Emperor Fred goes Postal AAR

[Brainsucker]

WHAT? He died? is it OVER?

Or... perhaps we will see Emperor Fred MK2, a combination between what left of him and the Son of Igor [:D] [:D] [:D]

[2guncohen]

Cyborg - Fred ? 

Zion needs him [&o]

[Sheytan]

Simply a outstanding write. Bravo![&o]

[2guncohen]

I think I enjoyed this saga as much as the thread of ugly shepard on the mass effect2 forum. [&o]

[Tophat1815]

Bravo

[Brainsucker]

will the story continue? and what is ugly shephard thread?

[lancer]

I’m the world’s worst patient. Giving the nurses ten kinds of h*ll. Can’t stand the inactivity. The helplessness.

What really irks me is my total dependence on other human beings. That’s just wrong.

Emperors shouldn’t have to be told to lift their bottom so some cranky nurse Ratchet can wipe it. Demeaning and demoralising.

Emperors without arms or legs don’t have a lot of say in the matter. All that’s left of me is a head attached to a battered torso.

I’m a human with all the appendages (ALL of them, damn it) missing in action. Like a venomous spider that’s had all its legs plucked off by a demented kid wanting to know what happens next?

Doctors insist it’ll be alright. Prosthetics are very advanced in this day and age. Bound to slow me down but, hey, you’re still breathing. Isn’t that a wonder? The shock of the blast. Multiple simultaneous involuntary amputations. Can’t understand how your heart did give up. Amazing. Medical marvel.

Most have been all the liquor I’ve been consuming of late. Lathered it up. More able to roll with the punches.

I can turn my head and watch my new limbs growing in the bio-vats lining the walls. Mechanical skeletons covered by layers of pink/grey vat-flesh. Gross.

Two more weeks. Grow it too fast and you get lumps of the stuff suddenly losing its adhesion and falling off, like slabs of greasy pork fat, at the slightest knock. Important to give the molecular binding time to form.

Another week to connect everything up. Already have the power pack implanted. Cold fusion. Synched with my pulsing heart rhythms.

Unavoidable technical glitch with the fact that the power stops once my heart rhythms cease. I’d be instantly immobilised. Frozen like a statue. Not a big deal given that I’d already be dead.

Artificial limbs have never, it turns out, been given to a person in such a state of cryogenically induced decrepitude. A medical first. Doctors very excited.

Gazing around at the numerous ghostly vats I ask where my new manhood is? I hope that they remembered to give me the full set of man-plums and not just replace what was there.

Shaking of heads. Sorrowful looks. Apologetic murmurs.

Show me pictures of a state of the art mechanical manhood. Looked like something a junkyard dog could chomp down on if it ever felt like losing a full set of teeth. Good for levering open paint cans, not much else.

More articulated joints in it than a yard full of prime movers. Doomed to spend the rest of my life with an oil can down my trousers.

I pass on the metal snake.


* * *


Son of Igor, parked in the corner, feeds me the daily news.

Lot happening. Shouldn’t be here. Palace needs me.

Have a fake Emperor doing the rounds. Standard practice.

As soon as you reach the dizzy heights you clone yourself. Not the brains and grit, just the body. Keep a couple in the cupboard for occasions just like this.

Maintain a public presence. Hide the fact that you are a legless, armless, *less wonder convalescing in a high security medical facility.

The Fake Fred has an implanted voice synthesiser. Sounds just like me. Told what to say.

Basically say nothing. Just look the part. Keep the show on the road while I gather my thoughts. And appendages.

Doesn’t mean I can’t still issue orders. Head survived the blast. Podium apparently had a metal plate insert to protect my torso against stray sniper rounds. Ducking down behind it meant I kept my head and lost everything else. Them’s the breaks.


* * *


Exciting news. They’ve found the Solar System. Yep, good ‘ole Sol is on the map, not all that far from Zion.









Unfortunately it looks like that PLANET-REMOVERS-R-US have been in action. Sucked up the Earth, Venus, Saturn and a whole lot more. Only thing left to colonise is a desert moon orbiting a Gas Giant. Mars on tilt?

Have the Gods being playing 8-ball and potted most of my planetary heritage?

Perplexing. It’s getting a bit vague now but I’m certain that I was born on Earth. An Earth that was part of the Solar System.

