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"The future is what you make of it!  Just know that your supplies are limited.  Welcome to Desert Bluffs."

File:DesertBluffsLogo.jpg

The cover image of the pod cast 'Welcome to Desert Bluffs'

Desert Bluffs is the rival town to Night Vale, featured in The Sandstorm (Part B) and mentioned in several other instances. Instead of a council, it is governed and owned by StrexCorp Synernists Incorporated, and is seemingly a much nicer and cheerier place than Night Vale. It has its own community radio announcer, Kevin, and its baseball team is called the Sunbeams. Other citizens include the intern Vanessa, the staff weatherman Ted, and Lawrence Levine, out in the Edge-of-Town development.

Rather than descriptions of horrific events and fear-laced bulletins about lurking dangers and imminent peril, Desert Bluffs Community Radio seems to be focused on positive thinking, motivational messages and productivity-focused propaganda, all centered around StrexCorp.

It appears that the denizens of Desert Bluffs and Night Vale manifest personalities and perspectives inculcated from their respective environments. Whereas Cecil is dour, fatalistic and dark, Kevin is sunny, optimistic and cheerful. As such, the two often see (and describe) the same phenomena in starkly different terms. For example, what Cecil describes as a violent encounter between the two in which he is attacked by Kevin is recounted by Kevin as a profound "moment" of emotional connection in which the two share a warm embrace. Additionally, when Cecil arrives in Desert Bluffs' recording studio in The Sandstorm (Part B), he describes the walls of Kevin's studio to be "covered with blood, and instead of dials and buttons on the soundboard there is just animal viscera glistening under the green LED lights," and speculates that he may be in Hell. The same environment seems perfectly normal to Kevin, who had been in the room moments before. Normal is clearly relative to both, as Kevin, (in The Sandstorm (Part A)) mentions how Cecil's equipment is much "drier" than it should be, and how the desk is "bloodless." In short, just as Cecil seems completely accustomed to (and supportive of) the nightmarish, all-seeing occult government of Night Vale, so too does Kevin appear habituated to (and happy with) Desert Bluffs' rule by a ruthless, productivity-obsessed corporate oligarchy.

Desert Bluffs seems to be futuristic compared to Night Vale. The Traveler from the future wore a uniform described as "all very similar to the marching band uniform of the Desert Bluffs Cacti prior to the incident," and when Kevin travels through the vortex to Night Vale in The Sandstorm (Part A), he remarks that "the equipment seems much older."


Businesses, landmarks and organization

  • The Desert Bluffs Cacti (elementary school basketball team)
    • The Desert Bluffs Cacti Marching Band
  • The Desert Bluffs Sunbeams
  • The Desert Bluffs Vultures (football team)
  • The Edge Of Town development
  • That hideous sports arena Desert Bluffs built last spring
  • StrexCorp Synernists Incorporated
  • The new StrexCorp Distribution Centre
  • Several pony petting stations
  • Several yogurt stores
  • The unfortunate wastelands of Desert Bluffs
    • The (possibly nonexistant) windmills that litter the unfortunate wastelands of Desert Bluffs

Residents

  • Kevin , the voice of Desert Bluffs
  • Ted, the staff weather man
  • Intern Vanessa
  • Samantha Figgins, new manager of the Desert Bluffs Sunbeams
  • Laurence Levigne, out on the edge of town developement
  • Grandma Josephine
  • Mayor Pablo Mitchell
  • Those radioactive four-armed deer who seem to be attracted to the new StrexCorp distribution centre

Roads

Behind the Scenes

During an interview with Citizen Radio, Jeffrey Cranor revealed that Desert Bluffs is one of the few examples of overt political satire in Welcome to Night Vale. Cranor claimed that the contrast between the more overtly horrible Desert Bluffs' pro-corporate attitude and the less horrifying Night Vale's embrace of big government stem from his own political views.

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