----- As revealed to Argus, Neurovore, Captain Button, just john, myles, Derek Roguelight, Dred, Jordan H. Orzoff, Drizzt, Patrick Sweeney, Nicki Jett, Moriah and The Druid, September 1991.
In the beginning was the word ... the word "in," as a matter of fact.
In mortal terms, it's inconceivable.
Nothing. Plenty of nothing, with no place to go. Or maybe it's everything. Regardless, there's no time, no space.
But the nothingness (or everythingness) bends a little and by that bend, space begins. By that beginning time starts. From that start...
"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was.
The light thought "Who said that?"
But then the light remembered it was non-sentient and stopped its uppity ponderings. It shone forth, but not ON anything.
At least the universe had lightened up a bit.
And somebody quipped back
"That's pretty biblical, buddy, and there's still more of the dark."
... and as the light shone forth from the darkness, the disembodied yet-not-disembodied voice of eternity happened to glance down at the immanent waters, and recognize its own reflection. "Man, I really look like S*** to eternity."
The Creator of the Universe yawned. "Don't bug me; I'm resting."
And that did it. The cosmic fly of identity had landed on the serene, mindless nose of eternity, and he stirred. Now, there were two of eternity, the one in the water, and the one out of the water. Pretty soon, the one in the water got out, looked at the two of them there reflected in the waters, and after an even briefer pause (being wet was losing its novelty), two more got out of the water, then eight, then sixteen. Occasionally, some would wander off, or just spend their time looking around at each other. But mostly, especially after the multiverse started getting crowded, and people couldn't easily push their way through the crowd away from the immanent waters.
And the clones were kind of like copies of copies on a bad copier. They were pretty useless. But the guy who'd started it all looked around, and sighed.
(As a result of this manic bifurcation, in later aeons, the work week would be 2 to the twelfth power days long.)
.. and back in our creation epic, nobody had gotten around to inventing the concept of names.
And the sky split in two, and a dark figure appeared, propelled by a godly hiking boot. And as he fell from the heavens he saw the people of this world, and he saw that they were redundant. So he stopped his fall and proclaimed: "I am AGAR AGAR!! Lord of plague, pestilence, disease, dentistry and redundancy, you are my chosen people!!! You are the people who I will chose to visit with plague and dentistry, since I am the god of those, and redundancy as well." And he created thousands of worlds each exactly like the first.
The people bowed down, for AGAR AGAR had a name which rhymed -- it also had a beat you could dance to, albeit briefly.
They split into two lines, tenors facing basses and began to rejoice in a kinda Frankie Avalon beach party sorta way.
(Roughly to the tune of "My Boyfriend's Back":)
Tenors: O, he's the Lord of plague! pestilence! disease! redundancy!
Basses: AGAR AGAR!
Tenors: And something called "Dentistry" We can hardly wait 'n see.
Basses: AGAR AGAR!
And when the crate of lobsters fell from the sky, things got... somewhat better...
But there was still no beer or surf or scantily clad hot babes (or even the concept thereof) so the people secretly were ashamed at their silliness.
Suddenly a thunderclap sounded.
And, floating in the airless void, was the Great Pterodactyl.
"Braaaacckkk," said the Pterodactyl, looking around. "How boring. And I need a place to land."
So, with another thunderclap, the Great Pterodactyl created a world, floating next to it in the void.
"Brraaaackkk," said the Pterodactyl. "Much better."
The bifurcated-eternity-fly-things by the water saw the world the Great Pterodactyl had made.
One b.e.f.t. turned to another and said "Hey, maybe we should go over there!"
The other responded, "You go first. Me, I'm pterofied!"
The world floated next to the Great Pterodactyl, all new and bright. Bright because of the Light, which was still everywhere. It had plenty of landing space, both land and water.
At this point, the light was shining forth upon:
And because the existence of a predator (the Great Pterodactyl) required the existence of prey, the planet (the Great Pterodactyl's World) was suddenly occupied by small, furry creatures (from Alpha Centauri -- no, wrong story). And the creatures looked at the Great Pterodactyl and proclaimed, "RUN AWAY!" And did so.
The world had furry things scrambling all over it. The Great Pterodactyl noticed them as he landed on a mountaintop.
The mountain where the Great Pterodactyl landed was henceforth called "G.P.'s Hideaway." Legend had it that it was a primo place to fall off of.
They scrambled into the water and drowned. They scrambled into the forests, where trees fell on them. They scrambled into the mountains, where rockslides hit them. They scrambled off cliffs.
"Brack," said the Great Pterodactyl, munching on a few of the non-dead furry things. "I will call you ... lemmings."
"OK," the lemmings replied, as they scrambled into a nearby bottomless cavern.
But one night, the (self-proclaimed) mother of all lemmings snuck off, stood on a mountain top, and wished heartily that there was, in all heavens, a hero to champion her people against the terrible predations of the (by her way of thinking) rapacious and evil Ptero.
Suddenly, there was a rustle of wings, and something unseen came to earth. It was the Crow. But he appeared as a glorious, handsome lemming, with strait brown fur, sharp incisors, and a wild and crazy look about the eyes.
"Eaie! I feel good! Du-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, I knew that I would, now!" was the sacred formula chanted by Crow-as-lemming (which later became the battle-cry of all lemmings).
And so, the mother of lemmings conceived the Great Hero Lemming named Ludvig, a Demi-god who fought the Ptero with all of the fierceness and cunning of a lemming. In time, the Great Hero Ludvig was to learn many secrets from a crippled old man who was really the Lord of Incompetence, and lead his people over all manner of dangerous precipices (none of them ever seemed to fare too well because of this, though.)
But it could have been worse, since neither Death nor Grievous Bodily Harm had shown up in this universe yet. So the lemmings just bounced a lot and many developed a taste for that sort of thing. To commemorate their leader Ludvig, they built a great graven image of him and, naturally, pushed it off a nearby cliff.
But one day, one of the shiftless copies, drifting through eternity, lit on one of AGAR AGAR's worlds. This was the celestial Crow.
Crow said: "I am the lord of strife, I am the cleverest crow in the universe. I am the trickster god. CAW!"
Until now, all the people on all of AGAR AGAR's planets had been exactly the same, all unable to break from the mold that AGAR AGAR had made. There was no free will. Only determinism.
But Crow went among the people, and spoke with them. All of them said the same thing. "I'm sick, but my teeth are clean." You can imagine how idiotic this got to seem to poor old trickster, after a few eons of undercover work. He got so tired of hearing it that he decided it was his duty to do something about it.
Thus (it is said) from then onward, Crow was of good health but dispensed with teeth entirely. But the plague of dentistry had not let Crow alone (so it is continued) for Crow still carries a large bill.
Quickly, (before anygod else could beat him to it,) the crow took off like a rocket through the heavens, named all of AGAR AGAR's planets, informed the people, and gave each thereon a name in turn.
Crow god flew high to the heavens. He flew through the vastness of space. Soon, in one crowded corner of the galaxy, he found the creator, sitting, looking cramped and irritated, and generally distracted. So very cleverly, Crow tricked the godlings, one by one, to leave the vicinity of the creator, until he became momentarily quiescent. And as the creator meditated, Crow snuck up, plucked a bit of earwax from eternity's ear, and made off with it safely. This he carried back to one of AGAR AGAR's worlds, (to this day, he's not sure if it was the same one,) and said unto the people "Behold, I bring you the gift of chaos. I bring you free-will, nonlinear mathematics, and quantum indeterminacy."
The people were amazed and reverent, tho some dared to speak up and say "That's all very nice, but where's that pizza we ordered?"
And Crow flew over the world, and let crumbs of the earwax fall everywhere. People started to have their own ideas, and in a flash, chaos had spread across the universe.
The Creator said, "Hey, where'd my earwax go? Oh, never mind. I'm resting."
Of course, eternity had been bifurcating for a while now (oh, excuse me... pardon me...), and as they split and split and split, the immanent waters were getting kinda muddy, the way you always imagined a public swimming pool that wasn't filtered or chlorinated for a whole summer would get. So pretty quick, the water wouldn't hold a reflection.
The last copy to be made, then was a sorry, smeared, botched piece of work indeed. He got up, looked around, saw that most everybody was off looking at Ptero's world or something.
He proclaimed "I am incompetence! I am ineptitude and insignificance incarnate! I think the waters getting muddy and my existence have something to do with the recent spread of chaos into the universe. I am the patron of whiners and the petty! I am master of unluck and the jinxed! Dread my coming, for I may not leave soon!"
And Incompetence cleared his throat noisily, spat on his own foot, and went shambling off to look for a job.
And nobody in particular listed what existed:
And from them rose a being quite separate from eternity, being the result not of eternity but of the waters. It appeared as a man and a guitar, but the guitar was as much a part of the being as was the man.
And the man, Muddy Waters, travelled the universe, singing, a style of music that owed fealty to the waters and not to eternity. Thus did Muddy Waters, lord of the blues, come into the universe.
And some other lemmings looked even further up, to AGAR AGAR's worlds full of people with good teeth and sighed: "Wow! Those'd be such gnarly places to fall from! We could almost fall forever! And such weird music coming from them!"
So some tried to imagine Ways to get to those worlds..
And, in an effort to resist the Depredations of the Great Pterodactyl, the Lemmings had developed Multiplication. And a few Malcontents among protested this new Technique, saying "We cannot use Multiplication until we have agreed whether the Number of Befts is 4096 or 2 to the 16th Power." And they climbed G.P.'s Hideaway and would not come down despite all the Pleas of the other Lemmings. But the vast Majority of the Lemmings ignored those few Malcontents and proceeded to apply the Technique of Multiplication to the Problem of reaching the Worlds of AGAR AGAR. And they eventually decided to continue to multiply until they had formed a great Pile upon which they could climb to the Worlds of AGAR AGAR.
And so it came to pass that the Great Pterodactyl's World came to have piles even before some god(ling) thought of it as another way to harass the weak.
