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Episode 542 - Black Destroyer (Patreon)

Published:
2021-04-06 03:59:45
Imported:
2021-07

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Content

A month of sci-fi monster weirdness kicks off with Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt!

Special thanks to reader George Woodruff!

Check out our bonus episode on Alien.

Next up: The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis 

Comments

Anonymous

Soooooo.... April is also for Draculas? There's a lot of vampire stuff in there. The desperate hunger for something in humans. The ability to hide in plain sight. Superhuman senses and physique. You mention it in the show and I think you had to. There's a twist, of course: *alien* vampire (cat tentacle beast). Now I digress. I do think there's something we can read into the story. We have a culture that assumes they are superior because they are ones who traveled to meet the other. It's folks coming into China, seeing all the advanced technology, and assuming it must have been cleverly copied from the West. It's finding the Kingdom of Kush and assuming all its advancements must have come from Egypt. It's 1491 and the populous, advanced cultures of the Americas have been ravaged by disease to such an extent that when European explorers come, it is to discover a wilderness with scattered savages. Heck, it's the History Channel experts explaining how Aliens must have built anything that looks advanced in the lands of non-white-folks. So there might be a really cool story in Black Destroyer about the hubristic human spacefarers so blinded by their own egos that they can't fully appreciate what they've found. And the alien that knows these humans have id in their bones. This ends my 3rd Grade book report.

Anonymous

I've been hoping for this tale for a while. Rough as it is around the edges, Couerl is such an oddly likeable protagonist--I think the strongest similarity the tale has to Alien is that it makes the reader almost think like Ash when it comes to the alien monster. "I admire its purity. A survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality," etc. etc. I was glad you brought up both AD&D and the Alien connections here. Without going into details, the wonderful CAS tale y'all are covering next week may end up being reminiscent of both the facehuggers and AD&D's cloakers!

Anonymous

I think it's the leeching aspect that makes a vampire, not the (often near-total) dietary restriction. Although now I'm wondering where carnivorous plants fall, since they tend to do it specifically for nitrogen but also just wholly engulf the whole bug or whatever. I'm also realizing that line of reasoning ends with Kirby absolutely being ruled a vampire (which I guess I'm okay with but isn't where I expected this comment to go). Anyway, that section really took me back to a discussion about cannibal sharks on an old episode (three skeleton key maybe?) so please, more taxonomy segments.

Ben Gilbert

As to how the commander got his position. In the Space Beagle we learn that the crew voted him in. There are elections in later chapters. The story was changed for the novel to include the main character of the remaining stories, a man who uses logic to solve problems (Like Spock if Spock was a Scientologist.) He is a Nexialist (Dianetics) and the stories suffer from his inclusion.

Anonymous

Great show as always. I read Voyage of the Space Beagle over 45 years ago and remember loving it. Marvel Comics published an adaptation of Black Destroyer in Worlds Unknown issue #5...it had a very cool cover featuring Coerl. I think I still have it somewhere. You can check it out if you google “Black Destroyer”, although you will also get weird customer reviews for an adult product on Amazon that would have caused Lovecraft considerable consternation!

Anonymous

Being that guy.... I believe the reference to the heading for his sun is simply the “direction”. Also I love golden age SF, but they were often obsessed with physics and calculations. It can be interesting but let’s be honest when your going between stars and have implied artificial gravity it seems silly.

Anonymous

High brow analysis: It's interesting that the ship is The Beagle, because the explorers' key failure was to ignore the scientific approach and instead go forward in a very colonialist mentality. "Look at this novel lifeform - surely it poses no harm to us superior humans!" Low brow summary: Their hubris led them into messing with some Weird Alien Pussy.

Anonymous

OMG.... now I’m thinking of all the movies where the Assssstronauts that take their helmets off (Prometheus) or go down to a planet without a tank (yeah Star Trek I’m looking at you).

Anonymous

When you mentioned the Couerl it immediately triggered my nerd sense. It's a cat like creature that features prominently in the Final Fantasy series of games. Then again, final fantasy cribs a lot from D&D with some of the monsters and such being in there basically being a very japanese but basic D&D game until becoming what it is today

Steve

Van Vogt was a big hit amongst the geeky crowd in my high school in France in the late seventies. I read everything, so I read this and the World of Null-A and its sequels. It's was all badly written and I've never understood the attraction, but I understand it a bit more now having seen ST:TNG.