An Earth that is, for reasons unknown, no longer part of the Solar System.

Maybe all those years in the cryogenic coffin have scrambled my neurons. Perhaps Earth is just a figment of my fevered imagination. Maybe my whole life is a mirage. Nothing but somebody else’s memory construct.

Nah. Don’t think so. But Earth? If I keep thinking about it I’ll soon be trying to whack my own shadow. Neurosis city.

Funnily enough, though, on the habitable desert moon in the Sol system, resides a small human colony. Spooky.

I ask Son of Igor get the Minister for Industry to prioritise a Colony Horror-Hulk to the moon as soon as possible. Once I’m back to whatever the hell constitutes normal I may well pay a personal visit to the Sol System.

A man needs to know his history. It’s important to be grounded in the roots of your ancestors, to feel part of a continual, uninterrupted flow of humanity.

Confronted by my own mortality I feel the need to reconnect.




To be continued...

Lancer

[Foraven]

I'll agree with everyone else, you are good at it lancer. Aren't you a professional writer? If not, you should try it.

[Brainsucker]

Mr. Lancer, you are a good writer!!!

Oh yes, just one thing, why don't you edit the sol system and put Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, etc on it. Of course you won't be able to create the exact Saturn. But at least you can create the star system that we know in real life

I have always do it in my own game with game editor and it is fun to do it

[vonboy]

nice job staying quite for a week and making everyone think he's dead.

now lets get back to the galaxy conquering! [&o]

[2guncohen]

Be aware toads!!!
 
he is back [:D]

[Shark7]

And one of my evil thoughts...

If they cloned his body, why not just um...neutralize mr clone and replace appendages from there?

[thiosk]

i keep saying, space opera comedy is an untapped market; and this little story is downright riveting.

Flesh out the overall story, span it over a series tracking the human imperium from shitnugget to superpower--

glorious

[torrenal]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

And one of my evil thoughts...

If they cloned his body, why not just um...neutralize mr clone and replace appendages from there?

Synthetics might culturally be be considered superior to the authentic parts... (You had the six million dollar man, the bionic woman...) Funny thought -- could they make Frogs that survive in the vacuum of space? Probably. Scary thought too, from Fred's viewpoint.

On the thought of bionic parts... will any of them contain a personal shield generator? Was one omitted from the podium during the appearance? Hmm... Methinks the general has real ambition.
//Torrenal

[lancer]

I totter from room to room, a 500 year old robo-man with glued-on arms and legs. Methuselah in the making.

Fluid motion, I’m told, may take a while. Such things don’t come naturally. My neuro-mechanical interface needs time to adapt.

In the meantime I bang into walls and furniture and make so many involuntary spasms that I’m not safe to be near. Limbs twitching worse than an electrified Toad once you ram an electrode up its rear orifice.

As you do. Particularly if you don’t like Toads. Which I don’t.

Army has strict orders to capture the remaining Toads alive. Bring them all to the Palace for a quiet chat with their Emperor.

Palace dungeon turned into a transit lounge for Toads. A paradise of peace and tranquillity before making the final, inevitable journey to Toad Heaven.

I view myself as the bus conductor. Punching tickets. Assigning seats. Rerouting the bus.

Buses, even metaphorical ones, tend to travel downhill faster than up. Gravity assist.

Buses wheezing their way uphill, full of blissed out Toads constantly wanting to stop and enjoy a Kodak moment, slows the whole production line. Better to pack ‘em full of Kentucky Fried Toads that are frizzle-eyed and gasping ragged, painful lungfuls of air.

No-one wants to pull over and take pictures on those buses.

Doesn’t matter that the sign on the front of the buses no longer reads ‘Toad Heaven Express’. Nobody notices that the destination has subtly changed. They don’t care. As long as they are on a bus heading somewhere. Anywhere.

Toads, bless their little amphibian hearts, are all part of nature. Important that they remember their place in the universe.

Swamp dwellers. Mud suckers. Unsightly scenery decoration for especially ugly natural environments.


* * *


The day of reckoning has arrived. Suddenly and unexpectedly.

A spaceship of unknown origin has been detected in the Dispayri System. Made contact. Representatives of a sentient, alien species.

