Primate Typings

From my FTL video game session:

Okay, let’s give this Engi brain recorder a spin.

This will be my fourth suicide run for the Federation since my sisters and I awoke. They haven’t been pleasant so far.

The Engi tell me that the addition of the brain recorder will add some flexibility to our mission, since we’ll be able to accumulate a memory file that is much easier to transfer across universes than the clone dumps we used during our first three attempts. Since flexibility let us ally with the Engi in the first place, I’m all for it.

In case this record ends up at a universe that I don’t exist in, I guess I should explain what’s going on. My name is One. My sisters are Two and Three. We were grown by the Federation to fly a ship and deliver a message to distant star. The message is critical to allowing to Federation to defeat their enemy, the Rebels. The problem is that there is far too much hostile territory between the Yellow Star Station and the delivery point, and the ships available to us don’t have the resources to fight their way through.

However, before the war, the Yellow Star Station where we were born was more than just a waypoint for merchants and space marines. It was also home to the best research university in this arm of the galaxy. When the war broke out, much of its resources turned to finding a way to stop it. Their contributions helped slow the expansion of the rebellion, but now the rebels have arrived on their very doorstep. The solution they came up with was rather exotic.

It has been known that our universe is just one of many in a multiverse of different universes. Those that most closely resemble our own are easiest to reach. Not easy, just easier. It’s hard to transport physical objects to another universe. Transferring information is more reasonable. Made quite desperate by the approaching spacefleet of the rebels, they decided the most reliable way to send their critical message to the Federation was by duplicating the attempt to send through the nearby universes. Even if most missions to deliver it failed, only one would have to succeed, and then the message could spread back through the other universes from the site of its successful delivery.

To that end, the university whipped up a project that could carry the message and the mission across those universes. I and my sisters are that project. Or we were in the universe we started in anyway. We are quick-grown human clones, programmed with the basics of humanity. When we die, our memories will be passed on to a set of clones starting out in another universe, so they can build on what we’ve learned. Apparently, there some debate about the ethics of making people like us, but the transfer across universes required using people that had not yet acquired of lifetime of memories. I have been too busy to consider this fully, but intend to explore this in more detail later.

Our first three trips have been ugly, but we have learned much about the dangers we face out there. Even better, the scientists that made us hoped that since we were transferring our entire consciousness ourselves when we died, we might be able to guide the process a bit to find universes with the resources to make our mission easier. We have.

In our original universe, the Engi were polite aliens but not part of the Federation. Here, they are equals with the humans, and they made they’re own set of clones transfer across the universes. Unlike my sisters, A, B, and C do not seem to have carried any memories from a previous universe as they were being programmed with the basics of being Engi. I suspect that they will in the next universe, and I am going to have to acknowledge myself as the expert in these matters. After all, the scientists here were just as surprised to learn I and my sisters woke with memories of our previous universes as they were in our second and third awakenings.

I’m going leave Two and Three here to help with the defense of the station. They’ve learn a few things about fighting in our last three trips that may help delay the rebels. I’m leaving C in their care, and taking A and B with me on the ship. I’m going to miss my sisters, but this mission requires sacrifices of us all.

Mission Log Start: White Box 1

I decided a new ship with a new crew needed a new name. The ship we had flown before was a human built Krestrel, known as the Blue Box. This one is an Engi Torus that I’ve decided to name the White Box. It’s not an Engi name, but A and B are willing to go along with it.

Its key systems are pretty similar to the Krestrel, but Engi have a much different fighting style. Instead of the energy bolts and missiles, they prefer weaponized drones and ion cannons. Not sure I like the ion cannons. If I’m reading this correctly, it only damages shields and systems. That’s great, but if you want to win a fight, you have to destroy your enemy’s hull. At least I don’t have to aim the drones to have them fight. That should make managing ship to ship combat easier.

Mission Log 1:

Scanning for our first jump, we spotted a distress call. We arrived as rescued a lone survivor who had been stranded there. It was a Rock named Charlie. I thought that was a human name, but perhaps there have been more changes than I anticipated in this universe. He’s enormous, and his skin looks and feels like stone. He’s not as fast as the Engi or myself, but he’s tough in a fight and immune to fire. He could be pretty useful, especially since A told me that I can’t expect them to fight as well as I can if we get boarded. The Engi are wizards with machinery, but they’re small compared to humans. B assures me that the minor healing field that the Engi like to spread throughout their ships will work just as for Charlie as it does for us. I was happy to hear that.

