WEBVTT - The Monstrefact: The Thanapod from "Bad Traveling"

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the

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<v Speaker 2>Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow

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<v Speaker 2>Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.

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<v Speaker 2>Given that video versions of our episodes are now being

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<v Speaker 2>published to Netflix, I thought it fitting to cover a

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<v Speaker 2>Netflix monster and they have quite a few to choose from.

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<v Speaker 2>In fact, we've previously discussed on Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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<v Speaker 2>everything from Black Mirror's Bandersnatch to the creature from Panos Cosmotos.

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<v Speaker 2>Is the viewing today, though, I want to take you

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<v Speaker 2>back to a twenty twenty two episode of the third

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<v Speaker 2>season of the animated series Love, Death and Robots titled

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<v Speaker 2>Bad Traveling Now. This episode was directed by David Fincher,

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<v Speaker 2>with Frank Balson, Jerome Den Jean, and Jennifer U. Nelson.

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<v Speaker 2>An adapted the Neil Asher short story by none other

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<v Speaker 2>than Andrew Kevin Walker. The setting is a fantasy twist

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<v Speaker 2>on the age of sails, with a crew of sailors

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<v Speaker 2>who brave alien oceans on the hunt for javel sharks,

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<v Speaker 2>which are harvested for their oil. The ship in our

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<v Speaker 2>story encounters a terrible storm and is bordered by a

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<v Speaker 2>monstrous crab called a panopod, which takes up residents below deck.

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<v Speaker 2>Lots are then drawn among the crew to see who

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<v Speaker 2>has to go down to deal with the monster, and

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<v Speaker 2>our protagonist Torren winds up with the duty. Now this

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<v Speaker 2>is where the plot gets clever. The phanopod, we learn,

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<v Speaker 2>can use the bodies of the dead to talk, it

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<v Speaker 2>can puppet them. It's a nice twist that also seems

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<v Speaker 2>to channel some of that attack of the crab monster's energy.

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<v Speaker 2>The phanopod lays out what it wants to reach the

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<v Speaker 2>populated island of Fate Torn strikes a deal with the monster.

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<v Speaker 2>He will give it what he wants in exchange for

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<v Speaker 2>his own life and a key from the captain's body.

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<v Speaker 2>The captain's body was previously eaten by the phanopod, so

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<v Speaker 2>we then follow Tora and as he employs this key

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<v Speaker 2>to unlock the captain's pistol and uses this pistol to

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<v Speaker 2>claim control of the ship, and he puts the matter

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<v Speaker 2>of Fadan Island to a vote. Should we bring the

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<v Speaker 2>creature to the densely populated island or drop it off

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<v Speaker 2>on a nearby deserted island and just tell the giant

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<v Speaker 2>crab that this is where you wanted to go. There's

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<v Speaker 2>a great deal of turmoil over this. Some crew members

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<v Speaker 2>may be more than a few simply want to give

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<v Speaker 2>the monster what it wants, like whatever it takes. Meanwhile,

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<v Speaker 2>it becomes clear that the monster is a parent, and

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<v Speaker 2>now the depths of the ship are crawling with its young.

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<v Speaker 2>It's a fun action horror ride, and the central monster,

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<v Speaker 2>the phantopod, is just a real grotesque treat. Lots of

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<v Speaker 2>excellent crab vibes to it as well wonderful monster design.

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<v Speaker 2>So Bad Traveling concerns a monstrous invasive ship born organism,

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<v Speaker 2>but it serves as a fantastic exaggeration of the very

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<v Speaker 2>real history and present reaction of ship born invasive species. Now,

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<v Speaker 2>there are multiple avenues by which invasive species plant or

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<v Speaker 2>animal have been and are still being spread through human activities. These,

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<v Speaker 2>as outlined in twenty eighteen's Animals and Human Society by

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<v Speaker 2>Skeins and Tikshadi, include species introduced just for aesthetics or

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<v Speaker 2>for as a game, species for biological control which often

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<v Speaker 2>doesn't go well, or for fur, as well as populations

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<v Speaker 2>of feral domestic animals, pets thoughtlessly released into the wild,

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<v Speaker 2>and of course animal stowaways much like our phantom pod,

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<v Speaker 2>and these occur not only via boat, they can also

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<v Speaker 2>occur via airplane. One example of this is the brown

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<v Speaker 2>tree snake. This particular snake is native to eastern and

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<v Speaker 2>northern coastal Australia, eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and many

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<v Speaker 2>islands in northwestern Melanesia. The brown tree snake is only

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<v Speaker 2>mildly venomous to humans, but its venom packs quite a

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<v Speaker 2>punch when comes to birds, and according to biologists Brian

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<v Speaker 2>Frye of the University of Queensland, you know that can

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<v Speaker 2>pose quite a problem. The brown snake has been particularly