And AGAR AGAR returned from distributing dental hygienists bearing small pox among his worlds, and saw the great changes that had taken place on a few of his worlds and he quoth. " You are too small minded my people, your thoughts are too limited. Acknowledge my reign of redundancy and plague, because I am the lord of both. And remember that the number of Befts is both 4096 and 2 to the 16th power, and 4 to the 6th, and......" and the people of the world lost the rest of the sentence, because AGAR AGAR was creating thousands of worlds exactly like each of the worlds that differed from the rest of his worlds. And then he noticed that there were other gods that had been causing these changes, so he performed two mighty works. First, he sent 2^12 locust dentists to each of these new gods, and then he duplicated himself, forming new and identical copies of AGAR AGAR. They then dispatched a copy of AGAR AGAR to each of the new gods, to watch over them, and ensure that their actions were redundant, pestilential, and in keeping with good dental hygiene.
And each of the new gods found upon their own copy of AGAR AGAR instructions and a list.
And the instructions said unto them, in part:
"Put your name at the bottom of this list. Make five more copies of AGAR AGAR and send them to five friends...."
CAW! Said Crow, seeing the locusts. Lunch!
The Great Pterodactyl returned from his latest battle with the lemming demi-god Ludvig, in which Ludvig had been hurled into another of those pesky bottomless pits, to find a pile of lemmings on his mountain.
"Brack," G.P. said. "You want to visit other worlds, eh?"
So the Great Pterodactyl proceeded to teach his worshipers of the sacred lever. Flying off, he picked up a huge log, balanced it on his mountaintop and bade the lemmings to gather on one end.
Then the Pterodactyl dropped a boulder on the other end, hurling the lemmings across the galaxy, where they would surely find new and amazing things to fall off of.
His mountaintop cleared, the Great Pterodactyl began to build a huge nest.
"Brack," the Pterodactyl said.
And nobody thought to ask "Hey, why didn't ol' G.P. just carry those guys up there?"
And it came to pass that upon a few of the peopled worlds of AGAR AGAR which the lemmings' trajectory interjected, the lemmings landed amongst the beach parties, yea, they augured into the swamps, the steppes, even the mock-Mediterranean courtyards adjoining the trailer courts. (And due to a typo -- 'interjected' for 'intersected' -- The lemmings were all shouting things like "Hey!" and "Yikes!" and "Golly!" as they hit the worlds of AGAR AGAR.)
And while the people weren't exactly ecstatic at this furry incursion from the sky, they did begin to sing: "It's lemmings, they're pouring / The Great Pterodactyl's roaring!"
However, two lemmings, who were followers of Incompetence to such a extreme degree that despite long attempts to fall from great heights they were totally unscathed, hid themselves among the Great Pterodactyl's tail scales and hoped the Great One would fly somewhere interesting and life threatening.
And, lo! The Lot of the Lemmings had not been improved one Whit by their Explorations. And so those who has survived the Journey began to multiply further, against such Time as they should be able to continue their Journey.
Stalking among the worlds of AGAR, coalescing in the footsteps and works of the mighty AGAR AGAR, came Goron, Prince of prolonged suffering, and grievous bodily harm. Wicked and whimsical was he, god of acne and psoriasis, inventor of poison ivy, broken bones, hunger, insomnia, migraines, sciatica, humidity, PMS, lacerations, burns, torn ligaments, pulled muscles, ingrown toenails, planter's warts, and bruises (among other things), and patron of torturers and bullies. (Although not of the specific subset of torturers devoted to the mouth and teeth; these remained the province of AGAR.)
And the people, who still lacked gender, wondered "How best to make use of this new boon of PMS?" (Those who have never seen Health tend to hold a somewhat different view of ailments than You or I.)
On the Great Pterodactyl's World, the cries of "Wheeeeeeee!" as the lemmings dove began to become interspersed with variations, like "Wheeeee - ouch! Ugh! Argh! Oof!" as they caromed off the slopes and pit walls.
Of course, they all survived. Soon, in order to differentiate their flattened, bloody selves from pizza, many donned t-shirts saying "Not a Pizza!" These became more popular than even the perennial favorite which began with "I hate ..." and went on to list the names of the first 256 days of the week.
Many refused to worship Goron, so they continued to go "Wheeeeeeee!"
The Crow, never one to take offense (in fact, he liked people who speak up like that) went to the pizza-objector, and pronounced on him these solemn words: "Thela Hun Ginjeet, Thela Hun Ginjeet. Thela Hun Ginjeet, Thela Hun Ginjeet; Pizza remains, deep in the jungle, pizza remains, deep in the jungle streeeeeam!"
Some began to wonder if Crow had begun to fall further under the influence of AGAR AGAR, such was the redundancy.
Thenceforth, that man, and all first-born males directly descended from him, harbored the miraculous ability such that, whenever in need of sustenance, pizza would suddenly, spontaneously generate in above them in the sky and come raining down on them.
That was on the Crow-named AGAR AGAR planet of Solon, which was in a later epoch to be briefly known as "Pizzeria," when one of the descendants of Hubert (the father of all pizzamanna prophets), was captured by evil and tyrannical forces who starved the Hubert's poor descendants, thus forcing a reign of pizza and (consequently, as it sucked all the chaos out of the rest of the universe to keep the pizza flowing) determinism.
Many in the worlds near Solon, called Pizzeria, began to cast their eyes Solonward and to mope and pray for deliverance. "Please cast thy boon upon us, with moist bits of fungus, preferably within thirty minutes!"
At the mere mention of his realm, The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells reeked his way into existence, offending everyone in the relative area with his profuse emanations.
Unfortunately, those lemmings who were jumping off various cliffs at the time splattered like water balloons upon the world of the Great Pterodactyl, making it very messy. And from this gory mess, the Great Pterodactyl's World became known unto the people of the worlds of AGAR AGAR as "The Big Sticky"..
Thus, The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells made his way to these messy places, and commanded the lemmings who were still alive to build temples constructed of the now dead lemmings, so that their festering bodies may please him. The Overlord sniffed, and it was good.
Upon hearing of this, the people of the world Fwadot, which was closest to the Big Sticky, started to mutter to each other things like:
"Hey, this universe is one big hunka nothing but depressing pains, with nothing to expect but pizza and lemmings plummeting from above. Maybe Death would make a nice change."
The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells heard the pleas of the people of Fwadot, and forced them to stand on their heads until their heads exploded. Once this was done, he gathered the lifeless bodies and made himself some Fwadot Herbal Tea.
The Great Pterodactyl was not pleased.
Someone had defiled his world, causing his pterofied lemmings to splat nastily instead of bouncing pleasantly. On top of that, the poor lemmings were now gathering the remains into smelly temples.
"Brack," the Great Pterodactyl said. "Stop that."
And the lemmings did, and once more they bounced instead of splatted, at least on the Pteroworld. When they flew off to other worlds, they risked splatting, but splatting, squishing and all other gooey forms of death were forevermore banned from the Pteroworld.
And a small percentage of people of the worlds of AGAR AGAR heard of this and went "Hmmmmm..." and devoutly wished for the invention of travel agents. Then, just as things began looking up, the redundant copies of Agar Agar arrived, complete with instructions.
"Brack Brack," said said the the Great Great Pterodactyl Pterodactyl. "This This is is stupid stupid."
So he ate the Agar Agars.
"Brack," he said. <urp>
And this, in combination with his effort to wipe out redundancies, gave rise to the term "Nutrient Agar"..
And the other half dozen AGAR AGARS on the world that had provided the model for the thousands of G.P. worlds spoke to each other in dodecastereo and said: "my but redundancy is good, if it weren't for the goodness of redundancy, that Great Pterodactyl would have messed up our plans. As it is, owing to the goodness that is redundancy, we are still here to plague the G.P. But AGAR AGAR spared the Great Pterodactyl any additional plagues, preferring to train the lemmings in the art of dentistry. And in order to ensure the preservation of the splatting type of lemmings, AGAR AGAR mystically transported splatting lemmings to a good third of his worlds. Then AGAR AGAR in the AGregate sat down where he was to watch the next moves of the other gods.
Seeing that the lemmings were no longer splatting, and also no longer making the gloriously smelly temples, The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells decided it was time for him to make a world of his own. But before he departed the Great Pterodactyl world, he caused the lemmings to spew forth noxious gases every time they bounced, maintaining the Status Quo (at least as far as nasty smells went).
And the Firmament was given Pause as the image of Flatulent, Bouncing Lemmings usurped its very Mind for nigh unto several minutes...
The Overlord's new world came into being with very unpleasant stenches and squishy noises to match. At that time though, the AGAR AGAR's locust dentists arrived. Liking his rotting, putrid teeth just fine the way they were, he killed them, and littered their putrefied remains about his world, forming the landscape of his world upon a sea of vile zombie juice.
He then brought forth zombies from the zombie juice sea, and populated his world with them. He called his new worshipers bureaucrats, for they were the dead of the dead.
And seeing the possibility of profit, the soon-to-be-great god SALK, deity of healing, conqueror of disease, stayer of death, and frequently prolonger of misery and charger of large fees, appeared, seemingly from nowhere but probably in fact from a good med school back east (relative to the Creator, that is). Needless to say, this irritated a lot of gods. Salk couldn't do much for the lemmings, but seeing as how they were now pretty much back to just bouncing again, he prescribed some little pills called quaaludes (which he promptly invented) for any pain they might be experiencing.
Now a few lemmings discovered that, thanks to Salk's little pills, they no longer needed to find something tall in order to fall over.
As there was not much in the way of negotiable currency in this universe as yet, Salk began to charge large and gratuitous sums of pizza for his planet-calls. With the proceeds, he created his own planet, which he called Links, covered its surface with little holes and well-mowed grassy areas, and decreed that its inhabitants should knock around small round white objects with sticks for no apparent reason. He also invented the term "up to par," but was not quite certain yet what it meant.