A is plotting a new jump for us now, while I’m taking some time to sort out my long term strategy. I think I’ll try stockpiling scrap this time instead of immediately spending it. We’ll be able to make proper use of the merchants we encounter if we have something on hand to trade with them.

TRANSCRIPTION ERROR

Mission Log 25:

Only halfway across sector 4, but things have really turned to shit. We got boarded. The pirates killed A. B was killed by the fires and Charlie died fixing the O2 generator. He finished it, but not soon enough to keep himself from suffocating. It’s just me now. I don’t think I can survive another boarding.

Mission Log 26:

I lied. Two Mantis teleported on board and started wrecking our systems. Killed one of them in the pilot’s cabin. The second tracked me down in the medical bay. Turns out being plugged into a DocBox makes you that much harder to kill. Had to disconnect myself and sprint to the O2 generator to get it working again. I was luckier than Charlie. It pumped out enough oxygen so I only passed out for a while instead of dying.

Mission Log 27:

Reached the exit for the sector, but there’s a distress call one jump over. Rebels are only started to push into this sector. I should have plenty of time to jump over and see what’s going on.

Mission Log 28 (Battle Log):

It’s a pirate trap, but I have plenty of drones and they don’t have a teleporter. Easy pickings.

Damn! I couldn’t kill them fast enough, and they jumped away. Like my hull needed take more abuse without getting something in return. But I do have some extra scrap. I think I’d better upgrade my shields.

Mission Log 29

Glad to find a friendly store out here. Patched up some of the hull that pirate damaged, but I’ve been in better shap.

Mission Log 30 (Battle Log):

I just jumped into a ship fight with the Mantis. SHIT! They have teleporter. Don’t have enough power to run everything, but I’m not going to be sitting in the pilot’s seat anyway. Rerouting power from the engines to the extra drone. Go get them, kids!

Boarders just took out my ion cannons, but not the drones. Wrong move, suckers.

There goes my O2 again! Die, Mantis, Die. Dead you go – and there goes your ship. I have GOT to get out of this sector.

Mission Log 31

Sector 5 is a Rock controlled sector, and Charlie had warned me that they don’t like visitors, so I’m going to have to watch my step. Only have five fuel onboard, but I do have 40 scrap. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a store.

Mission Log 32

Friggin bad tempered Rocks. I try to be nice, but they insist on attacking me.

I had to roughed up a Rock scout ship. He couldn’t get through my shields, so he finally surrendered. He offered me fuel that I need, missiles that I don’t, and scrap so I would leave him alone. Go in peace my Rocky brethren.

I have a decent amount of scrap now. I am going to add it to my reactor so I don’t have to turn off the engines during a fight.

Mission Log 33 (Battle Log)

I hate flying blind into a new system. I wonder what sort of upgrades will help that not happen. For example, this jump put me too close to the star, and then three Rocks teleported onto my ship. One of them is in the medical bay. I’m grabbing my blaster, but I’m outgunned and with a ship being ripped apart by that too close star. See you in the next universe, me.

I’m holding my own against the one in the medical bay, but the other two took out my internal sensors. If I survive the one I’m fighting, I have to track the other two by what systems they’re destroying.

Killed the Rock in the medical bay, but they took out the automatic door controls while I was doing it. I’m guessing they’ll attack the shield generators next, and – SHIT, there’s THREE of them in here! Where did the fourth one come from?

And there’s the solar flare! Gods, this is ugly. At least I can’t see what parts of the ship are on fire right now.

I lied. The O2 just went, and I realized I could track some of the rooms on fire by the damage readouts on the critical equipment in those rooms. That didn’t help me at all, since it distracted me from the firefight.

Dead again. On to the next.

