…and pretty fucking scared
NOTE FROM MARCH 2023: For reasons that I can’t recall, I originally stopped posting the rest of this theme. Here now, the rest of it.
The Doclopedia #2,386 to #2,390
The Doclopedia #2,386
The Alphabet In A Week: I…J…K…L
I is for Izz Bugs, one of the largest and most annoying insects on Valtar 4. The measure 6 inches long by a 1.5 inches wide. They have a body shape much like a Darkling Beetle from Earth. There are 7 species if Izz Bugs, but aside from color differences, they are all quite similar.
Izz Bugs are vegetarians, and so pose no real threat to any animal, but they are, in the words of Captain Beth Yoshikara, “terrible little annoying pains in the ass”. This comes from the insect’s habit of landing on humans and then crawling around on them while releasing a pheromone that attracts more of their kind. Soon, the hapless human will be, in the words of Lt. Commander Vilkos Korbonen, “a fucking no tell motel for horny giant bugs”.
Even worst than that, the large number of sex crazed Izz Bugs attract their only real predators, Valtaran Crows and Quick Lizards, neither of which cares much about annoying humans. As Doctor Annie Conner said, “after 5 minutes outside in Izz Bug territory, you’ll go from being an orgy platform to a goddamn buffet table.”
J is for Jokers, a criminal gang. They pattern themselves after the comic book character, right down to the scarring of their mouths and bleaching their skin.
The Jokers are a violent and unpredictable gang. Their primary style of crime is robbery of banks, jewelry stores, and other places with high value loot. They are also known for committing murders. These murders are known to include organized crime figures, people in law enforcement up to the federal level, child molesters, animal abusers, and anyone else they think deserves to die. Every so often, the gang will post an “Unwanted” poster online, showing a couple of dozen people on their hit list. This has resulted on many high profile people going into deep hiding. Such hiding works about half the time
Oddly, the Jokers will often give large sums of money to individuals and organizations, often with instructions to “use it for good, or else.” So far, all the money so gifted has been used for projects that do good things.
K is for King Of The South, the title adopted by Sonny Ray Simpson, racket boss. He held power from 1921 until his death in 1932.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Simpson started out in 1914, at age 15, as hired muscle for his uncle, Silas Walker, who was a drug dealer, pimp and loan shark. In 1920, Walker, along with his two sons, was murdered as they drove down a country road. The murder was never solved and Sonny Ray had an airtight alibi, but most law enforcement officials believe he was behind the killing, if not the actual killer.
After the death of his uncle and cousins, Simpson assumed control of the operation and began to expand into gambling, smuggling, bootlegging, and opening speakeasys. He moved his base of operations to New Orleans and quickly expanded into other states. This expansion was bloody, but effective. By his 30thbirthday in 1929, he controlled an estimated 75% of organized crime in the Deep South.
Simpson’s reign came to an end when the masked vigilante known as The Judge, shut things down by shooting him dead on March 18th, 1932. The judge also killed 14 of the organizations most powerful thugs. Most underlings decided it was time to leave the area, go straight, or both.
On May 5th, 1932, The Judge handed over all of Simpson’s business records, as well as boxes of blackmail material, to the FBI. The arrests, suicides, and disappearances that soon followed changed the face of the Deep South forever.
L is for Lost Islands, a group of Islands in the Circle Sea. Made up of 4 islands, they are not easy to locate, since the seem to actually move around. Very few ships have found them on purpose.
The largest of the islands is Coruda, and measures about 10 miles long and 3 miles wide. A crescent shaped island, it is low and rocky, with the highest point being no more than 300 feet above sea level. It has scattered light forests in the interior, but mostly grasses and shrubs in the lower areas. It is a breeding ground for enormous numbers of seabirds, seals, and sea turtles. No humans dwell there and the indigenous wildlife is made up of birds, bats, a few lizards, and a type of miniature goat that lives in the woodlands.
The next largest island is Erunha, which is 6 miles across and very nearly a perfect circle. It is, in fact, the top of an ancient volcano. The center of the island, 800 feet above sea level, holds a freshwater lake that is at least 200 feet deep. It has no fish in it, but is home to 9 different species of frogs.
The rest of the island is mostly a thin sandy shoreline and the sloping hillside, which is covered in grasses and shrubs, with a few small trees. Migratory birds nest here, but there are very few native species.
The third island is Jundo and measures a mere 2 miles long by half a mile wide and is no more that 90 feet above sea level anywhere. The island has many trees, including mangroves. Aside from birds and insects, nothing else lives here.
The final island, Mondua, is not much more than a large sandbar, upon which only a few birds live for part of the year.
Reports from the few ships that have visited the islands report that they are often surrounded by a light fog, even on warm sunny days. They also report the feeling that they were being watched the whole time the islands were in sight.
The Doclopedia #2,387
The Alphabet In A Week: M…N…O…P
M is for Mybtos, who may or may not have been a monster, a wizard, or both. Nobody is sure now, nor were they sure when he was living in his castle up in the mountains, 200 years ago.
