by Howard Phillips Lovecraft





MSTed with love by cheap_cdn_beer_rx

Please don't copy this without attributing it.





Download Here









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Pretend there are Usenet headers here





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[INTRO]





NARRATOR: At the dawn of the information age, people read plain-text

posts on Usenet for entertainment.

Fan fiction was an important source of online distraction then, so its

worst examples were considered especially heinous.

Other posters wrote MST3K-inspired riffs on the worst fanfic, calling

their works 'MSTings'.

This form of parody is, like operating a Linotype machine or making

whalebone corsets, a relic of a simpler time that will never

return.

Fittingly, four robots and one human have chosen to return this form

to make fun of moldy public domain works.

These are their stories.





[Jangly piano rock]





[Open onto a shot of five FIGURES sitting on a lumpy plaid couch. They

are gathered around a laptop, which the largest FIGURE holds.]





[Closeup on the leftmost FIGURE, STYLEBOT (STBOT), a piano-black robot with blue

LEDs for eyes. STYLEBOT is ovoid; its parts and assemblies are

labled in tasteful white sans-serif text.]





STBOT: I've never published anything, but I'll happily nitpick

beloved authors whose works are read in literature classes around the world.





[Cut to the smallest FIGURE, HISTORIAN'S-FALLACYBOT (HFBOT), a

squat, cubical robot with halftracks and a flat head. It is painted

like a piece of construction equipment and has dings and scratches as

if from years of wear and tear. It is wearing a t-shirt with Rosey the

Robot on it.]





HFBOT: Marvel as I pick the low-hanging fruit by pointing out how

silly the past can appear in the present.





[Cut to the largest FIGURE, a HUMAN.]





HUMAN: I'm here to catch what the robots miss.





[Cut to a FIGURE looking over the HUMAN's left shoulder. REFERENCEBOT (RFBOT) is

anthropomorphic but boxy, made up of cubes and boxes. Its surfaces

display an ironic panoply of YouTube videos.]





RFBOT: That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously.





[Pan to the rightmost FIGURE on the couch. MSTING-QUOTEBOT (MQBOT) is a

ThinkPad 700 equipped with robotic insect legs. Its screen shows a

Windows 3.1 Usenet client. It has all the brainpower of a Perl script,

and can only communicate through arbitrarily-chosen quotes from

previous MSTings.]





MQBOT: MIKE: You refer to the prophecy of the ones who will bring

nausea and discontent to the audience?





[FADE OUT]





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[FADE IN]





RFBOT: Let's hope the Vishanti protect us on this one. We're starting

off by attacking a sacred cow.





HFBOT: A racist, abstemious sacred cow who would loathe most of his fanbase.





STBOT: Yeah, but his best stuff is grotesquely transfixing, and though

I dare not describe it here, it is able to erect a fathomless

scaffolding of terror and extreme possibilities in my hitherto mundane

psyche.





HUMAN: But this isn't his best stuff; he didn't intend for this to be

published, so it's harder to ignore the flaws here.





RFBOT: Play us off, MSTING-QUOTEBOT.





MQBOT: <Tom> With a tinge of garlic and a smattering of lemon juice.





>* THE TRANSITION OF JUAN ROMERO (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600031.txt)

>

>

>Of the events which took place at the Norton Mine on October

>eighteenth and nineteenth, 1894, I have no desire to speak. A sense of

>duty to science





HUMAN: I cited this in my term paper on updating the power grid to handle

wind, solar, and eldritch radiation.





RFBOT <as whiny kid>: Mooom, I wanted Call of Duty: MW3, not Call

of Duty to Science!





>is all that impels me to recall, in the last years of

>my life, scenes and happenings fraught with a terror doubly acute

>because I cannot wholly define it. But I believe that before I die I

>should tell what I know of the--shall I say transition--of Juan

>Romero.





STBOT: No, you shan't.





>

>My name and origin need not be related to posterity; in fact, I fancy

>it is better that they should not be, for when a man suddenly migrates

>to the States or the Colonies, he leaves his past behind him. Besides,

>what I once was is not in the least relevant to my narrative; save

>perhaps the fact that during my service in India I was more at home

>amongst white-bearded native teachers than amongst my brother-

>officers.





HUMAN: I hated the gray-bearded native teachers, though.





>I had delved not a little into odd Eastern lore when

>overtaken by the calamities which brought about my new life in

>America’s vast West--a life wherein I found it well to accept a

>name--my present one--which is very common and carries no meaning.





RFBOT: John Bigboote





>

>In the summer and autumn of 1894 I dwelt in the drear expanses of the

>Cactus Mountains,





STBOT: That was the best name you could come up with? Saving all of

the cool ones for the mythos, eh?





