Hello friends and fans! Welcome to episode 2 of Wolf 359 Daily. I’m your host, Rina Cerame, and it’s August 22, mission day 455. Here at 1700 hours we join the Hephaestus crew for the events of “Little Revolución.”
While many Wolf 359 fans give a bit of a disclaimer when recommending the show that it takes until about episode 9 or 10 to kind of find its rhythm, I think many of us have a soft spot for this particular early-days episode. I know I do. It became a kind of fandom touchpoint, when things got tense or bleak, to go “Hey, remember when this show was about stealing toothpaste? Good times. Good times.”
“Little Revolución” also provides several fan-favorite moments, such as Minkowski’s penchant for colorful pejoratives with “you insubordinate hyena,” and the introduction of Pryce & Carter #614: “When in doubt, whip it out — ‘It’ being hydrochloric acid”.
I love that it’s toothpaste that the crew is fighting over, given a little something that listeners may have missed if they haven’t read the recording scripts or picked up a copy of Pryce & Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manual. Hera’s reading in episode 1 is cut off before she finishes tip #6, but in the hygiene recommendations they state crew members should “begin every day with a shower, and remember to brush [their] teeth at least four times a day.” Now, despite his eagerness to obtain the last tube of genuine toothpaste on the station, we know hygiene isn’t usually Eiffel’s greatest strength, and we know he’s only kind of listened to the first five and a half Pryce & Carter tips, so he’s definitely not following the 4-a-day protocol. Given Hilbert’s habit of locking himself in his lab for days on end, I would bet he isn’t either.
Despite what should have been slower than projected consumption of toothpaste, the crew still manages to be on the verge of running out, with 275 days remaining in their mission. That’s about nine months early, in what was supposed to be a 2-year mission! Over a third of the original mission time with no toothpaste! And with the unscheduled extension of the Hephaestus mission, this crew won’t see another tube of toothpaste until the Urania arrives... in 13 months.
Between the coffee, the soap, and the toothpaste, I’ve wondered a bit over the years about how undersupplied the Hephaestus mission seemed to be. At first, I suspected maybe Goddard was running some kind of undisclosed psychological experiment on them, it seems very on-brand. Or perhaps they didn’t genuinely expect anyone to be following the Pryce & Carter tooth-brushing protocol (while Hilbert and Eiffel might not be, Minkowski almost certainly was). Looking back now, though, I kind of wonder if they simply didn’t bother fully outfitting a crew that they probably didn’t actually intend to bring home. The “easter egg” Hilbert uncovers in season 3’s “Happy Endings” makes it fairly evident that Mr. Cutter didn’t have high expectations for the crew’s survival.
But, let’s talk about the Great Toothpaste Seige of Mission Day 455. The siege itself lasts about 17 hours, from 1500 on August 22 to around 1000 the following morning, with the final scene of Eiffel in the broom closet/brig at 1030 according to the recording script. So, as you brush your teeth tonight and get ready for bed, think about Eiffel, floating in the comms room at -40º, with just a blaring alarm, a duffle bag of frozen protein packs, and one tube of toothpaste for company for hours to come. Decide for yourself how bad you feel for him, given this was entirely a pickle of his own making.
Okay, I’m not usually one to nit-pick the science of sci-fi, but just for the sake of trivia let’s talk about being at -40ºF for hours. Hera mentions that the comms room has been at that temperature for 16 of the 17 hours, and Eiffel also mentions there’s some level of wind chill from the ventilation system. According to the National Weather Service, someone in -40º air with just 5 mph winds could start to have frostbite in under 10 minutes. For context, a regular box fan can produce wind speeds of 8-9 mph on “high.” Hypothermia would to set in at around 10 minutes under similar conditions. Hera tells Eiffel near the end that he’s “headed” for cardiopulmonary arrest or acute hypothermia, but in reality, he’d have been well past that hours ago. But the Toothpaste Siege gets a bit less fun if the comms officer freezes to death in hour 1, so, let’s go back to ignoring that fun fact.
Alright, finally, we can also look forward to seeing some friends from this episode make a return a few months from now with the season 1 finale. Both the halothane gas canisters now rigged up to the ventilation system and the fail-proof method of applying hydrochloric acid to your problems will get to play major roles once again the next time a crew member decides to get all mutinous. Truly, halothane gas becomes a favorite no matter which side of a mutiny you’re on, as both the crew and SI-5 reach for it again in season 3’s “Desperate Times” and “Desperate Measures.”
Before we go, we’ll look ahead at our schedule: we’ve got a bit of a gap until episode 3: “Discomforts, Pains, and Irregularities” on Mission Day 482, which will be Wednesday, September 18. No doubt some of the gap is due to Eiffel’s stint in the brig. But, in the meantime, drop us a comment! Let us know what your theory is about the sad state of the USS Hephaestus’s supplies.
Thank you for joining me to talk about Wolf 359 Episode 2: “Little Revolución.” You can join in the re-listen by finding the episode on wolf359.fm, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, you can subscribe to Wolf 359 Daily on Substack to get these updates directly to your inbox.
We’ll end today with another rejected Pryce & Carter tip from Wolf 359’s Twitter:
Keep your mission directives on you at all times. Possession is 9/10ths of the law you can make up to dibs the last banana.
Wolf 359 Daily is written and recorded by Rina Cerame.
Wolf 359 is a product of Kinda Evil Genius Productions. More information on the show can be found on their website at wolf359.fm
We hope to see you again on September 18 for Episode 3: “Discomforts, Pains, and Irregularities.”