But there were those with power over Salk, namely those who controlled the production of plaid pantaloons. And Salk had his expenses -- for instance, imagine how much a groundskeeper charges when the possibility exists of getting hit by a plummeting lemming..
The Great Pterodactyl, sensing the arrival of yet another god, but not one that would try to mess up his beautiful Pteroworld and require devouring, decided to say hello.
"Brack," he said. "Hello. Watch out for that Agar Agar fellow. He'll steal your Links world and make infinite copies of it. We really should invent some copy protection software. Brack. Maybe we could dig up a god of computers somewhere."
With this, the Quest for the Copy Protection Scheme was born. Leaflets went forth, but fewer than would be optimal, for each was hand, paw or claw written. The lack of an alphabet also hindered Things.
The Light tried to pierce the depths of the Muddy Waters but just getting two feet down, failed miserably. Out of this momentous struggle came a voice, a powerful voice, a majestic voice, a voice that slightly whined, "THIS WILL NEVER DO!!"
The surface of the water started to bubble and to the surface came a behemoth clam shell which raced to the shore slowly opening. Inside, was a creature of beauty. A goddess of great presence. A goddess of Prim Efficiency. Riding on the half shell, was Donnar Eed. Dressed in a printed house dress with high heels and pearls and a lovely coiffed hairdo. Resting in her hand was the handle of a vacuum cleaner.
Taking her mighty Vacuum of Might, she declared, "all this Light -and no Light Source, tsk, tsk tsk". She switched on the Vacuum of Might and held it up in the air. The VM sucked up all the Light and there was complete darkness. Donnar Eed opened the bag of the VM, reached in and threw out a Giant Sun. There was light *and* darkness now.
She sucked up the Muddy Water, and out of the bag came Pure Water flowing back into the giant basin. She sucked up all the flattened lemmings and out came a Giant Lemming who went looking for a *very deep* pit to jump into. She sucked up all the world she was standing on plus all the other duplicate worlds, and out came Giant World, one huge world with one huge sun. On Giant World were many continents separated by the Pure Water. And these were some of the continents: Pterodactyl Land (with lots of newspaper spread out around his nest); Lemming Land (with lots of deep pits lined with trampolines; Pizza Land (which delivers); AGAR AGAR land (filled with many Town Halls and City Government Buildings with many forms and applications to fill out by hand manually); Disease Land (just waiting for a lemming to jump in one of its pits filled with rusty nails); and, Salk Land (exporting pills to lemmings with rusty nail wounds).
All the mortals felt an uneasiness , the basis for which they knew not. It was not that Donnar Eed was entirely of black and white and shades of grey -- it was something they could not identify..
[Unbeknown to our studio audience, it was because they had no gender, so they had no basis to respond properly to a series of sentences which began "She su..."]
Looking at the inventory of Lands, one small lemming wondered, "Hey, If I were the Overlord of Death, I might get a bit bugged at not having my own land. But hey, I'm not, so let's go fall off something RILLY big!"
The most beautiful Land of them all was Donnar Eed Land. There, there were birds singing, but no one saw them winging. There were bells ringing but no one ever heard them at all, till there was Donnar Eed. Then, so that Donnar Eed had something else to do, she created millions of creatures who would create messes and do stupid things and get into trouble so that she could clean up after them and solve their problems. She called these creatures -- Teenagers! She then baked 2 million cream pies.
One especially frisky beft named Pinky shouted "FOOD FIGHT!"
And the local AGAR AGAR looked upon Donnar Eed's millions of teenagers, and 2 million cream pies, and said " Now this is my kind of DEITY!!!", but created another 1/2 dozen one worlds just in case something went wrong with the first one, but that also multiplied the number of beings on the Quest for the Copy Protection Scheme.
To AGAR AGAR, Donnar Eed said in a compelling maternal voice, "Oh, no you don't Mister, Mister! You have a nice Land of your own in which to duplicate things, but if it'll make you happy and joyous, I'll give you two Lands." So she then sucked up the extra worlds AGAR AGAR had just created and incorporated them into a new continent of the Giant World. This new continent she named AGAR AGAR Land (not to be confused with AGAR AGAR Land).
Another lemming (not the one wondering about the lack of a DeathLand) piped up: "Maybe Salk can produce a Pill to suppress AGAR AGAR's reproduction!" But he got hit by a falling triple-cheese pizza and the thought flew from his tiny mind.
Donnar Eed then set about cleaning up after the teenagers who started throwing cream pies at each other. "This will never do," she muttered to herself, "their social interactions are not just complicated enough to challenge my helping skills." So she sucked up the teenagers and pulled out from the bag half a million boy teenagers and half a million girl teenagers. She gave them a sex drive for the opposite sex. She made them mature at different rates and caused acne to appear the day of a date. "Now, I can *really* start to help them." Donnar Eed then smiled to herself and thought, "I feel so good, they *need* me!"
And the other mortals (the non-teenager ones) said "Hey! That looks neeto!" in an effort to sound teenageish. "Howzabout we get to be boys and girls, too?"
Many of the teenagers, fearing for more help and trying to assert their autonomy, flew away (no one has invented gravity yet, those poor lemmings fall for no good reason!) to the other continents and thus started to populate the Giant World.
One night, Crow flew quietly over to Donnar Eed's Giant world, and crept into the bedrooms of a few million of the sex-crazed teenagers (kind of a santa-clause thing) while they slept fitfully, and chanted all manner of bizarre things into their ears, so that when they woke in the morning, they began to sublimate like mad. They studied the processes of nature (such as they were, at this young point in the universe) *very* intently, made up games to compete at, erected inane monoliths, spent time doing "Art," and generally acted in an exceedingly bizarre fashion. Art, a rather mediocre lemming, saw this and went "Aw, gee guys, ya shouldn'ta!"
Goron, lord of senseless suffering, popped up on Donnar Eed's Giant world, dressed in a smart, all black business suit with a maroon tie, and asked around 'til he found her, doing something useful.
"Donnar Eed," he said, as graciously as possible. "Wondering if you could make it to a dinner tonight, where we Gods Etc can kinda hammer a few things out. I know you're a busy woman, with endless responsibilities, but I think there are some issues that really need taking care of. And I need help catering it. I can cut you a real deal in suffering to take care of, you could consider it an exchange of professional courtesy. Can I put you down on my list?"
Donnar Eed replied, "Why, Goron, I'd love to come to dinner. Senseless suffering is exactly the kind of thing that goes well with teenagers. I'll bring a tuna casserole." The Pure Waters separating the mighty Lands were now inhabited with tunas.
And when the Last Bifr, Lord Incompetence, received his 2^12 locust dentists and his sample AGAR AGAR, he was much amazed.
He said unto the locusts: "Verily, I have never mastered the art of dental hygiene. Teach it unto me."
And though 2^12 locusts labored for 9^61 eons, they could do nothing to rectify Incompetence's teeth, and eventually, the last expired. Likewise, under the tutelage of the copy of AGAR AGAR, Incompetence labored to be redundant, disease-ridden, and of good oral hygiene. But in this, he failed.
And so Incompetence began to fear that he was angering the copy. And he imagined what might happen if it came down to a fight between them, and AGAR AGAR was annihilated before Incompetence learned of disease, redundancy, and oral hygiene. Terrible! So Incompetence set out to see this never happened....
And pretty quick, they started fighting, the copy of AGAR AGAR was annihilated utterly, and Incompetence was at a loss. Next, he hit upon the notion of going and apologizing to AGAR AGAR, so that AGAR AGAR would not...
A group of lemmings and a group of AGAR AGAR people (formerly "people of the worlds of AGAR AGAR") and even a precocious pair of teenagers witnessed this act and they were awestruck! They fell down on their knees (the lemmings were really good at this) and swore fealty to Incompetence, whether or not Incompetence was into the notion.
Being true to the spirit of their god, they named their cult, "The Clot of Incontinence". And lo! By following the way of their deity, they triumphed over the mindless duplication of AGAR AGAR, for though their ceremonies were simple in the planning, in the execution they were infinite variations of spontaneous interjections of "Oops!" and "Ow!" and "Am I supposed to stand up yet?" and even "That WAS my foot you're standing upon!"
Incompetence said, "Hey, you know, ladies, lemmings, gents and AGARians, I'm really not too good at this sort of thing."
So he tried to convince them to go back to their old ways, and forget about him, but only succeeded in inflaming their worship of him, however clumsy. He resisted the temptation to build rich palaces for his loyal followers, but in the end failed, and accidentally shoved together a tremendous, ugly, bizarre, and exceedingly uncomfortable villa in the middle of nowhere called "Nowheresville." And the Lemmings offered Homage to Lord Incompetence by climbing to the Top of Nowheresville and jumping off.
After he finished eating the locusts, Crow descended on the shoulder of the AGAR AGAR clone, and said unto him,
"Heeeey, AGAR! AWK! Hadn't you better get back to creating copies? Every picosecond or so, each of your worlds becomes unique again, nowadays. Anyway, your shoelace is untied."
At which the clone of mighty AGAR AGAR looked down at the firmament. "CAW! Made you look! Rah ha ha ha! You don't even... ha ha ha.. don't even.. ha ha.."
At this point, a man with a guitar walked up, playing the blues. "Tell me, what are you laughin' at, y'ole bird?" Sang the man. "Ha ha he he he doesn't even have sh.. sh.. sh..."
"I say, what's that you're laughin' at, you old crow?" He sang. "No shoes! AH ha ha ha ha ha."
"Well, you can laugh all you want, but I ain't goin'a laugh with you. Heh heh heh..." Sang the man. Then he stopped, introduced himself to AGAR who was still fuming, and Crow. "Name's Muddy. Muddy Waters. Pleasure to me you, Mr. AGAR. I come a long way, jest to see what I can find." And here he broke back into song. "But NOTHING, no lord, not a single thing, could have ever prepared me for today." And he struck a chord.
"Mmmmm!" Chimed in an approaching voice. "That's a mean... a mean..." "Guitar" Muddy supplied.