The bugs have come ‘a knocking. The scum of the universe have crawled out from under their rocks and found us.

Monkeys, not bugs, monkeys.

Wannabe humans barely half-baked in the evolutionary oven.










Mutated monkeys.

Eon’s of cosmic rays have given them rabbit ears and a nose that looks like the back end of a horse.

Son of Igor has run their diplomatic communiqué through a personality profiler and come up with a concise overview.










The Icky Apes are manage to be both Aggressive and Cautious. Had Son of Igor run the profile a second time and double check the result. No change.

Confused Icky Apes. Given that they are also unfriendly and intelligent it’s clear that they are a race of dangerous Psychopathic Primates hell-bent on destroying humanity.

Reckons they are also dependable.

How any creature with brains scrambled every which way but blue can be described as dependable is beyond me. Probably the only thing you can depend on is that they will try and fang you in the jugular.

Son of Igor managed – don’t know how – to give an assessment of their empire capabilities. Did the Icky Apes big note themselves to the first responder?

Did they have a glaring neon billboard on the side of their exploration craft that told anyone that wanted to know about how many apes are running around so many colonies producing so much economic activity?

I don’t think so. Obviously all made up. Decide to ignore it.

Psychopathic Apes on the warpath. All I need to know.


* * *


Lot of decisions to be made. Icky Apes made contact with us, not the other way around. Don’t even know where they come from. Emerged unannounced from the Sakurrea Gloom.

Both of the Empire’s Explorers are off exploring in other directions. No help at all. Have to send a frigate westward ho. Find the ape-cave.

Fredtopia vulnerable. Need to immediately raise half a dozen battalions of grunts. Conscript settlers if need be. Declare a planet-wide state of emergency.

General Huss and the Second Fleet off gallivanting around the Aquareos Corridor. Need them orbiting FredTopia, refuelled and raring to go, pronto.

First Fleet already in position. Actual first responders to the Icky Apes in the Dispayri System. Unfortunately First Fleet has been depleted down to a couple of Frigates. Pathetic pacifists rattling around the ex-High Council dropped the ball big time here.

Memo to Minister for Industry. Cancel all current civilian construction and instigate a crash building program for another four destroyers.

The worry of it all is the communication lag.

General Huss won’t receive my orders for another month and a half. Two more months for him to transit the Second Fleet to Fredtopia.

By the time the message drone reaches him he may not even be there. Wandered off to strut his stuff at another planet. Best to send drones to them all.

Jeez. If the Icky Apes have their act together they could conquer Fredtopia before the colony even knows that a threat exists.

It’s not right. In the year 2758 I should be able to pick up a vid-phone and talk to whoever I want to, where-ever they are. Instead I find myself running a space age empire with a medieval message delivery service.

Cursing I revise my memo to the Minister for Industry. Tell him to double the destroyer construction program. To heck with the budget.

And where the h*ll is the Minister for Science?

I yell to the nearest flunky to get the fuzz-ball into the nearest hover car. Fast track him into the Palace hanger, pronto.

I want a word.










To be continued...

Lancer

[2guncohen]

Outch they own 7 Colony's [&o]

[vonboy]

i wonder how fred will react when he finds some securans[;)]

[lancer]

Anthropological thoughts, surprisingly, are uppermost in my daily reflection. I am, in my own modest manner, developing a theory.

The galaxy, possibly even the entire universe, has been seeded from the well spring of humanity. Mankind, the ultimate expression of evolutionary perfection, has been blown hither and yon by a benevolent Solar Wind. Offshoots of Man’s genus have taken root throughout the galaxy. We humans are everywhere.

All different in their own ways as you would expect from pockets of humanity that have experienced long years of isolation. But all recognisably human, derived from the great mother lode of genes that, I’m convinced, exists on a mystical, missing Earth.

All other forms of sentient life forms are nothing but rotting, dying branches that fell off the great tree of humanity. The T-Rex pirates and the Icky Apes being classic examples.

Doubtless there are also other similar examples of evolutionary dead ends lurking out there in the void.

Nature does this kind of stuff. For every winner there are numerous hopeless experiments that all turn out badly.

Yep, you might get to be a smart T-Rex or a space going Ape but one day you are going to bump into the top of the food chain who will, inevitably, terminate your evolutionary license.