Jason Thompson
>>57169046

In the 2014 Godzilla movie they describe the other monster as an “energy parasite” and it’s clearly a throwaway line with no more thought put into it than “parasites=bad”. I was really hoping for awhile they were implying the monster was like a giant tick that would suck energy from an even BIGGER monster! But no, they apparently meant it’s an “energy eater”. it’s like they described a cow as a “grass parasite”. 🙄

Jason Thompson

The idea “a super advanced civilization that collapsed and the individual members now live as low-tech solitary predators even though they COULD make technology if they wanted to”... I can’t tell if that’s brilliant or completely stupid

Anonymous
>>57204317

Yeah, considering they were going FTL Couerl didn't escape until he was outside the bounds of his solar system.

Anonymous
>>57218142

At the very least, I've always liked the idea that attaining immortality through technology is a sort of Filter Event on its own. It doesn't wipe out the species, but since they never die they eventually tire of post-scarcity ennui and just...Return To Monke for a few millenia, abandoning their "civilization" while a younger race pops up. Or, in this case, they end up systematically *eating* all life on the planet until some shipdits drop out of the sky.

Anonymous
>>57207223

Haha my mind went right to FFXIV I was like all my favorite fantasy animal. This will be a fun story.

Anonymous

"They're not the Roman Legions!" Now I want to see a Cowboys vs Aliens style movie with a Roman legion.

Anonymous

As an advocate for displacer beast rights, I am appalled at Chad's lack of knowledge. We here at the ADBR wish invite him to partake of the care package delivered to him. (FYI -It's on your right side, not your left. I know it looks like it's on the left... Just, trust me.) Included you will find such pamphlets as: Volo's Guide to Displacers, Displacers are not Beasts, and Blink Dog Unfair Practices Toward Displacers in the Workplace.

Anonymous

There's a Farscape episode where the crew encounters a humanoid alien that feeds on bone marrow. This reminded me of that in some ways. This story makes me think of the crew of an early b-film SciFi crew encountering an 80’s era SciFi Horror alien. I half expected one of the Beagle's crew to be named "Buzz".

Anonymous

I'm afraid as great as George was, he had the unenviable task of following my husband's hysterical read-aloud of this story, which included multiple "edits" that I think really spiced it up, and featured a rendition of Korita's dialogue in the voice of Dan Carlin.

Anonymous

Enjoyed this early analog version of "Among Us".

Andrew M. Reichart

hang on, motherfucker can send radio waves and dudes are like "it's inconceivable that it could open an electronic lock" STUPID STUPID EXPERTS ARGH

Anonymous

As dumb as it is within this story, I do sorta like the "It's not an animal -- it's a criminal!" bit. One thing that sci-fi stories often have is explorers encountering a single creature, and assuming that every member of its species must be exactly like it. For intelligent species, that's obviously totally unfair, and could lead to some disastrous misunderstandings in first contact situations like this one. "Let's wipe out all those vampire cats!" Say the astronauts. Well, what if the vast majority of Coerls down in those caves are totally peaceful, and live off of ethically-farmed phosphorus mushrooms or whatever? Congratulations, you just committed genocide after meeting the only jerk member of the entire species.

Anonymous

The key to understanding the end of "Black Destroyer" is Morton's line, "He couldn’t know that by stopping, we flashed past him at millions of miles a second." Here's what I think happens: Coeurl launches the humans' ship into space and then leaves in his escape vessel. However, both the humans and Coeurl are still orbiting the planet. After Coeurl's exit, the humans use their "anti-accelerator" to maintain their position relative to the world's surface, while Coeurl's ship circles the planet and winds up back where he started. As for Ellison calling SLAN the best mutant story, I've always seen it as Peak Fanboy Wish Fulfillment: You have superhuman powers! Your parents died protecting you, which means you have absolute proof of their love but don't have to deal with them, and they left you a secret lair full of cool gadgets! During your adventures you meet two women — a tough brunette who shows you the ropes, and a blonde to rescue — and because Slans are endangered you are not only permitted but *encouraged* to woo them both!

