Tag Archives: AeroQuest 5

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.

Adagio 23 – The Planet Mingo

Mingo was one of those most worrisome of things, a cartoonish bad guy world full of grotesque evil dudes and shambling undead Mechanoids.  You could tell just by looking it was evil.  The skies were polluted a dark, rusty orange from industrial waste and the foul stench of death.

If you couldn’t tell its evil nature by looking at it, as Emperor Slythinus no longer could, you could also tell its rank foulness from the never-ending smell of the place, something Slythinus also couldn’t do, because he was not only blind, but also stone-cold dead.  The Mechanoid industry of recycling used flesh gave the place an air of death and decay.  The air was artificially regenerated, but no one bothered with purification.  The denizens of the planet, for the most part, loved it the way it was. The cityscape was endless, crusting over even the planet’s ample oceans.  The concrete-gray and soot-blackened features of the place were oppressive.  The most impressive sights on the planet were the well-known Ruined Palaces District, once the site of the Imperial Capitol, before the Galtorrian Jihad had removed Imperial rule back to Galtorr Prime.

The majority of the vast population of the place was now Mechanoids, the crusty re-animated remains of humans and Galtorrians remade into a deathless life-form of rotting flesh and robotic circuits.  Oh, there were human and Galtorrian people there who were living, but the effort to create deathless soldiers and an ageless workforce had emptied every graveyard and charnel pit to a point where the once-dead outnumbered the living ten to one

The ruler of the planet preferred to call himself an Emperor instead of a Duke or Prince.  Emperor Mong was a cartoonish bad guy in all the clichéd ways that cartoonish bad guys are always portrayed, only cartoonier.  I know that isn’t a real word in galactic English, but you get the idea, and after all, I am a scientist, not a poet!  Mong wore his pointy little Van Dyke beard in the fashion of Mephistopheles.  He loved helmets with fancy carved dragons on the crest and silk robes in bright colors, complete with a melodramatic cape and cowl.  He was a brooding, evil, and thoroughly stinky bad guy who only got his jollies from coming up with really elaborate and fiendish tortures for his arch-enemy Brash Gordon.  Unfortunately, the heroic Brash had long ago expired in Mong’s prison, and Mong had nobody to turn his terrifyingly terrible attention to but the whole rest of the Milky Way Galaxy.  Weren’t we lucky!

The standing orders on Mingo were that anyone who died was, by law, transformed immediately into a rot warrior.  These were the brainless Mechanoid soldiers that Mong maintained as his standing army, well, leaning-shambling-drooling army.  They were all controlled by that infamous intelligent computer known as the Master Cylinder; Mong’s most evil of numerous evil henchmen.

Now, Slythinus, when he was in actual control of the Galtorr Imperium, had greatly feared the machinations of Emperor Mong.  He knew that Mong would one day try to challenge him for Imperial rule.  Mingo, after all, was one of only four planets that had ever been the Capitol of the Thousand Worlds.  Galtorr Prime, Earth, and Regina were the other three.  It had a long tradition of rulership.  Each of the standing Ruined Palaces represented a former ruler who once held and lost power in the Imperium, and was a native of the wicked planet Mingo.  So, Slythinus had craftily set up a triumvirate of rulers in the Mingo Sector of the Imperium to divide up and dilute the power.  He had appointed Ancillus King and Karg Hardretter as co-rulers.  These two black-bearded villains had a vicious and aggressive character that easily matched Mong.

Still, Mong would win out in the end.  A famous assassin Mechanoid by the name of Ace Campfield got the better of both King and Hardretter, leaving their young sons to fill their empty thrones.  These Mong tolerated as long as they presented no real threat to his rule.  When Slythinus was himself out of power, Mong was free to do away with both Raylond King and Smoky Hardretter, a thing he hadn’t gotten around to doing since both boys were soft-natured and lacked the evil streaks that ran through both of their fathers.

So, all in all, the planet Mingo was a very, very terrible place, in a way that probably needs six more verys, though I know that that’s not a good word either, especially if you use it too much.