Story Recap: While on vacation, the supervillain Photius encounters a superhero also on vacation. That hero is Bad Penny, and the two have a history. Specifically, Photius has killed Penny six times over the course of their careers. With that history, the two spend a few minutes catching up and threatening each other before getting down to the inevitable combat. Their conversation is interrupted before the fisticuffs by some sort of commotion down by the beach.

From the sea, a leviathan threw its head high into the air and roared.

Both Photius and Bad Penny turned to look at the monster.

“Huh,” Photius said. “Were you stalling me so he could show up and help you defeat me?”

“What? No,” Bad Penny said.

“Oh. Because that would have been brilliant.”

Bad Penny jumped up and raced his way around the pool. Photius left his deck chair and followed, his flip-flops thwoping mightily beneath his ground-devouring stride. Penny reached the reached his towel and bag and began rummaging through the latter.

“The monster is over there,” Photius pointed out.

Penny cocked his head at Photius and pulled a strap out of his bag. Attached to the middle of the strap was a smooth block of black plastic with two gold prongs sticking out of the front.

“Ah. Your wrist-mounted Van De Graaff generators,” Photius said, swiping the device.

“My lightning guns,” the hero growled, pulling a second one out of his bag.

Photius fiddled with the one he held and said, “Penny, I assure you, that description of them is even less accurate than the one I just gave.”

“Give me that back,” Bad Penny said, strapping the second one to his wrist.

“You want me to fight that monster unarmed?”

“You’re going to help me?” Penny asked skeptically.

“I was willing to kill you for interfering with my vacation. What makes you think I would offer the sea creature an exemption?”

“Right,” Penny said sourly, snatching the first gun back from Photius.

Down at the beached, the screams had died down as the bystanders cleared out. The staff and guest around the pool had also run away, leaving Bad Penny and Photius by themselves. The monster bellowed again and shuffled further onto the beach.

“You’re going to let me run into a fight with that thing with just what I’m wearing?”

Penny looked him up and down. “Personally, I’d lose the flip-flops.”

“Fair enough,” Photius said, stepping out of his shoes. “Give me a second to hit the bar before we head down there.”

“Why, is that thing allergic to alcohol or something?” Penny asked, watching the supervillain walk over to the poolside bar.

“No. I just need something sharp,” Photius said, holding up the knife the bartender had been using to cut  lemons. “Now we can go.”

Story Recap: Dr. Photius Callaway, the Killing Man, is taking a vacation after being deposed as the leader of the criminal organization Technefarious. His vacation is interrupted when he discovered a superhero is staying at the same hotel.

“Bad Penny. I wondered when you’d turn up,” Photius taunted.

The man standing in the pool frowned at him. “Very original. It’s almost as if that was the first time I’d heard that.”

The supervillain rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve started to repeat myself. There’s only so much new material for clever banter that I’m willing to work on for a person I’ve already killed five or six times. Eventually, I would think you’d stay dead.

“How did you come back this time?”

Penny ignored the question and leaned forward, one hand gripping the edge of the pool. “What are you doing here, Photius?”

“I’m here on vacation, just like you are, I assume. Although, I suppose it’s possible that you have a new power source the requires swimming trunks and hotel pools.”
“No,” he said, taking his other hand out of the water. “It’s the same as it’s always been.” At that distance, Photius could only see that there was a small copper coin between thumb and finger, but he knew the coin would be gouged on both faces.

“Well, since we’re both on vacation, I think it would be reasonable for me not to kill you and for you not to try to arrest me,” Photius said.

Penny stared at him.

Photius sighed and set his glass down on the ground. “If it helps I’ll promise not to commit atrocities against the civilians. Or I’ll threaten to do it. Whichever helps you forgot that you saw me.”

That shifted Penny’s expression into a glare.

The supervillain shrugged, picked his glass back up, picked the plant matter out of it, and took a drink. “Make a decision, man. I have some goofing off to get back to.”

Bad Penny flipped his coin.

From the Desk of the Deposed:

Welcome back from your weekend, everyone.

This will be my last post as the leader of Technefarious. After the pounding we took from the Younglights last week, Dr. Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R. unified in their opposition to me. They arrived at an agreement to split the rule of our criminal enterprise between them and rallied much of the remnants of our much-battered personnel to their proposal.

Naturally, I offered to relieve them from the burden of their lives for their presumption.