> employed as a common labourer at the celebrated

>Norton Mine, whose discovery by an aged prospector some years before

>had turned the surrounding region from a nearly unpeopled waste to a

>seething cauldron of sordid life. A cavern of gold, lying deep beneath

>a mountain lake,





HUMAN: The grizzled old miner led his burro into the diving bell...





>had enriched its venerable finder beyond his wildest

>dreams, and now formed the seat of extensive tunneling operations on

>the part of the corporation to which it had finally been sold.

>Additional grottoes had been found, and the yield of yellow metal





STBOT: You mean gold?





RFBOT: Let's not jump to conclusions.





> was

>exceedingly great; so that a mighty and heterogeneous army of miners





HUMAN: Ah, but were they pasteurized?





>toiled day and night in the numerous passages and rock hollows. The

>Superintendent, a Mr. Arthur, often discussed the singularity of the

>local geological formations; speculating on the probable extent of the

>chain of caves, and estimating the future of the titanic mining

>enterprises. He considered the auriferous cavities the result of the

>action of water,





HUMAN: I always heard they came from not flossing enough.





> and believed the last of them would soon be opened.

>

>It was not long after my arrival and employment that Juan Romero came

>to the Norton Mine. One of the large herd of unkempt Mexicans





RFBOT: Did Lucille Bluth edit this?





>attracted thither from the neighbouring country, he at first attracted

>attention only because of his features; which though plainly of the

>Red Indian type, were yet remarkable for their light colour and

>refined conformation, being vastly unlike those of the average

>"greaser"





RFBOT: Eyy!





> or Piute of the locality. It is curious that although he

>differed so widely from the mass of Hispanicised and tribal Indians,

>Romero gave not the least impression of Caucasian blood. It was not

>the Castilian conquistador or the American pioneer, but the ancient

>and noble Aztec, whom imagination called to view when the silent peon

>would rise in the early morning





STBOT: Son, there's nothing wrong with you. It's normal for your silent peon to rise in the early

morning.





> and gaze in fascination at the sun as

>it crept above the eastern hills, meanwhile stretching out his arms to

>the orb





STBOT: You mean the sun?





RFBOT: Let's not jump to conclusions.





> as if in the performance of some rite whose nature he did not

>himself comprehend. But save for his face, Romero was not in any way

>suggestive of nobility. Ignorant and dirty, he was at home amongst the

>other brown-skinned Mexicans;





HFBOT: Holy crap.





RFBOT: Is it ok if I make a Cartman reference?





HUMAN: You already used up your AD reference. After Cartman, are there any

other comic racists you can allude to? Archie Bunker?





RFBOT: I've never seen All in the Family, because I was fabricated

_after_ the Younger Dryas ended.





> having come (so I was afterward told)

>from the very lowest sort of surroundings. He had been found as a

>child in a crude mountain hut, the only survivor of an epidemic which

>had stalked lethally by. Near the hut, close to a rather unusual rock

>fissure,





STBOT: Foreshadowing or pointless detail? You decide.





> had lain two skeletons, newly picked by vultures, and

>presumably forming the sole remains of his parents.





HUMAN: Oh, so he was only there for a year or two with nothing to eat

or drink.





> No one recalled

>their identity, and they were soon forgotten by the many. Indeed, the

>crumbling of the adobe hut and the closing of the rock-fissure by a

>subsequent avalanche had helped to efface even the scene from

>recollection.





HUMAN: Get used to this. HP uses geology like Windex in this story. It

cleans _everything_.





>Reared by a Mexican cattle-thief who had given him his

>name, Juan differed little from his fellows.





STBOT: The thief considered naming the boy Jose', but that wasn't

stereotypical enough.





>

>The attachment which Romero manifested toward me was undoubtedly

>commenced through the quaint and ancient Hindoo ring which I wore when

>not engaged in active labour. Of its nature, and manner of coming into

>my possession, I cannot speak.





RFBOT: At Cock Ring Warehouse we have the largest selection of new and used cock rings in the tri-state area. Over three miles of cock rings!





>It was my last link with a chapter of

>my life forever closed, and I valued it highly. Soon I observed that

>the odd-looking Mexican was likewise interested; eyeing it with an

>expression that banished all suspicion of mere covetousness. Its hoary

>hieroglyphs seemed to stir some faint recollection in his untutored

>but active mind, though he could not possibly have beheld their like

>before. Within a few weeks after his advent, Romero was like a

>faithful servant to me; this notwithstanding the fact that I was

>myself but an ordinary miner.





HFBOT: Yes, this totally happened.