"Mean guitar you play, Muddy. Name's Goron. I'd like to invite you all over for dinner, 'sevenin. I'm live roasting some animals I created the other day, and we can sit, drink some wine, maybe invite some of the other gods, get a few things settled. What do you say?"
The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells overheard that one small lemming and replied in a booming voice, "You bet I'm bugged!" and as if to prove the fact, maggots that exude a most rude odor began to crawl out of his eye sockets.
And to vent his anger, he created his loathsome agents of death. The soon to be feared and all around unpleasant fellows: ******Bummer Bunnies******
He let them loose upon upon the Great World, and they multiplied at the rate of 3.147 x 10^18 power every day.
And any unfortunate teenager who encountered one of the Bummer Bunnies (and of course failed his initiative roll) was bit upon the big toe, and the vile venom caused instant death, but not before the teenager could be heard saying "Bummer!" in a most gnarly way.
Unfortunately, at least for the Bummer Bunnies, the prayers of a charter chapter of the Clot of Incontinence (the followers of Incompetence) misfired and influenced the creation of the original Bummer Bunny. The point being, that the aforementioned instant death occurs to the biting bunny, NOT the intended victim. This DID bum out a few of the previously perky kids, 'cuz, like dude, imagine a rabbit hopping up to you, nibbling on your toe, then keeling over. Many teenagers got extreme cases of hypochondria and squealed, in that annoyingly perky manner, "Bummer! Oh Salk, save me!"
The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells pulled out his 'The Complete Gods Handbook' for he felt he somehow could have avoided this grievous occurrence (Imagine the embarrassment when his loathsome agents of death are themselves killed.)
Thus, he plotted a more subtle plan, and created (at a time when the charter chapter of the Clot of Incontinence is not in session) the first rock group called "The Vomiting Vermin and the Ghouls". He sent them on the Great World Tour to enslave the minds of the impressionable young teenagers. Songs like "Lets go lick a splattered Lemming" and "Bummer Bunnies rotting at my feet" contained numerous subliminal messages telling them that they are actually lemmings, and therefore must jump from really high places.
Salk, seeing yet another profit opportunity, promptly invented the Minor Medical Emergency Clinic, and opened numerous branches, mostly right at the bottom of tall cliffs.
He also declared the number 18 to be mystically perfect, and commanded his followers to have 18 children, own 18 pairs of shoes, tithe 18% of their income [from where? They all made loads of pizza as greenskeepers!], etc.
On the page of 'Complete Gods and Goddesses of the Universe' book where Lord Incompetence had his humble listing (they got his name wrong), there was a picture of Lord Incompetence (his eyes were shut).
He stepped up off the page. "Hey, sorry, lord of death and fouls smells etc. My worshippers didn't mean anything by it. I personally thought the bummer bunny idea was really hot. What can I do to make it up to ya?"
The Great Pterodactyl sat on his hideaway, unhappy that his world had been reduced to one land in someone else's world. Though this Donnar Eed had put a stop to the AGAR AGAR foolishness ...
Then, with the invention of different sexes, arrived a female Great Pterodactyl to his nest.
"Call me Pterri!" she said.
The Great Pterodactyl was much happier. And soon it came to pass there were not one but two Great Eggs in the nest -- perhaps a lingering side effect of devouring the AGAR AGAR copy earlier.
Meanwhile, in the land of the lemmings, the furry creatures had great fun jumping into the bottomless pits with trampolines and falling off all the new things in their land.
"Wheeee! *fart*" was the constant refrain, since they had not yet reversed the unfortunate flatulence granted them by some godling or another.
Every few hours, old mountains collapsed and new mountains rose, so the lemmings had a constant variety of things to plummet off.
The giant lemming created by Donnar Eed soon became the best climber and greatest faller of the lemmings, surpassing even Ludvig, and the awed lemmings named him King Leopold of the Lemmings.
But Ludvig was torn by bitterness, and with a few other malcontent lemmings (mostly ones who *liked* splatting before it was outlawed in the lands of G.P.) slunk off into deep caves to become the fearsome .... Dark Lemmings!
The soundtrack musicians -- those not in the string section which was doing most of the ominous sawing -- stood poised at their xylophones, tubas, trombones, kazoos, whistles, tympani, duck calls and assorted noisemakers, for they knew who Ludvig's tutor REALLY was.
Now, the first bifurcation of eternity was getting a little distressed. Eternity #1 was just sitting there. Trying to ignore everything. So he went and questioned #1.
"Wherefore, brother, are you sitting here ignoring the universe and all that needs done in it?"
"What? Oh. Don't pay any attention. It's all illusion."
At this, #2 was really upset. "It may be illusion... but it's *our* illusion, and we should take care of it."
#1 replied, irritated, "OK. You do something about it, then."
"Fine! I will!"
The first bifurcation of eternity, second being to exist in the universe, went to its very core, and began to chant. Momentarily, all manner of bizarre things sprang forth, and so he set about naming them and telling them what to do.
"Ok. You guys are ants. Your special power is to traipse around, form bivouacs, be exceedingly numerous, and have the greatest strength per your size of anything in the galaxy. Got all that?"
"Yeah." They squeaked in unison.
"And you guys are bosons. You're supposed to run out and make gravity. You know, things are attracted to each other as the product of their two masses divided by the square of the distance between them."
"Isn't there a constant?" One piped up.
"Uh, make it up. I don't care."
"Ok. You're, uh, the demon sultan Azathoth. You just stay here and gibber, OK?"
Azathoth gibbered.
"To continue," #2 continued. "You guys are plants. Some of you have to produce edible fruit, some of you have to have flowers, some have to be shrubs, and one of you has to be poison ivy. Work it out." The plants rustled.
"Ok. You guys are scientists, and you guys are professional clergy men. You're job is to make up explanations for things, and be confusing to anybody who doesn't already know what you're talking about."
"Awk!" Crow swooped in. "And that one's Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos!"
"Hey!" exclaimed #2.
"And those are platypuses, cosmic strings, dark matter, paradoxes, confusion, angst, black holes, Awk, and Edsels, ties, jewelry, playing cards, photons, tachyons, nuclear weapons, macrame wall hangings, fillers, preservatives, artificial colors and flavors, junk food, cactuses..."
"Cut it out!" cried the second being of creation, as strange things went flying towards all corners of reality (including some nuclear bombs).
But crow continued. "Marshmallows and marshmallow cream, whoopie cushions, knee pads, skateboards, Television, harmonicas, chinese finger-puzzles, Converse shoes, dresses with shoulder pads, wigs, cigars, studded leather belts and jackets, sunglasses, garage door openers, headbands, weight gloves, belts, and equipment, clip-boards, pill-bugs, snakes, panda bears...."
And the people of the Giant World saw all this paraphernalia strewn across their skies and said, as with one voice, "Oh, joy. More stuff to fall on us."
But a few AGAR AGAR people and an art infested teenager or two spake unto them: "Do you not see? These things up there are signs and portents of our future! For instance, by that panda passing through the cluster of skateboards we can fortell that a king is going to die in particularly embarrassing circumstances."
And a teenager among them named Zoob prophesied, "Wow! Like, that shooting dress shield? Yeah like coming up is a waaay gnarly thing to Betty!"
And so the Vocational School of Astrologers was born.
At this point, #2 was incensed, and proceeded to chase Crow all over creation, leaving a bunch of stuff at the center of the universe yet quite mystified about what it was supposed to be.
In a fit of creative frenzy, Salk created a few things Crow & E#2 hadn't got around to: adhesive bandages, penicillin (of course), and beer (hey, it's a drug!). He'd like to invent bloodletting and/or IV needles, but feels Goron should be consulted first.
After all this creating, Salk needed some rest, so he finally invented an actual game to use all those little holes in Linksland for. He assumed human form, visited his followers, and laid down the rules for them.
And he called the game, "Hockey."
The rules of Hockey were given as follows:
The winner is the being who finishes his/her beer first.
Oh, by the way, Salk also gives his greenskeepers (that is, all inhabitants of Linksland) gender. He promptly invents contraceptives as a precaution, but refuses to export any outside his land for the time being.
"Ahem," said Goron, at the mention of his name.
"Pretty interesting game you've got here, Salk. Oughta make it more competitive, though. Team sports involving phalli are especially good for a little gratuitous injury, and I'm working on a new deal to get that thing Crow just invented.... uh, Television, to cover just such things, and show footage of good injuries over and over again (I'm hoping to work in conjunction with AGAR on that, you know, he has such a talent for re-presenting material..... Oh, forgive me. Name's Goron. The reason I came: IVs and such are fine with me, go ahead. A fine idea.
Ah, I remember the good old days, Salk, before Death showed his face in the universe. Endless suffering. People couldn't die, nope, not at all. Just suffered. I was here first, you know. Yeah.
Well, enough chatter. Keep up the excellent work, my good man."
Though Salk had to admit the universe's layout was a bit more organized now with only one world, he was not too sure about Donnar Eed's vacuum thing. He considered filing a lawsuit, but realized this would be futile without courts, lawyers, governments, and so forth, which he can't really create well since they were not in his Sphere.
Well, perhaps Crow could steal it...
"Caw!" said Crow, in salutation, landing on the sidelines of a hockey game which Salk was watching with some amusement. Crow watched too, and was mightily amused.
"Some game you've got here, Salk. Say, I heard you're thinking about stealing something. Not clear on what, but that's my kinda gig. What's yours, by the way?
Anyway, do you have a plan? I know we could just zip on over in broad eternity-light, but that's really not very sneaky. Really, any ideas at all will do; I'm sure I can come up with something."
Salk replied to Crow, "Er, yeh, I was talking about relieving D.E. of her vacuum thingy. You know, tired of stuff getting sucked and spewed all the time. Anyway, you're the sneaky one; I was hopin you'd have some ideas..."
The air held an expectant charge as Salk awaited Crow's response.
