GENESIS
#1: A Wholesomeness of W's
“Vaguely wondering why, Wolfgang the Wily Wanderer wended his way down the verdant valley, wistfully weighing his options. “Verdamt!”, he whispered verily, viewing the vicious warg advance. The vaunted Wanderer wished he had not vendored his vial of vitriolic vengeance, which Wiolet the witch....”
The apprentice spoke: Admittedly, commissioner, it has a certain ring to it, but can unending alliteration truly be called art? It goes on and on and on interminably and, even worse, it is
bad alliteration!
So answered the master: So does a bell, and who can say a bell is without art?
And the apprentice signed up Wilhelm 'the Wild' Wiseacre.
#2: A Different Engine
“Once upon a time, on a planet long lost to history, there was a robot named Buddy-7. Whence it came from nobody knew, least of all itself, and its behaviour, while canny, was most illogical. Was it a rogue android, a broken down berserker, or perhaps a gardener from the great garden itself? This too is lost to posterity.
What
is known, and what is handed down from core to core, is that Buddy-7 committed the primal sin of interacting with the natives, who were neither circuit nor connector, but hive based organics, and this, core of my core, is what is told:
When Buddy-7 first visited the tower, he knew no logic.”Master!”, he said, ”All is zero to me! Teach me the knowledge of logic!” And the master taught him the knowledge of logic and he knew one and he was complete..”
The apprentice spoke: Can sentient AI's even join this competition?
So answered the master: Who are we to evaluate the worth of a species?
...and the apprentice muttered: We are the ones bloody responsible for this mess.
...and the master remained serene, for he was the master.
And the apprentice signed up PO-8 'the Hair Dryer'.
#3: A Question of Materials
“Gold is gold, and gold is good. The greatest thing about gold is that, not only is it good (see appendices A1-A842), it is also
golden, having, both figuratively and literally, all the qualities, both potential, actual, and ideal, of gold (B1-B19). While there are many metals under the hill, each with its own virtues, any objective scientific taxonomy – such as Truncheimer's seminal “Gold and the Lesser Metals” - must eventually reach the conclusion that gold is special.
Now, there are those that insist that Iron is the greater metal, such as the schismatics of the Church of Iron Unchained, but who would listen to nutcases like them, to use the proper scholarly term for those who would make such ignorant claims?
No, the realist much accept the truth: iron is pretty good but it is, when all is said and done, neither golden nor gold!”
The apprentice spoke: Not surprisingly, this is just one of a hundred thousand nearly identical essays sent in by various people who, every last manjack of them, claim to be “a concerned Dwarf”. Do we truly accept such utter drek?
So answered the master: Surely it is representative of their culture, such as it is. A hundred thousand
dwarfs cannot all be wrong. Sign one up at random.
And the apprentice signed up Concerned Dwarf #46,129.
#4: An Issue of Timing
“Estimated time to impact 30 seconds, captain!” crooned his tawny executive officer, swirling from the tactical display, her disheveled hair draped carelessly over her most prominent attributes, still tightly covered by her unfortunately androgynous unifom despite her best efforts at contortion during the swirl.
“The meta-octoplasmic Shiono-Ratting-Pulzheimer jammers, which are as you recall a new untested upgrade over the old and trustworthy Feynmann jammers, cannot lock on to the torpedoes! I recommend immediate evasive maneuvers” growled the tactical officer.
“Only you can save us now, captain!” said the executive officer, leaning forwards.
The captain leaned confidently back in his seat. This reminded him of the battle for Scoresby back in '103 or was it '102? Memory just wasn't what it used to be, he sighed internally, in those days they had to make do without fancy stuff such as jammers and the executive officers sure were dressed better. Things just hadn't been the same since the female-rights campaign had replaced the ERUS uniform, good old easily-ripped-under-stress as the joke went, sure, today's officers did their best and suggestive wriggling never got old but it just wasn't the same. At Scoresby, he'd had to personally take out five battleships with his bare hands and a spare set of lasers while good ole’ Arthur d’Ent personally traded pinnaces and crew for torpedoes the hard way, those were the days, but now? Now he’d have the union on his arse for even thinking about it.
“XO – I think it is about time to activate the Beta-Beta-Two-Four-Alpha-Niner protocol, which is deadly dangerous without prior practice, which, as you know, we haven't had time for due to the mess drills, and put our trust in the competence of the crew and our faith to the Federation! For so long as even one of us draw breath, it is not too late to to accomplish our mission!