STBOT: Advent? Advent?! *barfs*





> Our conversation was necessarily

>limited. He knew but a few words of English, while I found my Oxonian

>Spanish was something quite different from the patois of the peon of

>New Spain.









>

>The event which I am about to relate was unheralded by long

>premonitions.





STBOT: Long expositions, on the other hand...





>Though the man Romero had interested me, and though my

>ring had affected him peculiarly, I think that neither of us had any

>expectation of what was to follow when the great blast was set off.

>Geological considerations had dictated an extension of the mine

>directly downward from the deepest part of the subterranean area;





RFBOT: Everyone knows you don't mine straight down. You might hit

lava and lose all your stuff. At best, you'll have to jump and place blocks under you...





>and

>the belief of the Superintendent that only solid rock would be

>encountered, had led to the placing of a prodigious charge of

>dynamite.





MQBOT: CROW [as Picard]: No, wait! Make that... twelve! Yeah, that's

it...





HUMAN: You're going to get old pretty quick, aren't you?





MQBOT: Tom: You know, I don't remember Deadpool as being _quite_ this

Southern.





RFBOT: "..."





> With this work Romero and I were not connected, wherefore

>our first knowledge of extraordinary conditions came from others. The

>charge, heavier perhaps than had been estimated, had seemed to shake

>the entire mountain. Windows in shanties on the slope outside were

>shattered by the shock,





STBOT: Susie sells seashells by the seashore.





>whilst miners throughout the nearer passages

>were knocked from their feet. Jewel Lake, which lay above the scene of

>action, heaved as in a tempest. Upon investigation it was seen that a

>new abyss yawned indefinitely below the seat of the blast; an abyss so

>monstrous that no handy line might fathom it, nor any lamp illuminate

>it.





RFBOT: Quick, call Art Bell!





HUMAN: Is he still on the air?





HFBOT: Is he still _alive_?





> Baffled, the excavators sought a conference with the

>Superintendent, who ordered great lengths of rope to be taken to the

>pit, and spliced and lowered without cessation till a bottom might be

>discovered.

>

>Shortly afterward the pale-faced workmen





HFBOT: You're usually not one to miss a racist quip, HP--no wonder

you didn't want to publish this one.





>apprised the Superintendent

>of their failure. Firmly though respectfully, they signified their

>refusal to revisit the chasm or indeed to work further in the mine

>until it might be sealed.





STBOT<as miner>: "Fuck that shit. Mine it yourself, Boss-Man." [Makes

peel-out noise]





> Something beyond their experience was

>evidently confronting them, for so far as they could ascertain, the

>void below was infinite. The Superintendent did not reproach them.

>Instead, he pondered deeply, and made plans for the following day.





HUMAN<as Superintendent>: Let's see...I wonder if I can make a

mani-pedi appointment for tomorrow at this time of night?





>The night shift did not go on that evening.

>

>At two in the morning a lone coyote on the mountain began to howl

>dismally. From somewhere within the works a dog barked an answer;

>either to the coyote--or to something else.





HUMAN: --or, perhaps, to nothing--





> A storm was gathering

>around the peaks of the range, and weirdly shaped clouds scudded

>horribly across the blurred patch of celestial light which marked a

>gibbous moon’s attempts to shine through many layers of cirro-

>stratus vapours.





STBOT: HP wrote this with his copy of "Astronomy and Meteorology For

Dummies" open.





> It was Romero’s voice, coming from the bunk above,

>that awakened me, a voice excited and tense with some vague

>expectation I could not understand:

>

>"Madre de Dios!--el sonido--ese sonido--oiga Vd!--lo oye Vd?--señor,

>THAT SOUND!"

>





HUMAN: HISTORIAN'S-FALLACYBOT, I seem to remember that they don't use

'usted' in Latin America.





HFBOT: Well, obviously Juan is filled with such servile awe of the

white dude that he _just knew_ to use the polite form.





>I listened, wondering what sound he meant. The coyote, the dog, the

>storm, all were audible; the last named now gaining ascendancy as the

>wind shrieked more and more frantically. Flashes of lightning were

>visible through the bunk-house window. I questioned the nervous

>Mexican, repeating the sounds I had heard:

>

>"El coyote--el perro--el viento?"





STBOT: The coyote, dog and storm are all so unearthly that they make

sounds just like their names in Spanish?





RFBOT: What are they, Pokemon?





HUMAN: REFERENCEBOT with the assist!





>

>But Romero did not reply. Then he commenced whispering as in awe:

>

>"El ritmo, señor--el ritmo de la tierra--THAT THROB DOWN IN THE

>GROUND!"