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<v Speaker 2>rough on the bird population of Guam, which it apparently

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<v Speaker 2>reached aboard Australian troop transports during the Second World War,

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<v Speaker 2>and fry also points out that the US was still

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<v Speaker 2>flying military planes from Guam to Hawaii at the time

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<v Speaker 2>of the riding, and brown snakes have been intercepted at

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<v Speaker 2>Hawaiian airports in the past, so the potential is there

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<v Speaker 2>for plane based introduction of the species to the Hawaiian

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<v Speaker 2>islands as well. And as for why this particular snake

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<v Speaker 2>is so adept at hitching rides on planes well. One

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<v Speaker 2>reason seems to be their lasso locomotion, which allows them

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<v Speaker 2>to climb large, smooth cylinders. But when talking about animal stowaways,

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<v Speaker 2>especially ships play a huge role, with rats and mice

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<v Speaker 2>standing as one of the best examples of creatures that

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<v Speaker 2>have spread to every continent except Antarctica, where I believe

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<v Speaker 2>the only invasive species is a variety of muscle and

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<v Speaker 2>these likely traveled by ship as well. But stowaways include

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<v Speaker 2>far more than rodents and monster crabs. According to Grasping

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<v Speaker 2>at the Routes of Biological Invasions by Hume at All,

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<v Speaker 2>Journal of apply Tocology, two thousand and eight, stowways include

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<v Speaker 2>organisms that foul the wholes of ships, are transported as

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<v Speaker 2>seeds or resting stages, in soil attached to vehicles, and

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<v Speaker 2>in ballast water, as well as in shipping containers, cargo

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<v Speaker 2>and air freight. So for instance, as the authors point out,

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<v Speaker 2>brown seaweed sargasm A muticum is a great example of

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<v Speaker 2>a stowaway species thought to have spread from its native

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<v Speaker 2>Japan to northern France, the English South Coast, and to

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<v Speaker 2>the Netherlands via contamination of commercial oysters and then via

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<v Speaker 2>drifting plants. The authors share that vessels provide numerous interior

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<v Speaker 2>and exterior possibilities for species to spread, but one of

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<v Speaker 2>the most pervasive is just the hull of the ship itself,

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<v Speaker 2>so species don't need to climb inside the hull to

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<v Speaker 2>use it the means of traveling from one far flowing

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<v Speaker 2>island to another. They need only a fix to the

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<v Speaker 2>outside of this vessel, this artificial island that will then

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<v Speaker 2>drift from one place to another. There are other examples

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<v Speaker 2>that we can point to. Oar boreal monkeys have also

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<v Speaker 2>spread to various places as invasive species, and there are

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<v Speaker 2>accounts of monkeys taking up residents in a ship's rigging.

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<v Speaker 2>It seems like most of these introductions, though, were via

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<v Speaker 2>monkeys that were kept as pets, but still there have

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<v Speaker 2>been accounts from this century of monkeys stowing away on vessels,

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<v Speaker 2>such as I believe a twenty fourteen report of monkeys

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<v Speaker 2>who boarded in Malaysia and arrived in the Netherlands. I

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<v Speaker 2>think in this case the monkeys were caught and caged

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<v Speaker 2>in transit and then handed over in the Netherlands upon arrival.

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<v Speaker 2>One of the challenges of stowing away is, of course

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<v Speaker 2>being able to survive a lengthy sea voyage without detection

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<v Speaker 2>and being able to just survive with some sort of

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<v Speaker 2>dependable food source. Mice and rats remain the best example

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<v Speaker 2>of note, because of course they're highly skilled at living

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<v Speaker 2>in humanity's shadow, eating what we eat or cast aside,

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<v Speaker 2>and so forth. There are other interesting examples of animal stowaways.

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<v Speaker 2>Invasive earthworms are a great example, spreading via transported soils

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<v Speaker 2>and plants. Birds can also stow away. The house sparrow

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<v Speaker 2>is thought to have spread aboard Roman ships, and this

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<v Speaker 2>is how they reached Great Britain. So while we don't

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<v Speaker 2>see anything as singular and gigantic as the panopod in

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<v Speaker 2>our own invasive ship born species, it still works nicely

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<v Speaker 2>as a fantastic symbol of it all. None of our

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<v Speaker 2>real world stowaways are actually aiming to reach specific destinations

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<v Speaker 2>that they have heard about or inquired of with their

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<v Speaker 2>puppeted corpses, but they are still ultimately following their genetic

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<v Speaker 2>mission and taking full advantage of new environments they might

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<v Speaker 2>never have reached otherwise. Tune in for additional episodes of

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<v Speaker 2>the monster fact, the artifact or animaliust Opindium each week.

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<v Speaker 2>As always, you can email us at contact at stuff

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<v Speaker 2>to Blow your Mind dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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