The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells considered the request of the Lord of Incompetence, then said unto him
"No, I *do not* need your ineptitude! I especially do not want you to do anything for Me! Like destroy the Great World in which I have no domain to call My own. For, if you were to do so, as we all know, the end of The First Age will come to an end. No, I do not want you to do that!"
All the while, The Overlord of Death, PhD, secretly hoped that his ploy would come to fruition through the ineptitude of the Lord of Incompetence to obey his desire for him not to do what he just said.
Lord Incompetence shrugged, indifferent, upon hearing this from the lord of death.
"Ok. If that's the way you want it, M'lord. I'll stay as far away from the great world as possible. I sure wouldn't want anything to happen to the great world either, and admire your selflessness in wanting it to survive, even if you have no place there. And your honesty in telling me the truth."
Oboy, was the OoD,PRaGNS in for a Potential Treat! A close inspection of the sacred scripture in the Book of Donnar Eed, chapter 166726, reveals: "She sucked up all the world she was standing on plus all the other duplicate worlds, and out came Giant World," which indicates that the Overlord of Death's world still remained. Incompetence had been transported to another planet entirely. On the Great World, several mortals miraculously avoided tripping over things..
Yet the The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells was extremely jealous that there is no Deathland on Giant World with all sorts of deadly rides and little balloons to hand out, which would be blown up by the flatulent lemmings.
So Incompetence wandered off. On the way, however, he got lost. Quite lost. Utterly and totally lost. Now, as it so happened, all of the newly generated bosons, not yet having well learned their job, and congregating in inordinate numbers around the Great Planet, which Incompetence was mistakenly wandering very near to, jumped the gun, and started to drag Incompetence toward the planet.
By the time Incompetence had discovered what they were doing, he gasped. "No!" he cried. "I have given my word to death that I will not visit or harass the Great World!" And so saying, he began to coruscate with the tremendous energies of annihilation any of the bifrs was able to generate. As they peaked, he fired them at the bosons.
But he missed. And, to his horror, the bolt went shrieking through empty space towards the Great Planet. Incompetence tried to stop it, but he failed! He watched in terror as tremendous, unstoppable annihilative energies enveloped the great planet!!!
Thus came to a close what was later known as the Good Old Days.
More was yet to come as Mr. Death began to plot once again.......
The unstoppable annihilative forces gripped the Great Planet and tore it asunder! Many died and several more were severely put out! Huge chunks went winging off into space. Some of the major ones had some relation to the lands they came from and became known for the surviving landspeople thereon.
For instance, there was:
Many lemmings were thrown into Deep Space and fell forever. For them, this is as close to paradise as it Got.
In the midst of all the Carnage, Salk hastily attempted to assemble an actual priesthood among the inhabitants of Puck World. He instructed them all to wear large divining rods around their Necks, and provided them with huge quantities of drugs to dispense to anybody needing them.
He also created valium, since many people were in dire need of it at this point.
And it came to pass that a procession of the Priests of Salk were venturing forth, all armed with their Divine Eng rods and their cute PEZ-like pill dispensers when they happened upon members of the Clot of Incontinence.
The CoI groups leader said unto the Priests, "Oops, did we wander onto your turf?"
The High Priest spake: "Don't .... Er.... Sweat ... it , man..." for he was truly one who had had a Taste of his Own Medicine.
The CoI leader, after ritually falling backwards and hurting himself Somewhat, said, "That's good. Hey, we were wondering -- a while back, did you notice anything funny happening.. Y'know, ground moving abruptly, people screaming and dying, big rocks in the sky.. stuff like that.. Hello? Anybody home?" The last was because the Priests had all passed out.
The Clot of Incontinence members were sore impressed -- here were obviously mortals who shared the same outlook on life as they did. They all swore an Oath (well, several Oaths, but one was not a Spontaneous Response to bumping into something) to aid Salk and his priests whenever they needed it most.
They said "Take this magical Soap onna Rope and it will summon us, tho we be many leagues apart. Here. Oh. Aren't ANY of you awake? Okay, um, I'll just hang it on .. you .. and um, okay.. Well, that's done.. Hey guys, let's go get some sushi.."
And when the Priests came to, Bertram discovered the Soap onna Rope hanging about his neck and down his back. He vowed, from that day forth, to learn the bagpipes.
Not liking the unstoppable annihilative forces very much, Donnar Eed sucked them up into her Vacuum of Might and spewed them forth into Eternity. "Let them work on Eternity and see how long it will take for those upstart forces to learn their lesson!"
She then sucked up *every* world and pulled out of her bag Huge World, where *each* god had his/hers/its own Land. Among the many Lands (an incomplete list:)
There was now a bridge connecting each land and Donnar Eed was sending over to all her neighbors a casserole.
Donnar Eed then went to visit the Overlord of Death in the newly created Death Land. Standing in front of the Death Lord, she smiled ever so confidently, "There you go, honey. I heard you complaining that you didn't have a place on Giant World, so I included you on Huge World. I even started you off by strewing about some death and decay. Bye!"
She went to give him a peck on the cheek but decided against it when she saw the maggots in the eye sockets. Donnar Eed left. The Overlord of Death looked about his new Land and did indeed see death and decay. In fact he saw billions of discrete elements of death and decay strewn about his new Land each wrapped in its own hermetically sealed plastic baggie.
Those whose land bordered on Death Land gazed forlornly over their (all too short) connecting bridges to that grim, yet rather tidy, place.
It at this moment that the term "Good Old Days" first started gaining popular usage.
The Great Pterodactyl awakened from a short nap atop his twice or thrice reconstructed Hideaway.
"Brack," he said. "Hey, isn't this a different world? Where are all my wonderful lemmings?"
Noticing that Donnar Eed had apparently forgotten the bouncy lemmings, Ptero recreated them in his own land. The new lemmings multiplied, bounced without splatting and had no flatulence woes.
They combined all the best elements of all the former lemmings. Their new king was King Leopold II, largest of the lemmings.
Also, the randomly changing landscape of Pterroland began randomly changing again to give the lemmings a variety of falling experiences.
Meanwhile, Ptero and Pterri munched on a Pizza From Nowhere and kept an eye on those big eggs ...
But what of the original lemmings? What of those of the original models who travelled through horrible hazards across the other lands to return to Pterra Land? Were they to be shunned for their eructions? Also, no small number still hid among the Great Pterodactyl's tail scales, waiting for a flight to distant places and passing the time by playing canasta.
And it came to pass that some of the Lemmings originally launched by the Great Pterodactyl had been floating in Space all this Time. And their Trajectories had been altered by the Actions of Donnar Eed and her Vacuum. Noticing the Similarity between Pterra Land and the original Great Pterodactyl's World, they redirected their Courses (in an unspecified Manner) to interject with it. And they successfully reached that Land. And there was much Rejoicing.
Goron suddenly appeared before Salk, in his customary smart black business suit and maroon tie. But right now, his face made his Tie look pale. He spoke through his teeth, sounding a lot like the godfather.
"My good man, Salk. I thought we had an understanding. I thought that there was a sort of trust between us. Friendship. Now, in the name of friendship, I will ask you, once. Please do not do this thing. Remove all the valium that you have created from the universe."
Salk replied to Goron: "But don't you see, man, this drug is great for both of us! I'll get people started on it, then you convince 'em they need to quit...they'll get plenty of suffering that way, believe me. I built somethinginto valium (and quaaludes) that I like to call Withdrawal Symptoms(tm).
"M-miss Eed?" a timid voice stuttered.
"Yes?"
There before Donnar Eed was a rather ragged, snaggle-toothed, smeared and clumsy looking Bifr.
"H-hello. Um, I'm not here to sell anything. I just, uh, I just wanted you to know, that I'm very, very sorry for what I did to your lovely giant world. Lord Death told me to stay away from here, and I... it was an accident. You have to believe that. I promise, I'll never do it again. I'll even work for you, pay of my debt, you know. Anything I can do to help, you just name it..."
"Oh, you poor dear! Have a seat here at the kitchen table." Donnar Eed puts a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of cold milk in front of the Bifr. "You know," she said in a sympathetic and slightly condescending attitude, "we all make mistakes. In fact, what you did actually helped. Now everybody is all together on one Huge World, with their own land to do what ever they want. And now we can easily visit each other." D.E. continued to comfort the timid Bifr.
"You know, there is something you can do for me." The Bifr's eyes lit up. "Take this lemming casserole to Overlord Death for me. Thank-you"
The bifr (who accidentally spilled his milk getting up, and apologized profusely before being assured that it was all right) took the casserole in both hands, and said "Oh, thank you Ms. Eed! You've been so kind, and all I've been is trouble... I swear, I'll never..."
The bifr raised one hand in oath, and promptly dropped the casserole, which splattered all over the floor. On the verge of a fit of embarrassment, he sputtered "Oh, oh gees, I'm sorry, I'll clean it up, sorry..."
And the Bifr concentrated. On the floor, surrounding the mess appeared numerous half-spherical, feeler-bottomed creatures with eyes. "Well," exclaimed the Bifr, "What are you waiting for? You're scrubbing bubbles! Scrub up this mess!"
"Whee!" the Scrubbing Bubbles exclaimed, circling in ever widening circles, and multiplying, as they went. But the bubbles failed to actually clean anything. Rather, they spread a dirty, slimy foam around all over the place wherever they went. Some got in Donnar Eed's eye, and the Bifr actually fell down and was coated.
Very soon, the bubbles had covered the huge world in dirty, slimy foam, and had begun to drift off into space in innumerable droves, to spread their peculiar plague to many other worlds.
The Bifr just cringed in a puddle of foam, embarrassed.
"I am beginning," said Donnar Eed, primly wiping a dollop of scum from her eye, "to suspect I've heard of you, my young bifr."
Word that Donnar Eed had been baking LEMMINGS into casseroles spread as fast as the scrubbing bubbles! Lemmings of both New and Old vintages bounced up to the Great Pterodactyl and Pterri and pleaded "Please, oh powerful ones! Please protect us! Save us from becoming a dandy side dish!"