STBOT: So, "throb" is among the "few words of English" that this guy

knows? Who the hell was his English teacher? Janet Jackson?





RFBOT: Hey! That's my schtick! Cool it, Cochise.





HFBOT: Let's not make this any more racist than we have to, ok?





>

>And now I also heard; heard and shivered and without knowing why.

>Deep, deep, below me was a sound--a rhythm, just as the peon had

>said--which, though exceedingly faint, yet dominated even the dog, the

>coyote, and the increasing tempest.





HUMAN: That coyote has been howling "El coyote" for 20 minutes now.





>To seek to describe it was

>useless--for it was such that no description is possible.





STBOT: And yet, here comes the description.





>Perhaps it

>was like the pulsing of the engines far down in a great liner, as

>sensed from the deck, yet it was not so mechanical; not so devoid of

>the element of the life and consciousness. Of all its qualities,

>remoteness in the earth most impressed me. To my mind rushed fragments

>of a passage in Joseph Glanvil which Poe has quoted with tremendous

>effect:





MQBOT: Tom: At the ground, huh? Was he also sitting in a table?

All: TOGGG!





>

>"....the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works,

>which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus."

>

>Suddenly Romero leaped from his bunk, pausing before me to gaze at the

>strange ring on my hand, which glistened queerly in every flash of

>lightning,





STBOT: Eww.





>and then staring intently in the direction of the mine

>shaft. I also rose, and both of us stood motionless for a time,

>straining our ears as the uncanny rhythm seemed more and more to take

>on a vital quality. Then without apparent volition we began to move

>toward the door, whose rattling in the gale held a comforting

>suggestion of earthly reality. The chanting in the depths--for such

>the sound now seemed to be--grew in volume and distinctness;





RFBOT<from the depths>: Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat

dem Saints?









>and we

>felt irresistibly urged out into the storm and thence to the gaping

>blackness of the shaft.

>

>We encountered no living creature, for the men of the night shift had

>been released from duty, and were doubtless at the Dry Gulch

>settlement pouring sinister rumours into the ear of some drowsy

>bartender. From the watchman’s cabin, however, gleamed a small

>square of yellow light like a guardian eye. I dimly wondered how the

>rhythmic sound had affected the watchman;





HUMAN: To say nothing of the canines with infinite lung capacity.





>but Romero was moving more

>swiftly now, and I followed without pausing.

>

>As we descended the shaft, the sound beneath grew definitely

>composite. It struck me as horribly like a sort of Oriental ceremony,

>with beating of drums and chanting of many voices. I have, as you are

>aware, been much in India.





STBOT<John Bigboote>: I was in India so long, it's not even funny. I

really miss the food, like, ... uh, rice, that I ate in India when I

was there. Which was a long time. For real. Whoever says I've never been

to India is a dirty liar.





>Romero and I moved without material

>hesitancy through drifts and down ladders; ever toward the thing that

>allured us, yet ever with a pitifully helpless fear and reluctance. At

>one time I fancied I had gone mad--this was when, on wondering how our

>way was lighted in the absence of lamp or candle, I realized that the

>ancient ring on my finger was glowing with eerie radiance, diffusing a

>pallid lustre through the damp, heavy air around.





STBOT: I'll give credit where it is due. That was pretty good.

>

>It was without warning that Romero, after clambering down one of the

>many wide ladders, broke into a run and left me alone. Some new and

>wild note in the drumming and chanting, perceptible but slightly to

>me, had acted on him in a startling fashion; and with a wild outcry he

>forged ahead unguided in the cavern’s gloom. I heard his repeated

>shrieks before me, as he stumbled awkwardly along the level places and

>scrambled madly down the rickety ladders. And frightened as I was, I

>yet retained enough of my perception to note that his speech, when

>articulate, was not of any sort known to me.





STBOT: His repeated shrieks were articulate?





>Harsh but impressive

>polysyllables had replaced the customary mixture of bad Spanish and

>worse English, and of these, only the oft repeated cry

>"Huitzilopotchli" seemed in the least familiar.





STBOT: Well, that and the slightly less oft-repeated cry of "throb!"





> Later I definitely

>placed that word in the works of a great historian--and shuddered when

>the association came to me.

>

>The climax of that awful night was composite





RFBOT: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you

think it means.





>but fairly brief,

>beginning just as I reached the final cavern of the journey. Out of

>the darkness immediately ahead burst a final shriek from the Mexican,

>which was joined by such a chorus of uncouth sound as I could never

>hear again and survive. In that moment it seemed as if all the hidden

>terrors and monstrosities of earth had become articulate in an effort

>to overwhelm the human race. Simultaneously the light from my ring was

>extinguished, and I saw a new light glimmering from lower space but a

>few yards ahead of me. I had arrived at the abyss, which was now redly

>aglow,





RFBOT: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...