That would be us. Humans. Licensed to kill. Natures’ Double-O Secret Agents that keep the weeds out of the garden.

What about the Quameno, you ask? Clearly they have nothing in common with humanity. No connection whatsoever.

That’s because they are slimy, stinking Toads. They don’t count.

Anyway, I have it on good authority that they are an endangered species, soon to be extinct. Good riddance to the b*stards.

Humans. Greatest species in the Universe. Here, there and everywhere.

Patiently waiting for a strong leader who will join them into one great race and propel them forward to galactic dominance.

Rubbing my hands, I start dictating notes to Son of Igor. Important to promulgate the message. Issue a small booklet to all concerned citizens.

‘The Thoughts of Emperor Fred’. Max out the print runs. Bound to be a hit.







An angry Zorg is a sight to behold. Doesn’t yell or shout. Furniture remains intact. Just stands there, eyeballing you. Intense, unblinking stare.

Telepathically communicating that I, Emperor Fred, have messed up.

Going to war with the Icky Apes apparently isn’t in Zorgs play book. Forming mutually beneficial trade agreements with the harmless, loveable, merchandise-buying Monkey Men, is.

War, so I’ve been told by my favourite Merchant Prince, is bad for business. As in B-A-D. Expensive freighters get blown up. Even more expensive mining bases get blown up.

Profits head south. Keep heading south and all you’ll find is cold, ice and Purple Polar Bears.

Profits, explained Zorg, should go north. To the sun. Where Merchant Princes can relax in their fake Mediterranean Villas surrounded by like-minded Nuevo rich. Where they can safely lie back amongst hangers-on and assorted social parasites dreaming of endless rivers of wealth.

I’m puzzled by this sudden change of face. Zorg is – was? – my friend. A dependable rock in amongst the turmoil of recent events. A supportive shoulder ever willing to lend a hand.

Yet here he is, upset. Angry. At me. Inferring that I’m a one-track, mono-neuronal warmonger.

Threatening to reinstate the High Council if I don’t revert from my business devaluing ways. Demanding that I instigate diplomatic communications with the Monkey Men and sign a mutually advantageous trade agreement.

Not listening when I explain the necessity of eradicating a race of unpredictable psychopathic Apes. Doesn’t appear to understand that the future of the human species is at risk.

Fixated on profits. Visions of huge potential new markets of consuming Monkey Men clouding his vision.

Telling me that I’m only sitting on my throne because of his support. Reminding me what Caesar giveth, Caesar can also taketh.

Leaves me to ponder the best course of action. Strongly suggests that it involves diplomacy rather than torpedoes. Dark undertones of steel-eyed threat. Closes the door behind him with an eerie, measured politeness.

Gasping, I slump back into my chair. The Royal Throne. You have to be an Emperor to sit in this chair.

Being Emperor, I’m learning, doesn’t necessarily equate to being a man of power and influence.

Here I sit, with artificial limbs and an irregular heartbeat, caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand I have a diminutive, not-to-smart, General with aspirations of being the next Napoleon Bonaparte and on the other a ruthless Merchant Prince.

One has the Empires entire armed might at his disposal, the other has defacto control over the Empires purse strings and resource flow.

Depressingly, my only power base, nebulous at best, the general public, are currently in two minds about their Emperor. Exterminating the Quameno has given Mr and Mrs Average stomach indigestion.

A clean, surgical strike that wiped out the Toads in one fell swoop would have been accepted as a necessary evil but the ongoing daily news stories of half-starving, terrified Toads being hunted down by power-suited Death Squads has only encouraged sympathy for their cause.

Lapsing into a black mood I angrily lash at my thrones fancy ornamental woodwork. Crux of the matter is that I need both General Huss and Zorg onside if I’m to have any hope of remaining Emperor.

I find myself in one of those rare situations where patience is a virtue. Wait them out. Be at one with yourself, grasshopper. Bide your time.

Cr*p.

I don’t do patience.





To be continued...

Lancer

[torrenal]

The bliss of utopia plus emperor Fred?
I don't have to wonder.  I fully expect the Securans would find a new form of Utopia, living optional.

//Torrenal

[vonboy]

i was thinking more along the line of sex slaves, but that works too [:D]