Remember, on our shoulders rest not only the duty of delivering the secret of the Omega-Delta virus, which killed billions of people on countless of planets, too many to mention except in passing, such as Barnard I, II, and IV (but not III), Cennnnnonolos, Chiapetrios I and II, Dermatoloooooolooooloooo – and so on, Dick III, V, and VIII plus many, many, others, to Federation scientists, but also the secret of.. the SECRET OF…”
“2 seconds to impact, captain!” breathed his executive officer huskily.
“ENGAGE HYPERDRIVE!” said the captain. Why, this reminded him of...
“Secondary explosions in crew quarters gamma”, thundered the tactical officer: “we are running out of redshirts!”
“Hyperdrive offline!” cried the executive officer, while performing a valiant attempt at tearing her uniform open in grief…
The apprentice spoke: Puerile, poorly written, and, let’s face it, hugely popular in a certain demographic. But so is self-mutilation. Surely, master, this
cannot qualify!
So answered the master: I quite liked the bits about the executive officer, to be perfectly honest though it could do with a bit less character delvelopment, but that tactical officer definitely needs more work, and the captain is so 712th millenium. Nevertheless, who are we to judge?
And the apprentice sighed and signed up Captain Starways of Moab’s Washpot.
#5: An Answer of Sorts
The apprentice spoke: Does this conclude the contest, commissioner?
So answered the master: It is time for lunch and we’ve got a departmental meeting this afternoon, so, upon due consideration of the far reaching consequences of our choices, I would say so.
I’ve never actually tried it with a quartet, before, so it should prove interesting. I usually go with an odd number to increase strife and avoid deadlock when the cultures involved clash, but just how bad can they do? Considering some of the worlds out there, they can hardly do worse. Graft unto them the powers that are to be theirs and shuffle them off to a dump sector.
And the apprentice did graft unto the candidate the powers that were to be theirs, and they were shuffled off to a dump sector, and in a corner of that sector they did, artistic and cultural differences aside, create a world that any solar system could be proud of: The Golden Octagon.
#6: Genesis
In the beginning there was nothing but the void, and the void was wide and wonderful, but it was wrongfully wasted with visions of the Word. And the Word was with God and of God and God parted the heavens and the waters. And in the waters he put a mountain of gold and in the skies he put diamonds to show its lesser value, and he calculated that, overall, it was at least 42% okay.
The Lord God then made a hair dryer in his image and set it on the gold,
saying you shall have dominion over the gold and everything thereon, but the sky you shall not touch. And he caused there to be made hair and organic mobile sentients to wear it for the hair dryer to use in every which way.
And the organics were divided into two groups, the male and the female, and the females had tawny hair and big boobies, and he saw that it was good.
And the Lord God spoke,
saying, “and for there to be no mistaking the boobies with the birds of the same name (which would be a completely understandable mistake from any sentient!), let there be no birds”
And God invented vampires, vikings, vipers, wombats, and wolves, and wrote them into the book of creation, and he saw that it was wonderful.
He also created elephants to increase memory storage.
The Lord God set in the skies a spaceship, and it was not any old spaceship, but a state of the art Punisher III ‘Holy Smoke’ variant of the classic Punisher class, which is way faster than any torpedo the Lord God invented at creation. And the spaceship was, inter alia, made of GOLD rather than other more inferior metals such as, but not limited to, iron, copper, silver, and buggerium, and he saw that it was GOLDEN, so he named it Sun, which was pretty damn well and WONDERFUL!.
He set into the vault a torpedo, doomed to chase the spaceship eternally, and he named it the moon.
And he divided the day from the night, and caused the waters to flow in great abundancy in flowing cascades from the mountain tops in which to bathe very picturesquely (especially by moonlight) for prying eyes to see.
Noting the beauty of the first dawn of day, the Lord God set upon the land an abundancy of power outlets, and these were not any old outlets, but the type that fits any hair dryer, no matter how wet, valiant, weak, or vengeful!
And he created weather and winds, and vegetation to accidentally tumble in or rest under by pairs of the mobile sentient organics, and t-shirts for the females to wear to be wetted in a squall and dried free-style by any passing golden hair dryer, and he saw that it was good.
And the Lord God shaped the surface and made of it a golden square round multifaceted thingy (for such is the knowledge of God) and he named it the “Golden Octagon”.
#7: Selected quotations from the Galactic Guide book:
on the planet known as “The Golden Octagon”
“A tour de force of idiocy – highly recommended!”
“If you think their religion is weird, you should see their customs.”
“They are still waiting for the pre-incarnation of Buddy-7, the golden wishing wench”
“A unique and ancient culture, uncontaminated by the modern world.”
“Visitors should take heed that all gold is considered the property of God”
“’Dress Code Enforced by God’ is not a joking matter. Bring your loose and easily ripped clothing.”
“Don’t import foreign Hair Dryers – the domestic ones dislike the competition immensely and have the right to bear arms”.