What is known is that before Mybtos Myrrabotos started throwing large sums of money at every able bodied worker for 50 miles around, there were no sightings of strange humanoid monsters, weird magical effects, or general danger in the area. Once the castle was finished and Mybtos moved in, that all changed.
The Monster, which has been described differently by all who saw it and survived, was said to rampage through the forests and mountain valleys two or three times a month. It was known to kill and eat anything it could catch, including humans and humanoids.
The “Wizardly Problems” ranged from instant weather changes to talking animals to random explosions, almost all starting off near Castle Myrrabotos. There are also reports of visitations to the castle by dragons, giants, the Fae, and creatures nobody could classify.
It is believed that Mybtos died in some catastrophic accident at the castle 117 years. It was not until 6 years ago that anyone went to the now crumbling castle, after which they reported that the place was dangerous to walk around in and that they found no trace of wizardy or monsters.
N is for Naples Event, which occurred on July 20th, 1983 in Naples, Italy. On that day, when the city was packed with both tourists and locals, a “temporal displacement event” happened in the downtown square. In more simple language, a rift in space-time allowed several hundred Neanderthals to enter our time. As you might imagine, this caused quite a panic.
Although the Neanderthals were probably the most frightened, you would not have known that by the screaming humans, the many car crashes, the 14 fires, the 6 shootings, and the 5 people who had mental breakdowns on the spot. Mostly, the Neanderthals just froze in place, although a few did stab modern folks with spears.
The event itself lasted only about 13 minutes, at which point all the Neanderthals vanished, most likely back to their own time. The riots, etc, lasted for about 10 hours. In the end, there were something like 200 arrests and over 700 medical emergencies. 6 buildings in the downtown area burned to the ground. Tourism in Naples dropped by 50% for over two years.
Science has yet to explain exactly what happened, but most scientists think the study of physics will never be the same.
O is for Ox Unit, a type of robot used on Lunar farms. These 4 to 8 legged non-humanoid robots are primarily designed to carry heavy loads through the Lunar tunnels from one FarmDome to another. Some of them, in the “Back To Nature” domes, are used to plow fields and pull carts. This would be the smaller Ox Units, who are roughly the size of cattle.
Most Ox Units are built by Aoki Manufacturing in the Nijinokanatani Orbital Station. Other manufacturers are NearSpace Robotics and 3K Industries. Ox Units are relatively trouble free and most come with a 30 year guarantee. One of the smaller, less advanced units sells for about 20,000 Lunar Credits, while the largest, top of the line units sell for up to 150,000 LU.
P is for Pink Princess, the famous, and definitely insane, superhero out of Richmond, Virginia. She was active from 1981 to 2008 and was both a blessing and a curse for the East Coast from Washington DC down to about Wilmington, North Carolina, and east as far as Lexington, Kentucky.
The Pink Princess started life as Pattijean Littles, of Richmond. When she was 13, in 1980, she got drenched in toxic wasted from a derailed train tanker car, then set on fire as she ran screaming into the accompanying fire. After the fire department put her out, they realized she was completely unhurt. Completely terrified by what had just happened, she ran home…at speeds up to 70 miles an hour.
Over the next couple of weeks, Pattijean developed several super powers while also becoming more and more divorced from reality. Not long after that, she ran away from home wearing her pink princess outfit, and soon began fighting crime. By then, she was convinced that she was a real princess from the planet “Sweetpea”, sent here to “save y’all from bad folks.”
Her super powers were super strength, resistance to most forms of damage, super speed, a sonic scream and the ability to fly. She also carried a solid steel scepter with a heart on the top of it. It weighed 50 pounds and was painted pink. She used it to “knock some sense into evil doers”, sometimes fatally. Her sonic scream, while not fatal, could knock down large men and would shatter any window within 2 blocks.
In late 2008, while both fighting Auntie Good and her Goodbye Gang, and raging about how the news media portrayed her as “crazy as a shithouse rat”, the Pink Princess accidentally triggered a chemical explosion that killed the villains and robbed her of her powers. She was then subdued by law enforcement and charged with 432 felony offenses.
She never went to trial, being diagnosed with several mental illnesses. She was taken to a US government mental hospital for supers, where she remains to this day.
The Doclopedia #2,388
The Alphabet In A Week: Q…R… S…T
Q is for Quaroon, a race of beast-folk. They live in the Quaros Forest, a forest of huge, mixed old growth trees. The forest covers roughly 25,000 square miles of the coastal and hill region north of Mist Harbor and west of the kingdoms of Wethery and Kollis. There is one east/west road through the woods and two north/south roads.
The Quaroon resemble a wolf-human hybrid, but lack a tail. Males stand over 6 feet tall, often nearing 7 feet. Females tend to be just a bit shorter, and usually have lighter colored fur. Despite their fierce appearance, the Quaroon are peaceful and friendly under most circumstances. The have no cities, and few large towns, much preferring village life. They are expert hunters and trappers, and it is game meat and furs that they primarily trade with other species.
