The Man with the Plan

We were with winfry winster when we went, well, onto a more interesting history of the Intergalactic Commonwealth of Foggistan because who would be worried about the mysterious Foggistani fleet if it had been a her-story? Unless of course it was a story by Lithuanian Starr – that strumpet is so scary that she will probably jump out of the Realm of Blog and eat my appendix. … Yep, she just did and it wasn’t very fun. Fortunately I had my decoy appendix, but I really don’t like my Ochem book with the back pages ripped out - it just looks tacky.

Anyhowsers, we were with winfry winster preparing and you are probably like, “Preparing?! What is this? - the boy scouts? How interesting can preparing be? And how could one dude be preparing for a whole nation of slugs when the apocalypse is about to be thrown down?”

But before you go judging, let me tell you a bit about our mr. winster. As you can already tell, mr. winster is not your average nilbmahian, and no he’s not your median nilbmahian either. mr. winster never fit in, which is surprising because he was always rather small and flexible. But for some reason he just could never follow the nilbmahian ways. All his teachers tried to make him go to the playground but he would simply refuse to stop reading his book, or doing his math problems or writing his essay or what ever it was he was doing. His parents sent him to a psychiatrist but even she, with all her Freudian slips (yes, she has slips with Freud’s face on them – and yes they are very sexy if I do say so myself [What?! Professor Stielstra told me to know everything about my characters and that includes undergarments. Don’t judge me!]) … Anyways, even she couldn’t get him to jump into nilbmahian culture. And eventually his parents gave up trying to change him and he went to university on scholarship to Earlenguard University in the Foggistani colony on Coralende's partly-habitable first moon of Attica to study political science and literature. At first our winster was thrilled to leave the place where he was such an outlier; he was finally through with those lazybodynogoodfornothing nilbmahians. And that’s when a strange thing happened; he found himself defending his countrypeople to his Foggistani peers and believe me the only jokes the Foggistani’s have are lazy nilbmahian jokes and believe me even more, those jokes get old really fast – they turn 102 in like 2 seconds. So in spite of his twenty standard deviations away from the nilbmahian norm, winster realized that he had an immense pride for his nation. So it seemed that the all the contradictions of Foggistan had seeped into him like rain that seeps into your boots and makes them go “squilish squilish” when you walk. I hate that.

And it was only after winster had been a walking contradiction for 3 years that the light bulb went on (yes before that he had to use a candle in his dorm room – No dummy, it’s called figurative language). In that moment, he realized that he was going to turn niblmah into the greatest nation to ever nation Coralende. Yes this big goal was ambitious, yet feasible and he decided to devote his life to this task. And he knew that in order to become great, a nation needed two things more than anything else: legend and literature. A golden lie if you will and if you won’t well how about you make your own post and quit complaining about mine. So he returned to niblmah, much to everyone’s surprise and for the past 7 years winfry winster had been writing and it was fail!

The Intergalactic Commonwealth of Foggistan: Striking the Balance

"Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean." -Aristotle

The Intergalactic Commonwealth of Foggistan is an outsider to planet Coralende. It is a federation of 17 worlds, clustered together in a constellation roughly 15 light-years away, and its only permanent presence in the solar system is a small colony on Coralende's partly-habitable first moon of Attica. More importantly, a fleet of nearly 70 scientific, economic, and military starships arrived in the system only 3 months ago, ostensibly to investigate a set of anomalies their scientists detected over 30 years ago in the Foggistani core worlds. It is this fleet, with its extensive resources, manpower, and advanced technology, that makes Foggistan a major player in Coralende's affairs.

The Commonwealth itself is a textbook case of contradictions. It officially operates as a single whole, despite the fact that worlds separated by light-year distances must operate independently for most practical purposes, and that each world maintains a distinct culture conditioned by the characteristics of their first settlers. Its political order varies from world to world, but universally mixes elements of democracy and monarchy, with administration shared (and fought over) between both elected assemblies and representatives of the Grey King. Its economic system finds a middle ground between capitalism and socialism, reflecting dual (and sometimes contradictory) commitments to both liberty and social justice, and balancing the wish to free business from the heavy hand of government with the need for disciplined coordination to survive in the hostile environments of virgin planets.