Seeing that the life of the teens were not complicated enough to cause them to seek her maternal advice, Donnar Eed created competition. She brought forth schools and part-time jobs and sports. Many of the Teens went to Salk Land to play on the Links and Hockey rinks, many went nowhere to work in pizzerias, and they all had to go daily to red brick buildings that had many classrooms. In these Schools, the teens were measured and evaluated and pressured to do better. Those who failed were labeled stupid.
The teens who went to Salk Land entered med school, where they cut open lemmings to see what made them tick (and bounce) and went on a field trip to study the Great Pterodactyl and wife. Several hundred were seen to be heading toward their eggs with picks in hand.
Many of the Teens could be seen to listening to Lord Death's rock group, "Vomiting Vermin & the Ghouls." These teens were then sorely tempted to toss themselves lemming-like off of high places. Donnar Eed was very pleased with this for she invented the phone and set up a Teen Suicide Hot Line. "They *need* me!" she glistened.
Since the only exposure anybody had had to telecommunications had to do with pizza delivery, there was no end of AGAR AGAR's people calling and saying, "Couldja send a suicidal teenager over here? Yeah, self immolation would be neat..." ... not to mention all the wrong numbers generated by the Clot of Incontinence. And lo, many was the time when a despondent Teenager hurled herself over a precipice, only to land in a pile of just-delivered pizza. Afterwards, the Teenager would look a lot like a de-clawed Freddy Kreuger, albeit of a cheesier Odor.
In No land, the mighty, darksome Ludvig, clambered out of his hole. He went among those at the yet extremely comfortable villa called Nowheresville, and spoke to the high priests of the Clot of Incontinence. He proposed a pact between his people and those of the Clot, and found that in fact, their Lord was one in the same.
Together, with the sorcerous might bred for thousands of years underground in the bowls of various worlds, Ludvig's demigod powers, and the prayers of the Clot, they summoned one who would have the power to address all their grievances.
The great circle of Clot and dark lemmings was silent, waiting.
And from the dimness, came a sound mournful as the end of time. And among them strode Muddy Waters, and his guitar.
Unto the people of the Clot and the race of the dark lemmings, Muddy Waters gave the Blues.
And that was the birth of the blues.
Check.
Lessee..
Reds (Invented by Salk, along with a lot of other pills)
Greens (Kept by Salk's employees)
Black & White (from Donnar Eed)
The cosmos was beginning to shape up, chromatically.
If any non-dark or unClotted lemmings had been present, they could have told Ludvig, "This isn't the same world any more!" And they would have been right! For instance, tho Ludvig and the Dark Lemmings were too addled with their mad schemes to realize it, the mouth of the cave had not even been in the same land as when they entered. Perhaps they chalked it up to being a travelling cave?
Also, Ludvig knew not of the existence of the new, gas-free lemmings! The old style lemmings had only the discovery of fire barring them from jet propulsion, but the new breed were weaker. And like weaklings, they could sneak up (or fall) on foes without their odor giving them away.
But it soon came to pass that far fewer of the teens with picks returned from the field trips to G.P.'s Hideaway.
It also came to pass that Ptero began to gain some weight from the constant parade of snacks.
Some of the smarter members of the new, non-gaseous lemmings started to complain to the Teenagers, "Donnar Eed is sending you here to be eaten!" for the lemmings felt that G.P. and his main squeeze should have a lemming-only diet.
FLICK went the switch of Donnar Eed's Mighty Vacuum and all the scrubbing bubbles of the Huge World were sucked back up. Out from the bag, Donnar Eed pulled Scrubbing Bubba, a new demi-god. Bubba shone like a newly waxed floor, and if you looked into his chest, you could see yourself.
"Bifr, this is Scrubbing Bubba, he is your secretary. He will organize your life and keep you out of trouble." Donnar Eed gave Bifr a new Lemming Casserole to take to the Overlord of Death and he promptly dropped it. But quicker that light itself, Bubba caught the casserole and placed it back in Bifr's hands. Bifr looked in astonishment as Bubba led him out the door, catching him as he tripped on the welcome mat. Bubba led Bifr over the bridge to Death Land, keeping the casserole in Bifr's hands and preventing him from accidentally destroying all of creation three times over. Bubba and Bifr finally knocked at Death's door.
Ptero sat in his nest atop his Hideaway as his bouncy lemmings pleaded for rescue from the mad culinary schemes of Donnar Eed.
"Brack," he said. "Time to have a talk with this goddess, I guess."
And so the Great Pterodactyl went winging off to the house of Donnar Eed. The lemmings in his tail scales were overjoyed to find themselves on a dangerous trip at last.
In fact, they were so overcome with excitement that as the vast shadow of G.P. passed over Incompetence and his helper on their way to Death's door, one of the lemmings plummeted out of the sky into the lemming casserole! "Wheeee! -splooosh- *fart*" he cried. As a result of the lemming's flatus into the casserole, the dish was rendered really Stanky indeed!
Soon, G.P. arrived at the house of Donnar Eed.
"Brack," he said. "What's this I hear about you baking my lemmings into side dishes? Lemmings must *always* be *main* dishes ... or I guess a lemming meringue pie would be all right."
The lemmings heard of this and there rose up a great wail. "Why do you shun us like this? Why are we to be given as food to those who have no leathery wings? no tails? no silent P?" And many a lemming prayed, "Eat me, O Great Pterodactyl!" Others decided to try praying to Pterri instead, for she did not encourage the outlanders to steal their kin.
Donnar Eed sat across from Ptero at the Kitchen Table with pursed lips nodding sympathetically as she listened intently to his complaint of baking lemmings into side dishes. Lightly tapping Ptero's claw, she said, "I certainly understand, my dear. Perhaps I can make it up to you." Donnar Eed got up and became a blur in the Kitchen as various appliances clicked on and off. She paused briefly and asks, "Ptero, would you like some scrambled e... um, I guess not, never mind." She continued to blur until at last she stopped and placed on the table a huge platter containing roast lemming, lemming croquets, strained lemming sauce, and a diet Coke with a slice of lemming. "Is that better? Please, eat up. And we'll send a dish home with you for that lovely Mrs. Ptero."
As they finished their meal, Donnar Eed, tactfully brought up another point, "Ptero, dear, I was wondering if you could do me a favor? Please stop eating the teens. Oh, I know it was naughty of them to try to do archeological experiments on your eggs. If you could instead just *threaten* to eat them and make sure they have a phone nearby where they can call me for help. I'll come right over and take them away from your eggs and give them a stern lecture. Is that all right with you, sweetie?"
"Brack," Ptero said. "OK. The lemmings were getting upset with me anyway, and teens are too fattening. We can trade -- I'll stop eating your teens, and you can stop eating my lemmings."
While Ptero had been travelling from his Hideaway to the House of Donnar Eed, several of the still floating Lemmings noticed the Great Pterodactyl, with several of their Cousins in his tail Scales. Not recognizing the Surroundings, they decided that it would still be Worthwhile to arrive near him and obtain a ride Home. They arrived at the house of Donnar Eed in Time to hear Ptero's Announcement. In Response to his horrible Pun, most of this Group of Lemmings rolled on the ground moaning, while the Remainder decided to run around Donnar Eed's House and wreak Havoc.
The god Havoc, in his distress, Cried Out, "Stop Wreaking me you stupid obsolete model lemmings!"
And many of the lemmings of the Remainder found Donnar Eed's Vacuum of Might.
"Wow!" they said, "That is a Big Sucker!" And many gathered 'Round.
One of the lemmings (either Ernest or Reynaldo) noted something about the amazing Object.
"This Thing expels gas! Therefore..."
".. IT MUST BE A LEMMING!" the rest of them cried.
Whereupon they conceived of the plan to rescue their brother from the auslemmingisch Donnar. And it came to pass that while Donnar Eed was Distracted by doing her Cooking Thing for the Great Pterodactyl, the Vacuum of Might was scurried out the Back Door on a multitude of lemmings.
They dashed forth from the Adobe of D.E. and ran and ran, until they found themselves totally Lost. They knocked at a door to ask Directions, and it turned out to be the door of an abbey of the Priests of Salk.
A cry of joy came from within, for it was the very abbey in which lived the priest, Bertram. "Bagpipes!" he bellowed. "I vowed to learn how to play these! Which end do you blow into, anyway?" And he carried it off to his cell, leaving the confused and exhausted lemmings in the abbey's foyer. "Well, I guess he knows the Guy," they rationalized and struck up a fresh Game of Canasta.
All through the time that D.E. and G.P. were having Their Meal, Bertram tried and tried to play the Vacuum of Might. He polished it inside and out with the Soap onna Rope given to him by the Clot of Incontinence. Try as he could, no bagpipish sounds Spilled Forth from the Gadget. So he fell asleep.
From all these Attentions, the Vacuum of Might was forever Transformed. It had become the Vacuum of Might Not. But at least It didn't suck, to such a Great Extent.
And Havoc fled across the universe, though not faster than light (since he had not the arrogance of the unscientific Bubba who exceeds the speed of the Light in the Vacuum of Might (possibly Not) without the dignity of a suitable pseudoscientific doubletalk drive).
Within that aching void, he found the nuclear weapons, amongst whom there was was much wailing and lamentation, for they were unable to serve their Lord and Master, the OverLord of Death etc., for nowhere in creation were there Launch Codes.
And Havoc gathered up the nuclear weapons, and carried them unto the demi-God Hero Ludvig, Champion of Lemmings.
"Mighty Ludvig, Here are the piteous nuclear weapons, more powerful than the beak of the Great Pterodactyl, yea stronger even than the Vacuum of Might! With them you may restore the Good Old Days (falsely so called)."