Before our conversation could to escalate to the point of deploying killing implements, the Elite Triad intervened. While they had some reservations about the change, they were backing the coup de tat by our former leaders. When I asked the Elite what would happen if I pursued my preferred resolution, they informed me that would have to view that as dissolution of our friendship.

That stopped me. I guess I’ve just lost too many friends over the past few months to lose one more over a stupid argument.

Crankpot and D.O.C.T.O.R. were magnanimous in the victory and offered me a position in their new Technefarious. I declined. I took over Technefarious because we had a leader I couldn’t stand. I haven’t exactly warmed to our newly renewed leaders since they’ve rejoined us, either. If I’m not in charge, I’m going to have to go.

I’ll miss you all. Bleach actually offered to come with me, but then I told I wasn’t planning on paying him, so you’ll get to hang on to him for a while longer.

That’s it, I think. I just wanted to leave a record of what happened, and let everyone know there was nothing too hard about the feelings involved. Really, none at all by supervillain standards.

Remember to take care of each other. The world is already yours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Former Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

Author’s Note: This is not the end of Photius’s adventures posted on Mondays. This is just a good point to switch formats. Over the past year, I’ve stretched the memo format as far as I want to and occasionally beyond. These posts were only supposed to be around 500 words, but it seemed like everyone second or third one ended up over 1000 as I tried to tell enough of the story to keep things moving along. I’m itchy to work with the other tools in my storytelling kit, but I’m not done Photius. So, his story continues. It will just be told a little differently from now on. I’ll see you next Monday.

From the Desk of the Dictator:

Well, it’s Monday, again. Yay.

We’re going to have to build a new Base Omega. Base Omega would be our backup base of last resort. Unfortunately, we’re standing in our current Base Omega right now, since the rest of our bases were blown up. Not our best week.

For those keeping score, we fought State, Overclocked, Hope Titanson, Silver Spear, Goldfish, Living Goo, and Hammerstone. Those would be a handful of the many members of the Younglights, the superteam Record Holder belonged to. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume their attack was in retaliation for my murder of him a while back. No one every said that a supervillain’s life is an easy one.

Our reconstruction of events is pretty patchy. We lost too many people and too much property to do a proper after-action report. We know State and Hope caused most of our problems. His moniker is the Quantum Android. She’s a goddess/reality TV star. Instead of a wacky television show, his reality distorting powers and her ability to make miracles created a storm of power that enclosed our headquarters and fritzed out much of our equipment.

Overclocked was responsible for the destruction of our soul catchers. With security distracted by the reality storm, it wasn’t hard for the robot to rip through our facility at superspeed, knocking out sensitive equipment as he went. The soul catchers were the very first thing he hit, but I don’t think they were trying to ensure our people would stay dead if killed. That’s not really been the level of violence the Younglights practice. I think it was aimed at me. If they were running an operation to avenge Record Holder, then it would make sense to cut off all avenues for my escape. The stories about our soul catchers have been making the rounds, but I think that the Younglights didn’t realize that not only was I not connected to the soul catchers, I can never use them myself. I guess the history behind my powers isn’t as widely known as I thought.

While that damned robot trashed our stuff, Silver Spear, Goldfish, Living Goo, and Hammerstone chewed their way through the base, neutralizing our staff as they went. I finally concluded that the heroes had pulled us far enough off balance that the loss of the base was inevitable, and I called for an evacuation.

That would have worked fine, except Hope and State’s reality storm didn’t like our teleportation signals. The first wave to teleport out didn’t die, thankfully. Instead, the storm anticipated their arrival point and blew up that location. That’s how we lost our first backup base. It was a pretty big boom. Our teleportation system detected the newly created obstruction at the location and immediately routed them to the next emergency point. That’s how we lost our second backup base. The Teleportation system switched to the next and the next and the next, and then we were all out bases.

That’s excepting Base Omega. For paranoia’s sake, you cannot teleport to it. Turns out that is a handy feature for just this kind of screw up.