Anonymous

At least now I know where Final Fantasy got the name for its evil cat monster - https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Coeurl

Anonymous

Is Coural perhaps one of the Cats of Jupiter that the Cats of Ulthar in Dream Quest were so afraid of?

Anonymous

You guys were down on the ending, but your reader really sold it to me! At least, I like the idea of the twist: the real horror and lurking evil was mankind all along! Not a novel idea, but I saw promise in the trappings of this story. That ending made me re-evaluate the way in which most of the characters seemed basically unbothered by the deaths of their crewmates. Whether intentional or accidental, the selfish indifference to death, in retrospect, now reads as foreshadowing. Maybe someone should "Fix Ups" this story to make the crew less infuriatingly stupid.

Anonymous

Just wait until they hit the planet Ulthar!!!

Anonymous

Wasn't there something in Forbidden Planet called the Monster of the Id?

Anonymous

I read this story as part of The Voyage of the Space Beagle back when I was 12 or so and loved it. Hearing you guys tear it apart was pretty funny. I think in that version Coerl steals a lifeboat rather than building a ship. I still think the stuff from Coerl's point of view is fun. He's this alien with strange abilities and high intelligence--probably superhuman. But he lacks experience with humans and their technology, and he's hampered by his nature, which you might call 'chaotic evil'.

Thunk

Crew, the "danger" of Coeurl is exaggerated. For all we know, Coeurl is no more dangerous than the common cold! There's no evidence at all that quarantine will make the ship any safer - if anything, we'd be in more danger if we delay opening up the doors. For those of you who asking the cause of the strange static in the audio system, I am certain that can be traced back to the "ornamental" towers in the city.

Anonymous

"Why do they let it onto the spaceship? It could have diseases or something!" - Lack of basic safety precautions, check! "Doctor, could the alien cat monster have shredded our crewmen?" "No, this must be something UNKNOWN TO OUR SCIENCE!!!" - Starfleet Medical training, check! You can definitely see how this inspired Star Trek - Rage Smackey would be delivering Total Resentment Suplexes to all these fools, for sure!

Anonymous

Honestly, I think Couerl was the hero of this piece. If you spent ten minutes with these bozos, you'd be thinking about killing them, too! The only mistake was running away from the watchman. I mean, you've got enormous powerful claws and teeth, you're pretty stealthy, and the guy is definitely and idiot since he's on the Beagle. You could have eaten most of the crew by sunup, then finished off the survivors. I do have a problem with the "XYZ vampire" motif, though. The whole deal with vampires-as-monsters is that they drain the life out of people. Once you insert other methods of getting fed (like blood donation, non-lethal feeding, whatever, you end up with "nice" vampires. But the Salt Vampire and Couerl just want sodium chloride and phosphorous respectively, and it's not clear that they have to eat it out of people's bones or anything. So why didn't Couerl just eat the damn phosphorus and chalk that one little murder up to getting off to a bad start? Also, it's clear that Couerl isn't made of phosphorus -- it must get excreted somehow. So he can't have used up all the phosphorous in the area unless he's doing some sort of nuclear science in his innards, where does the phosphorous go? You think a super advanced civilization who developed a way to get immortality by eating phosphorous would come up with some way to reclaim and reuse the stuff....

Anonymous

I remember hearing about the Aliens movie controversy, on Slashdot, but I never got around to reading the mentioned story. Glad to have had the chance to read it. I see some vague similarities, but it must have been a stretch to say that this story was any more than an inspiration. Glad that they got it settled, so that we can enjoy the Alien franchise and have more chances to reference the Black Destroyer.

Anonymous

An entire generation of Canadians grew up reading AE Van Vogt’s collection of short stories, Destination Universe, which you could buy through Scholastic Book Services offered in every classroom. Man, I loved those stories in Grade 7. Last year I bought a copy on eBay but haven’t read it yet. Worried they might be crap and don’t want to spoil those memories of wonder

Anonymous

The Coeurl is a recurring enemy in the Final Fantasy games. They are usually depicted looking like a leopard or cheetah with long tentacles attached to its head which it uses to cast powerful spells or to use its Blaster ability which does a lot of damage. They never attack the player physically but use a lot of magic or “telekinetic” attacks. In FF12 the coeurls have a weird Cthulhu/squid-like head that makes them look like they are wearing a crown. I bet a lot of fans recognized the name and description when you discussed this story.