What makes Foggistan so Foggistani is its commitment to balance, moderation, and the reconciliation of opposites. The nation was first born nearly a thousand years ago, on the distant planet Breckinridge, when its legendary warrior founder King William I combined a calling to justice, diplomatic cunning, and sheer military force to unite three warring ethnic groups under his rule. He established a political system where he would share power with councils representing the notables of each of the three ethnicities, and his heirs would spend their lives preventing the kingdom from breaking apart so that it could continue to grow and thrive. The passage of a millenium has brought many changes, but the basic nature of the Commonwealth has changed little: the Grey Kings use moral suasion, cunning, and military might to create and maintain order among the peoples under their protection. The unique Foggistani philosophy of moderation, in turn, is the direct result of this constant balancing act. The King and his representatives will approach any problem by identifying the forces threatening to destabilize or undermine in the situation and then forging a path that maintains the most careful balance. The metaphor of this approach has gained new currency in the age of interstellar colonization, where small variations in the environment of a planet or a spaceship can mean the difference between life and death. There are an infinite number of unsuitable environments, conditions with too much or too little heat, too much or too little of this gas or another, and only a small band of conditions capable of supporting human life for any significant period of time. There are many ways to die and only one path, the middle path, that leads to life for you and for future generations.

The Coralendians are vaguely familiar with the Foggistanis, but none of them are sure what the Foggistani fleet is doing in their orbit. Vague explanations about "anomalies" satisfy no one, and it is clear the arrival of the fleet is connected somehow to the disturbing events taking place in LushLocks, but no one knows for sure what the Foggistani role in the situation is--are they here to help, or will they use the Coralendians as pawns in their own games? The Foggistani inhabitants of Attica, for their part, have mixed feelings about the fleet as well. By royal decree, the commander of the fleet, Admiral Solomon Jagesic, has replaced the old Governor-General as the official representative of the King in the Coralendian solar system. His relationship with the elected Prime Minister of Attica has been strained, in no small part because the fleet "requisitions" substantial portions of the colony's resources for its own unclear objectives.

The end of the developing situation in Luscious Locks remains to be written, but it seems clear that, whatever happens, the Foggistanis will respond with their characteristic blend of careful planning and balanced execution. Admiral Jagesic is a servant of the King, after all, and like all good Foggistani soldiers, he is an ardent pacifist--and a fierce warrior.

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Illustration of Admiral Jagesic done with the most gracious assistance of Hero Machine 2.5:
http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heromachine2/heroMachine2.asp

The Bauchery

In the meanwhile of you trying to figure out what in the name of haughty hedgehogs is going on with Lithuania and Marco – are they dead? are they both high? is Marco cheating on Lithuania so she crashed the chopper and pretended to kill herself so that he will come back to her? – ah where was I? oh yeah, in the meanwhile, the citizens of the socialist nation of nilbmah where partying it up down and sideways. It was the 3^rd day of the week of national festivities celebrating something that the nilbmahians had long since forgotten in favor of focusing on the frivolity rather than the trivial details of how the founding fathers had fought feverously for the right to be right or something.

Perhaps some of the citizens had heard of the strange goings-onings that where going on around abouts Coralende, but even if it weren’t the 3^rd day of the national festivities, they wouldn’t have paid much attention, not even a single schifel in fact. So as it was the 3^rd day of the national festivities, they were lucky if they could remember their own names let alone a lone gossiping about those other parts of Coralende.

A completely social nation, nilbmah was heartily, liverly, lungly and pretty-much-every-other-part-of-the-bodyly against capitalization. So they had centralized everything so every one was centered in the capitol, nilbmah city, so everyone in the state of niblmah was in a state of downleft debauchery, everyone, that is, except for whinfry winster.

whinfry winster, the only one inside his apartment on the 3^rd day of national festivities, looked down on his fellow citizens from his four story apartment that looked into one of the plazas where a mass of cattle, inspired by C₂H₆, was mooing like madpeople. (That was a fragment sentence - in case you didn’t notice.) He looked down with disgust. whinfry was a small man who couldn’t grow a beard and he had heard of the strange goings-onings that were going on around aobuts Coralende and he also knew that his name was whinfry winster, which is to say he knew that something fishy, like salmon or herring or tuna, was going on and if there was one thing whinfry hated it was salmon – he never knew if he should pronounce the ‘l’ or not. He knew that nilbmah needed to be ready for everything but he also knew that they only thing that nilbmah would be ready for on the 3^rd day of the festivities was the toilet bowl. So he was preparing for them… DAUN DAUN DAAAAAAUN

Wow, that ending was not dramatic even at all. But its an ending neverevertheless. So deal with it.

Enter the Monsters

He awoke to a splitting headache and the smell of burnt flesh. Opening his eyes to absolute darkness, Marco Northern found himself hanging upside down from the co-pilot’s chair, his helmet uncomfortably aslant. The first thing he did was unbuckle his helmet, and then unbuckle his seatbelt.

After slamming into the helicopter controls below him, Marco realized it would have been a much wiser idea to unbuckle his helmet second, but then again, that was why Lithuania Starr was captain. “Lithuania!” Marco gasped, shocked at how he had completely forgotten about her. “Lithuania, you there?” he called through the darkness. He snatched his helmet back from the darkness and flicked on its flashlight. “Oh God!” he gasped.