"Of course, If you or any of your Flatulent Lemming Force (FLF) are caught or made into pies, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
But still, there were no Launch Codes. And the Lemmings scurried around, wondering about this mystery of Codes. And, except for one foolish young Lemming who insisted that he had a Code id his Doze, none would claim to fathom them.
The Great Pterodactyl waddled outside with Donnar Eed, politely waited for the lemming crowd to climb on (on the off-chance he'd want an in-flight snack) and winged off back to his Hideaway.
On the return trip, several of the flatulating lemmings fell off and rained on the already smelly domain of Death, where they'd hardly be noticed -- except for the one or two who bounced off his Deathness as he talked to Incompetence et al. Soon Ptero arrived back on the mountaintop to rejoin Pterri, who was quite full from all the lemmings begging to be Eaten.
Meanwhile, in some land or another across the sea, Ludvig wondered just where in the heck he was.
"Where the heck am I?" wondered Ludvig.
He was NoWhere, and many of his followers told him so. "You're NoWhere, man," they said.
Ludvig cried out, "Don't give me that Zen crapola! You know it gives me Headaches! Now you guys, never mind where we ARE, it's where we're GOING!"
His supporters Ooohed and Aaaahed over Ludvig's Positive, Motivated Outlook.
He continued, "It's time we show these lemming-come-latelys Who's Boss!"
"Er, that would be the Great Pterodactyl, wouldn't it?" said one who will Die Soon and thus does not need a Name.
Ludvig retorted, his voice gaining power as he spoke. "Once there was One Pterodactyl and He Was Boss, no doubt about It. But things have changed, haven't they? His Nest is no longer free from treason. Is the Great Pterodactyl the same Great One as he was in the Good Old Days?"
"NO!" came the unanimous roar in reply.
Great Doings were about to come out of NoWhere!
Bertram, High Priest of Salk and Mellow Dude (M.D.), decided it'd be a good idea to waltz over to Eed Land and introduce teenagers to the wonders of little pills. Besides, that seemed to be the happ'nin' place to be at the moment. He was warned by Salk in a vision, however, to stay clear of that d--- vacuum. This took Bertram's mind off his failure, so far, with those bagpipes. Bertram wondered what a Vacuum was, and how he might avoid It.
AGAR AGAR, god of plague, pestilence, disease, dentistry, and redundancy was not pleased with Salk and his pills (except for the ones that prevented halitosis). So AGAR AGAR said (twice), "Let there be pestilence and disease in Salk Land, on the links and hockey rinks. Let the disease be such that everyone's throats swell up so much that they can't take pills." And the grass on the links withered, and the golfers and the hockey players collapsed, and the med students got a note from Donnar Eed saying that they couldn't go to class today for they weren't feeling well.
Somewhere Else entirely, Havoc called: "Gather round, all Ye Sons of the Crow. . ."
"The Creator rests, while I, Havoc, am raised throughout the land. My Uncle Ludvig and his trusty Dark Lemmings await their moment of glory, when they may restore the Good Old Days. The Anti-Crow Donnar Eed seeks to destroy chaos and quantum indeterminacy, but in vain. The Copy Protection scheme cannot be found, nor can Launch Codes, of which foolish young Lemmings (fyLs) know naught."
Havoc did smite the fyLs most grievously, and they did fly across the sky of Nowhere, screaming "WHEEE!"
"The time for Launch Codes has not yet come. For when the nuclear weapons achieve their destiny, it shall be the end of all creation, yea, even the Great Pterodactyl shall be usurped, and all of his letters shall be silent. The sign for this shall be the hatching of the eggs."
"Soon, my brethren and sisteren. Less than tenscore and seven hours remain. In that time shall all things come to naught. The teenagers shall graduate or drop-out, the lemmings shall reach their lowest possible energy state, from which no further falling shall be possible, pizza delivery will be abolished, and AGAR shall have only one name."
"Hear Ye, and know that my words are subject to change without notice and your mileage may vary."
(Professional prophet under uncontrolled conditions. Do not try this at home.)
"Nuclear Weapons!! Great!!" Exclaimed Donnar Eed as she initiated nuclear bomb drills in the schools and counseled many a teen over the fear of total annihilation.
AGAR AGAR considered the nuclear bombs and said, "What good are they unless they proliferate?" Then there were millions of nuclear bombs, everyone had one, but still no Codes to detonate them.
Meanwhile, a Few of the Lemmings were trying to persuade the foolish young Lemming to take a Nap, so that they could try to take the Code frub his Doze.
Bertram, MD, saw what he and his fellow dudes had wrought in D.E. Land and perceived that it was cool. He knew Salk would find it, like, whoa. Then, he had an Idea.
Bertram climbed atop a convenient pedestal, motioned the other dudes to gather around, cleared his throat, asked an underling for a red, swallowed it, refocussed on the forming crowd, slicked back his hair, kissed the Soap onna Rope for good luck, cleared his throat again, raised his right index finger, and spoke.
"You know...," he philosophized. Then he paused for effect. His followers knew the effect of the red would likely last for quite some time.
And Salk looked upon his once-beautiful-now-withered greens and frowned quite a lot. He pouted a bit and kicked the sun, whereupon lots of little suns sprinkled out and landed all about the sky, which Salk promptly named stars, and ordered his priests to spend lots of time studying them and uttering holy phrases like, "Far out."
And lo, Salk reached out his hand and took a sample from one of the stars and placed it in his Petri Dish of Pretty Neat Things, and allowed it to grow into a mold, with which he reseeded his land.
And he called the new grass, Astroturf. And it was really strong and quite unwitherable and easy to care for, and the greenskeepers rejoiced and drank much beer.
And a Few of the Lemmings examined the Astroturf. And they discovered that the Astroturf was unpleasant to Land on. And they wandered around looking for someone to whom they could deliver a Complaint.
The Creator yawned and settled back for His nap. Things had quieted down nicely...
.. and Bertram awoke from his Own little catnap and found he was in front of a Multitude who were, in fact, awaiting His Words..
"Serving Salk is my life, and to help with My Meditations, I have found the Mystic Bagpipes which I had around here.. No, I guess I left them in my cell. Zabba, could you be a Dear and go fetch Them for me? Thanks a bundle. Where was I? Oh yeah. While I was in my --errr..-- Mystic Trance a moment ago, I noted the far off vibes of Forces. Yea, Forces of severe non-mellowness! Once Zabba returns with my Instrument, we will be able to discern just what to do about these Forces."
Halfway around the Huge World, Ludvig's ears burned. It was not just because Bertram was talking about him; Ludvig had been rubbing his head on one of the Nukes in the hopes of knowing its secrets.
"Aww.. This is ridiculous! Anyway, everybody's got one or two of these suckers now, so how can they help us prevail? I say the main source of our troubles is that she-devil Pterri! Let's go give her a piece of our minds!" And they set to working on "Pterri Go Home!" signs.
Meanwhile, in Eed land, the latest dance tune was the saga of their neighbors' troubles with the new astroturf. It was entitled "Skidmarks On My Lemming"..
(And the Universe held its breath, waiting for the hidden flaw in the Vacuum to manifest itself..)
Just for the hell of it, Crow, who had been long chased by eternity #2, returned from the sojourn directly to demesnes of his long-lost son Ludvig. He found Ludvig rubbing his ears up against a nuclear warhead. At this Crow was mightily pleased with his son's resourcefulness.
"Caw! Ludvig my son! What are you trying to do?"
"Father?! How could you have left my mother? I hate you."
"No matter, son, I give unto thee, launch codes, nuclear powered flying cybertanks, and all manner of fun new toys. Here are the instructions, here are the batteries, here is the rocket fuel.... that should do it. It's time this world got stirred up a little bit. Have fun! Awk!"
In a faraway land, atop a cloud-covered mountain peak, the Great Pterodactyl woke. A dream had come to him in the night -- a dream of nuclear weapons, cybertanks, Ludvig the Lemming and a Crow. A very weird dream.
But Ptero knew, *knew*, it was more than a dream. He had experienced a vision of faraway happenings, and at last knew the feathered face of his enemy. Now the Crow had set events in motion that would threaten the very Huge World -- not that Ptero cared all that much. But he also threatened Pterroland, Pterri and the Eggs, and that could not be borne.
So Ptero flew, flew as never before, to Nowhere and the Lair of the Dark Lemmings. Thunderous sonic booms sounded, and tornados were scattered in his wake, as he sped for Nowhere.
When he arrived, Ptero found the Dark Lemmings gathering for war in their shiny new cybertanks, missiles, battleships and other toys.
"Brack!" roared Ptero.
"Uh oh," Ludvig said.
Beating his great wings, the Great Pterodactyl created a huge hurricane wind that blew the Dark Lemmings and all their equipment completely off Huge World into space. "Wheeeeee!" exclaimed the Dark Lemmings, as they tumbled through the airless void, forevermore.
But Father Crow's instructions were incomprehensible, as literacy had not yet been created. And the Launch Codes were not redundant, for they had not known the touch of AGAR AGAR, and so could not be used, even in a Responsible Fashion by a duly constituted Command Authority.
And Havoc created the great Draft. And it swept across the world. And Lo, the Lemmings marched off things in tight formation, and many teenagers did receive Codes in dere Dozes. And Azathoth continued to gibber, thought this was unknown by any save Nyarlathotep, who crawled through the placeless Void unseen. And there was much rejoicing. . .
Bertram was brought the Mystic Bagpipes, and he played upon them, though exceedingly badly, and the ears of the Multitude were quite sore. Bertram stopped playing, the crowd sighed with relief, and the high priest waited for some sort of vision -- but strangely, considering his state of consciousness, none was forthcoming.
"Hmmph," he offered to the Multitude, "must have been a false alarm."
What Zabba actually in fact brought Bertram was not the VMN, but rather small lemming, which was one reason Bertram's playing was so bad. Neither Zabba, Bertram, or probably the lemming was in any state of consciousness to be able to tell the difference. But, when they received word of this Maltreatment of that other one of their Kind, many of the other Lemmings began to arrive with the Intent of performing a Rescue.