With our evacuation options reduced to escape by vehicles, it was clear that someone was going to have to stall the Younglights while everyone else scattered. So, I gathered up Bleach and the Elite Triad and headed out to do just that. To my surprise, Dr. Crankpot joined us. As old as he is, I wasn’t really expecting to want to mix it up with people four or five generations younger than himself. While we attended to that, I assigned D.O.C.T.O.R. to coordinate the evacuation. With everything else screwed up, his big AI brain was in the best position to maximize Technefarious’s flight.

The Younglights are good fighters. I have to give them that. None of the killing scenarios for them that I envisioned during our brawl were easy to implement. I’d get the upper hand over one of them, and one of the others would intervene. The flipside was that they couldn’t take us, either. The Elite’s capability in the fight wasn’t a surprise to me, but Dr. Crankpot’s was. The dude can scrap. Sure, he couldn’t match the Younglights in speed or power, but he had an endless stream of knick-knacks and gadgets to screw with them.

All of that was just a cover for Bleach. Hope and State’s reality storm was keeping our vehicles penned into our base, so they needed to be taken out. With their teammates occupied by us, Bleach could get close enough to them to drain their powers down enough to break to the storm.

The end of the storm meant our people could escape. It also meant that our equipment could hook back into our satellite network. D.O.C.T.O.R. analyzed the restored data stream and informed me that the reality storm had not gone unnoticed by the larger superhero community. The Establishment was dispatching the Executives to deal with the matter.

Their arrival would likely not go well for us, so we beat down the Younglights enough that we could disengage and ran. D.O.C.T.O.R. had held a drill sled for us. As we plunged into the Earth, he informed us that the Establishment had arrived. From there, it was every vehicle crew for themselves.

Only one-third of Technefarious arrived at Base Omega. I’m sure some of the missing are just lying low, and that others have decided this would be a good time to desert our organization. Worse, some died in the attack. There’s simply no way to prevent it in an assault that thorough, no matter how good the superheroes are at their job. The remainder (probably the majority) of the missing are probably sitting in jail cell or in a hospital, waiting for the local authorities to attend to them. Now we need to figure out how to rebuild and how to recover our people.

This is a setback, but the world will be ours. Have a good week, everyone.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man

From the Desk of the Dictator:

Welcome back from your weekend, everyone.

I know the last week was a long one, but I want to thank everyone for all the hard work they did. The loss of so many of our people set all us back on our heels, but it was nice that we could all pull together to finish the memorial garden for Frigid and Extraction Team C. I was particularly touched by the turnout for the dedication ceremony. Again, thank you all.

If you haven’t seen Dr. Crankpot or D.O.C.T.O.R. since then, it is because I put them under restrictions since memorial service. Dr. Crankpot’s speech that the operation that killed our friends would have gone differently if he had been in charge was in poor taste, I thought. Doubly so considering what was the acceptable casualty rate when he founded Technefarious decades ago. Still, I felt killing him would be excessive, so instead I locked him in his suite for a few days.

D.O.C.T.O.R.’s behavior was a bit more sinister. The subliminal messages criticizing me that he piped through sound system during the dedication ceremony did not go unnoticed. I realize he is as eager as Crankpot to be put back in charge, but there’s a time and place to try to undermine me. I restricted his voice circuits to work only through the speakers in the men’s bathroom off the main lobby as his punishment.

I know “Being a Supervillain Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry” makes a great bumpersticker, but it’s no way to actually run an organization.

I’ll release them both back into general circulation later this week.

There are no immediate plans to plunge into another world-conquering project. We paid a high price for the Metalhead’s treasure horde, so we’re going to sit down and catalogue everything we acquired first. There were plenty of gold and jewels, of course, but there was also cash from fifty different countries, government bonds, and even some stocks. Our cybernetic dragon really was a creature of today. It’s going to take our financial department a while to sort it all out and laundry it.

The occult department has plenty of new magical artifacts to keep them busy. The Bucket was not the only one Metalhead was sitting on. While their working on those, the assault teams and the computer department are going over his base and securing all his traps. I don’t intend to lose anyone else to that place by accident. All of that ties up enough of our resources that there is no sense in trying to start something else right now.

Have a good week, everyone. Remember, the world is already ours – it just doesn’t realize it yet.

Your Leader,

Dr. Photius Callaway
The Killing Man