Category Archives: satire

Adagio 25 – Pirates and the Importance of Words

Now you finally get to sample a bit of my genius at historical analysis.  I will lay on you one of the theories of history that I created, and which has had a profound effect on the whole debate over whether History is a Science, or merely a gathering of talking idiots and puppets of the governments who won the wars.

The theory is this; History is always about pirates.  I know that statement probably alarms you, or makes you simply dismiss me as a loony, bald-headed goofball who just likes to talk and is meant to be ignored by you.  Don’t be alarmed, and I am NOT a goofball.

History is never really written about the builders and creators who craft a society or a civilization.  The occasional Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Gragg of Mars, or Googol Marou gets mentioned in a history book, but it is always the man, men, or peoples who see the civilization, want the civilization, and then either take the civilization for themselves or totally destroy the civilization who ultimately get the notice and the credit for making History happen.  History is not about making something, but about taking something that is already there.

Consider how this played out in the history of the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy.  It truly began with the Ancients who colonized the entire galaxy and then, for reasons unknown, totally disappeared from it, leaving only powerful and dangerous artifacts behind.  They were creators and makers, so the story could never really be about them. 

The story then would have to proceed to the gentle alien folk called the Sylvani.  Now, they may actually be the Ancients, we have no way of knowing, but they don’t actually make History happen either.  They created jump drives and interstellar travel, particle readers and material synthesizers (as well as the Skortch beams and disintegrators that can be derived from them), and anti-gravity technology.  They did not colonize the stars.  They had the bad sense to leave everything as they found it and live their lives in relative peace.  The fools!

The amphibianoid people known as the Tellerons were the first to colonize and make an empire in the Orion Spur.  These prolific frog-men of Telleri spread their form of civilization to eleven worlds.  They wouldn’t have been able to do this, however, if they had never made contact with the Sylvani people while the latter were peacefully exploring the world of Telleri.  The frog-men imprisoned the Sylvani explorers and forced them to yield up the all-important space travel technologies they had created.  It was an act of space piracy.  They basically stole all the knowledge and equipment needed to make a star empire.

Now, the Tellerons were basically fools themselves.   They were ruthless explorers and conquerors but were a bit shallow in the thinking end of their gene pool.  They were not adaptable and had to carefully recreate their swampy home-world environment everywhere they went.  Thus, they were easily conquered themselves when they met far more adaptable races like the Galtorrians from the Delta Pavonis star system and the Earthers from the Sol system. 

Words are what basically conquered the Telleron Star Empire.  When they reached the Galtorrian homeworld of Galtorr Prime, they got themselves hooked on an alien cultural anomaly caused by TV broadcasts from Earth.  The Galtorrians had been receiving and decoding the television signals of Earth for twenty years.  A virulent black market existed there for pirated episodes of a TV show called “I Love Lucy”.  Reruns of that TV show became a model for both the Galtorrians and the Tellerons who tried to conquer them.

Truth be told, the Tellerons began worshipping the character of Fred Mertz being played by an actor named William Frawley.  Frawley’s frog-like mouth and toad-like wit made the fin-headed frog-men think Fred Mertz was a god.  The Galtorrians had already adapted the English Language from the show because it was similar in sound patterns to Galtorr-speak.  It had become the language of, not only entertainment, but of commerce and diplomacy.  Now, English is a twisted and demented sort of language, capable of double meanings, puns, and irony.  There are no sacred rules of grammar, word-formation, or spelling, and so the language can be shaped to suit the nefarious purposes of those sinister professionals known as “writers”.  Galtorrians were able to trick Tellerons with the so-called “Word of Fred Mertz” into giving them the secrets of space travel, Skortch rays, and material synthesis.

So, space travel and the Telleron Empire fell into the hands of the Galtorrians by piracy.  They stole the empire from the rival alien race.  They then ruthlessly expanded their new empire.  Being a pirate was the thing that created the History.

Now, a very similar process also happened on Earth.  Tellerons, easily tricked by Earthers, also lost control of their stolen technology when they tried to invade Earth in about the year 1990 A.D.  They tried to invade using invisibility technology acquired by showing their Sylvani slaves old episodes of Star Trek with Romulans in them.  The Sylvani succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of Gene Roddenberry.  Of course, this backfired, because it is hard to intimidate someone you are trying to conquer with armies and weapons that cannot be seen.  The Tellerons managed to lose their devices and Skortch themselves during an invasion that almost no one knew was happening.  Again, the technology was pirated from them.  I firmly believe that it was one of my own ancestors, a genius named Orben Wallace who reverse-engineered all the alien devices and brought the technology to Earth.