Canto 151 – Harlequins

Smoky Hardretter and the synthezoid Sorcerer 27 stood over the operating table with a Mechanoid stretched out upon it.  Mechanoids, of course, are deceased humanoids that have been reanimated by robotic implants and electronic reconstruction to make of them what are basically cyborgs, except for the fact that they have not merely been enhanced while still alive, they have been dug up out of graves and zombified by the Mechanoid-making process.

“This body in life was one of the best Imperial Guardsmen we ever had.  He defended three different Triumvirs while he was alive.  He had 500 clones that also served as guardsmen.”  Smoky looked questioningly at Sorcerer after explaining the guardsman.

“This body will be perfect for our needs.  He has been put through the tissue-regeneration protocols that I set up as an automated process?”  Sorcerer grinned, something previous Sorcerers were not capable of doing.

“The nanobots are transforming the flesh now.  It seems he is growing huge muscles as we watch.”

“Oh, yes.  He will be an unbeatable warrior.  He is not only going to be more powerful and more agile than any existing Mechanoid, but he will also be unkillable.  His flesh is natural armor and quickly repairs itself when he is wounded.  He will also be nearly impossible to hit because of his agility and camouflage.”

“Camouflage?  He’s dressed in multicolored clown clothes!”

 “That’s also why he’s called a Harlequin.  He’s acrobatic enough to dodge bullets and plasma streams.  And his combat dress produces strobing and flashing colored lights that will make targeting nearly impossible when the energy dampers are working at full power.”

“So, he will be like an acrobat?  Flipping through the air to avoid being shot while firing his weapons from midair?”

“Now you’ve got the core idea,” said Sorcerer.  “He will be capable of putting on a real show of power.  And imagine how effective an entire squad of these troopers performing in unison will be.”

“I am impressed,” Smoky said.

The Mechanoid suddenly sat up.  His face mask, obscuring the skull-like corpse head underneath, was a grinning, white clown mask.

“I can’t believe I’m alive again.  What are your commands, Lord Hardretter?”

Smoky smiled contentedly.  “I think we need to run some tests.”

Canto 150 – Trav Goes Hunting

The reanimated thing that had been Trav Dalgoda was still tinkering with repairing himself using what computer pieces he could acquire in Castle Orpheum’s under-water dome’s marketplaces.

“This goop percolating in the terrarium-thing is actual Trav-Dalgoda flesh being cloned?” asked Dana Cole, staring at the amorphous blob of Traviness as it wriggled with life and growth.

“That’s right, old Dana jester.  I need actual living tissue to create the new me.  But I need some other things as well that I can’t get on this planet without getting wet.”

Dana was a bit stunned.  “You just called me jester?”

“That I did.  You know me.  I always talk like that because nobody else in the universe does.”

“Am I still talking to Tyrrix?  Or is this Trav?”

“Well, now… that’s complicated.  I guess you’d have to say that I am a bit of both.  The Trav part of this brain is very good at absorbing and taking over the Ancient personality.  But that’s because the old brain and the new are so basically compatible.  Tyrrix was the trickster mind in the Crown of Stars.  And the Trav mind fits into that mind like puzzle pieces made of clay that molds to fit into the spaces where Tyrrix is basically missing parts of his old noggin.  I definitely feel as much like I’m Trav as I do Tyrrix.”

“Oh, no!”

“But you love me as Trav, don’t you?”

“Yes, but…  my gawd!”

“Yes, I can answer to that too.  I have big plans.”

“So, what did you mean about getting wet?”

“Well, Dancer is not only a water planet with no dry land at all, it is also the site of an Ancient library.   I am going to have to go out underwater and find the Ancient minds that are archived there.”

“Um… oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.  And while I am at it, I need some more robotic-synthetic parts too.”

“…And you’ll get that from the library?”

“No, I will get the parts I need from Sorcerer 13.”

“He’s here in Castle Orpheum?  This underwater city?”

“No.  He’s out there looking for the same prize I am going after.  We will intercept him.  Kill him.  And borrow his parts.”

“We?  You said we will do it?”

“Oh, yes.  You can’t survive underwater without a pressurized diving suit.  But there are plenty of those in this city.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course not.  That part of Trav is mostly in control of this body now.”