Lithuania’s body, or what was left of it, was an exploded heap of entrails and muck. Her head, partially decapitated by a slice of metal, hung limply as it drizzled a stream of thick, coagulating blood over the controls below. Marco’s stomach pulled a somersault or two, and he found himself gasping for air. With a swift kick of his boot, Marco was smashing his way out through the helicopter’s lateral window.

The several hundred or so sudden emotions that raged through his heart at that moment didn’t mix very well with the gag reflex. He wretched profusely onto the scorched grass, the intensity of it all making his eyes water and his vision blur. The rain was still coming down heavily, but at least there were no signs of hail.

Once the nausea let up its grip, Marco was able to feel the distinctively heavy weight of sorrow growing in his chest. The image of Lithuania, no longer recognizable… Marco jerked his head back towards the wreckage, unable to comprehend how anyone could have survived that. Judging by the state of the aircraft and the pervading smell of burnt bodies, Marco reckoned he was the only one alive.

Marco tried to drown his grief by concentrating on the surrounding darkness and the steady drone of rain, but to no effect. He found the tears from his eyes mixing with the rain on his face, and the uncanny grip of guilt clutching and weighing down his heart. He fell to his knees miserably, cursing as he pounded the grass hopelessly with his fist. Without Lithuania, everything seemed lost. And now he, Marco, was the new Captain of Foggistan’s Helo-Fleet. Upon realizing this, Marco gave the earth one last, vigorous pound while uttering a heartfelt and resonant “Fuck!”

He had no idea what to do.

No, yes he did.

He just didn’t want to have an idea, because that would mean acknowledging Lithuania’s death, and assuming control of his new post. Frustrated, he tossed his helmet into the winds. Everything grew even darker, and he realized he had just tossed his only source of light. You really are a dumbass, he told himself, dragging himself over to the distant glimmer emitted by his helmet’s flashlight. There was no way Marco could fill Lithuania’s shoes— and it wasn’t just because she wore high-heels.

And then suddenly, the glimmer from Marco’s helmet flashlight vanished. Marco opened his eyes wide, trying to pierce the impenetrable darkness. He heard a swooping sound, as if a very large bat had just flown close to the ground. Marco squinted desperately. It was no use. He couldn’t see a thing, and the tiniest hint of panic began creeping into his skull. Take it easy, he thought. What would Lithuania do? First, she’d probably call him a dumbass for tossing his helmet. And second, she’d tell him to get a grip, and let go.

Get a grip and let go? Marco thought. Yes, that makes plenty of sense Lithuania, thank you. And then he realized he had unwittingly thought to himself precisely what Lithuania would’ve said. Yes, he did have to get a grip— of his emotions, and of the situation. Over the course of his career Marco had seen how Lithuania controlled her emotions about as well as she controlled a chopper, and this had helped her rise through the ranks. She was always clearheaded, level-minded, and in command of the situation. Despite being a woman, he thought, at which point the illusory Lithuania in his mind gave him a slap on the head. And if Marco was at all going to take command of the situation and hold his guilt and insecurity at bay, he had to let go of the fact that Lithuania was dead. “Act now, grieve later,” he told himself.

Still, he couldn’t see a thing. So he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused on his hearing. Yes, something large was certainly moving about, but the sound of the rain was masking its movements.

Focus… Focus… It swooped near his left. Then it swooped at his right. It was quick, and coming closer.

In an instant Marco pulled the pistol out from his back holster—

And shot straight ahead.

Marco threw himself backwards onto the ground, as the winged creature that had been aiming straight for his face soared right above him and came crashing down in a violent heap, it’s claws tearing at the sky right where Marco’s head had been just a few seconds before. The glimmer of Marco’s helmet flashlight reappeared in the distance, and Marco retrieved it in a matter of seconds. His heart still pounding with the adrenaline of the encounter, Marco strapped the helmet to his head and returned to where he had heard the winged creature land.

The light from his flashlight caught hold of the agonizing beast as it gave its last, convulsive movements. The first thing Marco saw was its talons. Then its vast, leathery red wings. And then…

Marco felt a boulder plummet into the depths of his stomach. It couldn’t be. As Marco stood aghast before the creature he couldn’t believe he was seeing, the light from his helmet settled upon the monster’s oozing skull and the perfectly placed bullet hole. The fangs… the black orbs that were its eyes… and the unmistakable flattened nose. Marco thought these creatures had been exterminated long ago, back in the solar system his people had abandoned so long ago… He thought every one of them had died, or at least vanished into the depths of space…

But no. There was no mistaking it. The creature lying before him was a soldier. A soldier from the dreaded Winged Armada of the Red Eye. The creature lying before him was an assassin—

An assassin from AssMachenstan.