest in human communication with aliens - the ultimate terrifying Unknown - this would actually make sense. Heck, it even makes sense for them to specifically be doing this onboard the Hephaestus - theirs is the ship that Command expect to make contact with real life aliens, any day now. We could maybe see this experiment as a sort of psychological inoculation, preparing the crew for moment they finally get a message from the Dear Listeners.
Either way, if it's psychological reactions Command want to observe, we get them here by the bucketful. Eiffel, for example, alternates between freaking out and trying to convince himself that it's stopped. Hilbert, from what we can see, turns to technology, buckling down and running scans, while Minkowski is the one comparing the messages, trying to pull out patterns. It's an admirable impulse, but I suspect it's exactly what Command are playing off here. As humans, we love to find patterns. It gives us a sense of control. But faced with something that is incomprehensible, the sense of control slips away. And so, as level-headed as Minkowski seems, she freaks out in the end just like the others.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the point where the episode pulls out all the stops to freak us out, too. Seriously, from the use of tense music and creepy sound effects, to the absence of Hera's reassuring presence during large parts of the episode, to Eiffel whispering the final message, all of this is so spooky. I mean, things build to a peak, the power cuts out, everybody's losing their mind, and then-
Oh. It was all a psychological experiment. Ugh, Command. Why are you like this?
It's a deliberately dissatisfying, anticlimactic ending. We want to heave a sigh of relief that the Empty Man isn't real, that the crew survived. But any positive feelings linked to the release of tension are drowned out in righteous indignation and - for us, if not for the crew - a feeling that we've been robbed of the exciting horror story we were expecting. We, along with the crew, have had the rug pulled out from under us, and while it's something the show's done before - remember, uh, last episode, within which Box 953 never got explained or followed up on? - it's the first time it's felt cruel. Box 953 was an accident, accidents happen. But this? This is just mean-spirited, so we end the episode firmly aligned with Minkowski and Eiffel in their feelings of anger and betrayal.
The only positive? I do feel like this shared, terrifying experience brings the crew closer together, as evidenced by their plan to write a sternly worded letter and send it to Command tomorrow. I'm not sure how effective it will be. But the thought's nice. Plus it might give them a sense of control back, and who am I to argue with that?
It's a bright moment at the end of an episode that otherwise leaves us frustrated and angry, putting us through the psychological wringer alongside the crew. As an exercise in building up tension, it's effective, and it doesn't completely lose that tension on a re-listen, even knowing the ending. I still found myself jumping at some of the noises in this, you know? And scary countdowns will always be scary!
That said, I do think that some of the impact this had the first time I listened to it was lost this time. The first time I listened to this, after all, I remember getting freaked out by the prospect of the Empty Man, but also invested in figuring out what it was. Knowing that the messages are meaningless, I was less invested in that this time round. And weirdly, I also remember finding the crew's freak-out and their subsequent rage at the anticlimactic nature of it all funnier the first time round - perhaps because it was so unexpected? In any case, that didn't carry over as much this time, either.
Nevertheless, I would say that this episode was still perfectly fine, and my ill-will towards Command has, if anything, intensified. But it was certainly a different experience on a re-listen, with different things standing out. Which, in the end, is what a re-listen is for, I guess. Some episodes improve dramatically. Some don't. For me, this one falls into the latter category, which might just be due to how strong a reaction I had to it the first time I heard it. And that's fine. Not every episode can - or should - be made for fans on a re-listen.
And hey, if you found it just as good, or better, the second time round? More power to you ^-^
Miscellaneous thoughts:
Minkowski saying that they might survive this with minimal damage *shakes head*. Has nobody on this station heard of tempting fate?
Is the pulse beacon relay sound effect actually a cash register sound? It's effective, either way - I love how clunky it sounds :)
This episode is also a really good opportunity to show us how the pulse beacon relay works. Which totally won't be relevant ever again. Nope. Not at all.
Un momento por favor, Doctor Hilberto." Why does this line amuse me so much?
"Decide what to do with the time that is given to you." Aaaaaaaaah bad bad bad!
Hilbert speaks Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, German and Afrikaans?! How did Afrikaans get in there? (headcanons 100% welcome here)
Aww, Minkowski thinks they should all get a good night's sleep. Sound advice in most situations tbh