And lo, Salk looked upon his priests, and found them all high, and he spake forth and said something, and it was, "Hey! Wait a minute! Whatever happened to my original goal of actually *helping* beings? Things are gonna have ta get changed around here..." And so Salk set about Changing Things.
First of all, Salk waived the green fees he'd been charging to use the Hockey Courses, which upset the greenskeepers a little, but generally was approved by everyone else. Then, he actually provided free contraceptives to all the teenagers in D.E. Land, which definitely made them happy and gave Donnar Eed something else to advise them about.
Finally, he saw a glob of Lemmings hurling through space, and felt they probably weren't happy there, so he snatched them up and placed them back on the Huge World, where there were actually surfaces for them to fall on.
The Dark Lemmings had actually in fact been enjoying their eternal fall, but they were now also quite happy to be back on the HW where they could begin wreaking Havoc in earnest. Havoc, tormented by the terrible music of Salk Land, and wreaked by the Dark Lemmings, fled from Nowhere unto The Place Whose Name Has Been Lost, where dwelt the Sage of Endless Axioms.
"Oh Wise One, Wherefore has this Vale come to be? What is to be done?"
Meanwhile, the Teenagers discovered Astroturf. "Behold! A new Gift from the Drug God Salk! We must eat of it!"
"Nay!" cried others of the Teenagers, "It is to be smoked!"
And thus did the teen gangs begin their Turf Wars. Some easily confused teens started shouting "Die, Turf!" And the Lemmings who wished to complain about the Astroturf were not pleased to be in the Middle of the Turf Wars. And they began to swarm in the Manner that only Lemmings can swarm.
Lo a great and terrible noise struck the WORLD and the VOID. Between the IS and the NOT opened the door.
Through the door came through YVQ*!GP defender of green fees and the rhythm method. Striding through, YVQ*!GP swung about the holy Pointy - Flag - Thing - Usually - in - a - Golf - Green - Hole and struck the Huge World. The world shivered, stars fell, and condoms lost integrity.
Salk mightily did not appreciate this uninvited guy coming in and mucking up his greens, as well as those neato stars. He also wondered what those Dark Lemming guys were doing since he'd been so nice as to bring them back to the World so they *could* in fact do something.
YVQ*!GP observed the Lemmings on the AstroTurf and was most displeased. Lo, not one divot did he see upon the greens. Yea, niblicks and putters were free of dirt and grass stains. Nowhere did YVQ*!GP not see the abominable AstroTurf.
A vision overcame YVG*!GP and it spoke. "Oh by the blessed sod, I see most curiously accoutered runners upon the AstroTurf. I see a most fell oblong bladder carried by one of these runners. Hark! I see injuries! By the 49 and the Bo, this must not be!"
YVG*!GP mightily shook its head. And from its head sprung forth the seeds of the Kentucky Blue and the Bermuda.
YVG*!GP saw that the seeds fell upon the most unfertile AstroTurf and lay there, wanting for nourishment. Turning to the Lemmings, it said "By the High and the Low, the ones of not the Par shall forever give unto the seeds!"
So it came to be that those who mocked the keepers of the greens fell upon all fours and changed most strangely. Two horns appeared on their heads, a long tail grew from their nether end, and most curious of all, they took upon the appearance of the singing Jersey Maids. A loud "Mooo!" was heard across the land followed by a "plop!"
Joggers! The first Sign of the End o' The Universe!
The Sage of Endless Axioms spake unto Havoc "Lo, the coming of the Runners Without Purpose is a Sign that the End is Nigh."
The Great Pterodactyl awoke from an unexpected nap, during which he dreamed some entity called the phone company had disconnected his telephone for no apparent reason. But the dream ended pleasantly as he convinced them to reconnect the device.
Looking about the nest atop his Great Hideaway, Ptero noticed tiny cracks seamed the two Great Eggs. The Eggs were hatching!!
The second Sign of the End o' The Universe!
"Soon they shall venture unto the star-grass and behold the Lemmings of MU. Then shall there be Stock Markets. And therefrom shall proceed CEOs, Leveraged Buyouts, Insider Tradering, Banking Scandals, Monopolistic Practices, and MultiNational PoliCorps. And in those hours shall Prophets foresee the Great Loss. And the MultiCorps shall bring forth Lobbyists, and Lobbyists shall bring forth Government."
"Then Shall the Doom of Creation be Truly Sealed."
And Some of the Lemmings began to consider how they might Jump without leaving their current Positions.
In the game room at the Abbey, Those lemmings were still playing Canasta. "Hey! Who put all these tarot Death cards in the deck?"
In Pterroland, a shell cracked open just enough to permit a metallic pincer to come out...
And some of the Lemmings in Pterroland climbed up to the Shell and tried to jump off the metallic Pincer. Some fell off the pincer INTO the egg.
"Wheeeeee!" *glomph* "Ack! Ptoo! Ptoo!"
In the Land of Eed, the teenagers ran about in confusion, for the place was a mess and Donnar Eed might return and then they'd be in Big Trouble..
"Donnar Eed asked me to bring you . . ." began Bifr, tripping over the Threshold of Death. Scrubbing Bubba dived for the lemming Casserole yet again, but slipped upon the Putrefied Remains and fell headfirst into the Casserole, whose contents splattered onto The Overlord of Death, Putrefied Remains and Generally Nasty Smells, PhD (Under New Management).
And from this this seething Mass of filth and corruption, there arose: *UBERLEMMING*!
With the powers of Death and Corruption, the Might of Scrubbing Bubba, the Chaotic Disruption of Bifr the Hopeless, the wisdom of Donnar Eed, and the Sword of NOT (used in the casserole by Donnar Eed, who thought it NUTmeg).
*UBERLEMMING* screamed in rage and agony;
*I* SHALL NOT FALL, SAVE THAT THE WHOLE OF CREATION FALLS WITH ME!
The Walls of DeathLand Shattered, and now all on Huge World was subject to his power.
And Lemmings throughout creation screamed in Ecstacy and Terror.
(WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!)
The Third Sign of the End o' The Universe!
And all of the Lemmings everywhere stopped their Jumping, so that they might be Certain of making their next Jump simultaneous with the *UBERLEMMING*.
And atop G.P.'s Hideaway in Pterroland, Ptero and Pterri looked at the metal pincer coming out of the egg. They looked at each other, confused.
Just then, the second egg hatched. And out came the Anti-UBERLEMMING!
Anti-UBERLEMMING screamed in joy and happiness;
"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"
And he jumped across Huge World, in the greatest jump ever made by a Lemming, to collide with the UBERLEMMING in stinky Deathland.
What would happen when the UBERLEMMING and Anti-UBERLEMMING collided? Would Huge World disappear in a Huge matter/anti-matter explosion? Could it be saved?
And some of the Lemmings on the Ground beneath Anti-UBERLEMMING tried to follow his Shadow so as to be present at the Collision between Anti-UBERLEMMING and the *UBERLEMMING*.
As the deadline neared, the Huge World started to waver and fade into myth.
"Now I know how Tyrone Slothrop felt!" shouted a Person of AGAR AGAR.
Salk felt a numbness in his extremities and, when slapping his hands together didn't help, he realized this was a sign of the coming End. Accordingly, he made sure all his followers had plenty of drugs, and the greens were nice and clean. Then he trotted off to his Final Hockey Game.
"Time, gentlemen, please!" rang the cry over all the hockey courses in Salk Land...
Havoc, wreaked no more, crept unto the bosons and varied their gravitational constant, raising it to levels unheard of. And all those things which had been cast out into the Void came crashing back onto Huge World.
Those which had been Lemmings went WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
And Crow gathered the Launch Codes from the noses of lemmings and Teenagers, and declared himself a Duly Constituted Command Authority.
Crow went unto an AGAR AGAR, crying *CAW*!
Then AGAR AGAR did duplicate Crow (twice).
And the Crows did cast the Launch Codes unto the nuclear weapons, who exploded in joy!
And *UBERLEMMING* and *UNTERLEMMING* (nee` Anti-*UBERLEMMING*) did crash together in mighty combat!
The players play deities and create the universe.
This game is designed for use on any online message system where message
threading is used.
Once you've decided to run the game, pick a date when you want it
to expire. Two weeks is a pretty good time limit for this bout of insanity.
Don't plan on getting a heck of a lot of real life stuff done during the
game. The Author ran the first one during a two week vacation.
The game starts when you post a message announcing it. Include the ending
date and time (remember to mention a time zone!) and the player rules (everything
below the title "Players") in the post. For people starting after the initial
posts have scrolled off, either point out this file in the libs or be ready
to repeat the rules.
You join the game by posting your first message, which will be a
reply to an already posted message. This is a description of your PC's birth
(typically from another immortal), or a tie-in to an event. (EG: "And from
that gaping gash in Redbug's gut springs Zeerpma, to whom all electric toasters
shall henceforth owe fealty!") No asking the Game Master -- you're in
automatically. In the event of two claimants to the same domain... Well,
we'll figure that out as we go along. (Note that this means that the first
player message will have to be the basis of the creation myth. Make it good.)
If nothing has been posted for a PC by that PC's player for more than
48 hours, anybody may take over the PC by posting an action. (Then the PC
is that player's until another 48 hour gap.)
The game ends abruptly at the date and time the GM indicates. Then all
the goings on will pass into legend and myth.
Initiating threads is one of the few prerogatives reserved for the Game
Master. ALL player messages must be posted as a reply to somebody else! If
your post is so long that it takes more than one message, split it up into
multiple messages and post them separately.
Events happen in the order of the message posts.
Any player may logically delete any message to or from him. On message
boards where actual deletion is not possible, it may be simulated with a
message identifying the deleted message. The actions in any deleted message
may disappear with an audible *pop*. Or they may not -- depending
on whether the players and GM notice. (No prohibitions on re-posting a
deleted message, but if it happens over and over for the same message, everybody
will probably think you're a jerk.)
... and that's it!