>and which had evidently swallowed up the unfortunate Romero.

>Advancing, I peered over the edge of that chasm which no line could

>fathom, and which was now a pandemonium of flickering flame and

>hideous uproar. At first I beheld nothing but a seething blur of

>luminosity; but then shapes, all infinitely distant, began to detach

>themselves from the confusion, and I saw--was it Juan Romero?--but

>God! I dare not tell you what I saw!..Some power from heaven, coming

>to my aid, obliterated both sights and sounds in such a crash as may

>be heard when two universes collide in space. Chaos supervened, and I

>knew the peace of oblivion.





HUMAN: Thanks for writing this very detailed report for science.

Future generations will benefit immeasurably from knowing that there

are weird looking scary things underground that did something weird

and scary to your "manservant."





>

>I hardly know how to continue, since conditions so singular are

>involved; but I will do my best, not even trying to differentiate

>betwixt the real and the apparent.





STBOT: Conditions? Singular? Differentiate? Real? Is this a story or a

math textbook?





HUMAN: Damn, dude.





>When I awakened, I was safe in my

>bunk and the red glow of dawn was visible at the window.





RFBOT: It was all a dream.





>Some distance

>away the lifeless body of Juan Romero lay upon a table, surrounded by

>a group of men, including the camp doctor.





RFBOT: Crap.





>The men were discussing the

>strange death of the Mexican as he lay asleep; a death seemingly

>connected in some way with the terrible bolt of lightning which had

>struck and shaken the mountain. No direct cause was evident, and an

>autopsy failed to show any reason why Romero should not be living.

>Snatches of conversation indicated beyond a doubt that neither Romero

>nor I had left the bunk-house during the night; that neither of us had

>been awake during the frightful storm which had passed over the Cactus

>range.





RFBOT: It _was_ all a dream.





>That storm, said men who had ventured down the mine shaft, had

>caused extensive caving-in, and had completely closed the deep abyss

>which had created so much apprehension the day before.





HUMAN<Superintendent>: Phew! Thank God that the abyss closed before

our OSHA inspection.









>When I asked

>the watchman what sounds he had heard prior to the mighty thunderbolt;

>he mentioned a coyote, a dog, and the snarling mountain wind--nothing

>more. Nor do I doubt his word.





>

>Upon the resumption of work, Superintendent Arthur called upon some

>especially dependable men to make a few investigations around the spot

>where the gulf had appeared. Though hardly eager, they obeyed, and a

>deep boring was made.









RFBOT: They wrote the first 30 pages of "At the Mountains of Madness."









>Results were very curious. The roof of the void,

>as seen when it was open, was not by any means thick; yet now the

>drills of the investigators met what appeared to be a limitless extent

>of solid rock.





HUMAN: The bottomless pit was filled with an infinite amount of rock?

Isn't that like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object?





STBOT: This story was actually intended to scare people taking

Physics.





MQBOT: Mike: Did you guys understand any of that?

Crow: More than you did. As usual.

Mike: Hey!





>Finding nothing else, not even gold, the Superintendent

>abandoned his attempts; but a perplexed look occasionally steals over

>his countenance as he sits thinking at his desk.

>

>One other thing is curious. Shortly after waking on that morning after

>the storm, I noticed the unaccountable absence of my Hindoo ring from

>my finger. I had prized it greatly, yet nevertheless felt a sensation

>of relief at its disappearance. If one of my fellow-miners

>appropriated it, he must have been quite clever in disposing of his

>booty,





[STBOT snickers]





>for despite advertisements and a police search, the ring was

>never seen again. Somehow I doubt if it was stolen by mortal hands,

>for many strange things were taught me in India.

>

>My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time. In broad

>daylight, and at most seasons I am apt to think the greater part of it

>a mere dream; but sometimes in the autumn, about two in the morning

>when the winds and animals howl dismally,





STBOT: In the summer, about two in the morning, when the winds and

animals howl dismally, I feel fine.

In the autumn, at three in the morning, when the winds and

animals howl dismally, that's ok two.

In the autumn, at two...





MQBOT: SERVO:Shut up, Crow.





>there comes from

>inconceivable depths below a damnable suggestion of rhythmical

>throbbing





RFBOT: Try Imodium A-D. Fast relief, often with one dose.





>..and I feel that the transition of Juan Romero was a

>terrible one indeed.

>





HUMAN <Ashens>: A fitting punishment!





[FADE OUT]





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