The empire of all humanoid and intelligent life forms in the Orion Spur would be taken and retaken using the stolen technologies and the stolen words of what would become known as “Galanglic,” Galactic English.  So, you can see, I have brilliantly proven my theory.  All History is about pirates.

Canto 154 – Mingo Mix-It-Ups

The fight had been almost boring as the waves of rot warriors shambled forward, trying to aim their various spears, guns, and lasers, and then being disassembled by the student Psions of Ged Aero’s Dojo.  Shu Kwai had been the most destructive, able to rip out electronic controls with a mere thought.  Phoenix had also laid waste, melting the circuitry out of the Mechanoid-zombie army of Mong the Unmerciful.  The minions of Mong had melted like margarine in a microwave.  Ged had found himself in his armored cat form with nothing to actually do.

The invaders soon found themselves virtually in control of the Ruined Palace of David King.  Jackie teleported back to the Celestial Dragon and picked up Gyro.  The little Neulon whiz kid hooked up some software in an injector device he had pulled together by rearranging molecules with his mind. He then linked it to an uncrushed rot-warrior skull and pulled out a map of the complex through the skull’s control link to the building’s computer system.

“What’d you find there, Smurf?” Phoenix asked almost immediately.

“I am finding Emperor Mong in his suite surrounded by rot-warrior generals trying to destroy two guys called Triumvirs with an even bigger horde of rot warriors than we just polished off,” said Gyro, grinning at his own manipulative genius at controlling computers without relying on Junior’s special Psion power.

“What?” said Phoenix, frowning.

“He’s telling you he found the Emperor in his private living quarters focusing his attacks on somebody besides us,” said Shu Kwai with an icy superiority.

Phoenix frowned at the nearly naked boy in his white loincloth.  Ged could feel tension building again between the two.

“Okay,” said Phoenix, “so what do we do now, Ged Sensei?”

“We go pay Mong a little visit,” Ged answered, now back in human form and dressed in the jumpsuit and fedora hat he had brought with him.

“Has he detected us?” Rocket asked Gyro.

“I don’t know for sure, but maybe not.  He is in… I don’t know how to say it in Galactic English.  The kapooiac.”

“I have a feeling that means the fresher… or restroom… probably,” suggested Phoenix.

“Let’s go quickly,” ordered Shu Kwai, “so we can maintain as much surprise as possible.”

Gyro led the way through bone-littered corridors.  The whole place had the feel of an old black-and-white monster movie.  This wasn’t surprising, since the Galtorrians had based much of their culture on the TV programs they intercepted from ancient Earth in the 1950s and 1960s.  In fact, Galactic English had become the norm in the Orion Spur due to the fact that the Galtorrians worshipped the TV comedy I Love Lucy.  Through artificial cobwebs and gray stonework, they wound their way down into the bowels of the palace.  Finally, Gyro stopped them before a blank stone wall.

 “There is a secret door here,” he said with a sweet blue smile.

“Good,” said Phoenix.  “I’ll open it!”

A wall of flame swelled outward from Phoenix’s fingertips.  The wall of artificial stone and plasticrete melted away before them, revealing Mong on his personal throne.  It was not his throne of office, either, but rather the natural place one goes when he can no longer keep his bowels from emptying from fear.

“Eeuw!  Gross!” cried Jackie, staring at the emperor with his pants down.

Mong was cringing while staring out from under his golden skullcap with the carved dragon as its crest.  His Fu Manchu moustache was wet with tears of fear.

“Oh, great Ged Aero!  You are the one my agents have been telling me about, aren’t you?”  Mong’s voice was squeaky and timid, surprising from so sinister a caped figure, even with his pants down on his throne and toilet paper in hand.  Shu Kwai, Rocket, Phoenix, and Gyro all laughed about this man they had so recently dreaded.

“Mong, I have come for her,” said Ged.  “I want Tara Salongi back.”

“What?  I don’t have your young lady!  But you have to defend me!  Protect me from those clowns and I will gladly give her back to you!”

The pitiful evil emperor was pleading in such a sniveling, groveling manner that Ged couldn’t bear it.

“Do you have her?  Or don’t you?  All I require from you,” said Ged, “is to lead me to Tara and then flee this planet for your pitiful life.  If I don’t get her back, I will hunt you down and tear you to pieces.”

There was a large, startling crash as someone tore the fresher door on the opposite side out of the wall.

Ged’s eyes flashed with anger, an emotion that none of the students present had ever actually seen in him before.  It chilled them all to the bone.

An armored clown stepped through the hole.  He was obviously a cyborg, but far more sophisticated than any rot warrior they had yet encountered.

“So, Mong is not out of champions yet!” declared the Harlequin menacingly.