Quaroon by and large do not practice magic, but their religious leaders are known for the wide variety of things they can conjure, due to their closeness with nature.
R is for Radio Danger, a very popular radio program. It has been in the top 5 radio programs worldwide since it premiered in 1929 and is heard in 68 countries as of the current year (1941). The form of the show is the same in each country, but the material is written locally.
Each show begins with the narrator proclaiming “Stand by for…RADIO DANGER!”, after which there is static for a few seconds before he introduces the night’s episode. There are three episodes a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These make up a complete story of action and adventure. Over the course of a month, listeners will hear tales ranging from westerns to jungle tales to mysteries to fantasy. In almost all countries, each genre has it’s own recurring characters and style.
For example, in the United States, jungle adventures are always “The Adventures of Jungle Joe”, while mysteries (with a hefty does of comedy) feature “The Mystery Family”. In France, they have fantasy covered by “Wizard Zoey”. In Japan, “Excellent Investigator Komatsu”, whose mystery investigations often involve the supernatural.
Many well known actors, writers and directors got their starts working on Radio Danger.
S is for Spinville, the 7th space station built in Earth orbit. As it’s name implies, it is a station that creates simulated gravity by spinning. It resembles, as one astronaut put it, “a long hunk of pipe with two bicycle tires on the ends.” It was constructed in 2005 by SpaceGen.
The station is home to 16 full time crew members and can hold another dozen temporary visitors, usually scientists. The forward ring is the living area and command center. The rear ring is used for the station farm and for experiments. The central, gravity free “axle” is used as a cargo hold, engine room, and for micro gravity experiments. The station is in geosynchronous orbit 3,000 miles over New Orleans.
Spinville was the largest space station until the completion of Sagan Station, AKA “The Trike”, a three ring station double the size of Spinville. It was completed in 2012.
T is for Time Traveling Dogs, a persistent urban legend. It involves the theory that certain dogs, usually basset hounds, are seen in photographs and paintings going back as far as the 1400s. According to believers, these dogs are either immortal, time travelers, or both. It is also believed that they can speak and are at least as intelligent as humans.
Non-believers will point out to these theorists that basset hounds are all rather similar and have been around in one form or another for centuries. They also point out that many of the photos of the dogs are a bit blurry, making exact comparisons difficult. None of this sways the true believer.
As urban legends and conspiracy theories go, this one is way down the list.
The Doclopedia #2,389
The Alphabet In A Week: U…V…W…X
U is for Uswachi, a cryptid supposedly living in South Africa. It has most often been described as being an enormous catlike creature, twice the size of a lion. It has very large yellow eyes and a wide head with an equally wide mouth. The mouth has three rows of needle sharp teeth. In some legends, it can either leap 100 feet or fly. It’s fur is darkest black.
The Uswachi is said to hunt only on the darkest nights. It’s favorite food is said to be human meat, with cattle a close second. It can eat three men or a whole steer without problem. Supposedly, they do not come out in the daytime, preferring to stay in their underground lairs. In most legends, the Uswachi can only be killed in one of two ways: speared by a dying man, or being tricked into eating a snake.
Evidence for the actual existence of the Uswachi is minimal, to say the least. There are no photographs or video recordings, and the one lone audio recording was debunked as being a lion’s roar distorted digitally.
V is for Villain Suit, a cursed high tech outfit that turns the wearer evil. This is done via a nanotech based brain stimulator and injections, again done on the nano scale, of certain drugs the suit can produce. After about a week of regular wear, the suit will have turned the average person into an amoral sociopath, hell bent on stealing, killing, and wrecking havoc. It also increases their strength, reflexes, and overall toughness.
The suit was the creation of the legendary villain and Mad Scientist, Duke Doomstar. Having found out that he was dying of cancer, Doomstar worked day and night on his “lasting legacy of evil.” He finished it less than two weeks before he died, using it to create “Mister Horrible”, the first of what numbers now as 7 villains. Mister Horrible specialized in jewelry and gem heists, with a few murders of both accomplices and police. When he was finally caught, thanks to a well aimed tranquilizer dart, the suit was removed from him, at which point, he promptly had a mild heart attack.
Sadly, no sooner was the suit removed than it proceeded to run off rapidly under it’s own power. It was not seen again until nearly 6 months later, when it was being worn by “The Dark Lady Death”, a bank robber and serial killer. After her death in a shootout, the suit passed down through “MaxiMan”, “Vandalizer 2000”, “BadBitch”, “Shooter”, and “Red Death”. The suit looked different for each villain.
As of today, the suit has not resurfaced. There is a $5,000,000.00 reward for any tip leading to it.
W is for Wine Heist Of 1979, a college prank that got way out of hand. It involved a very large theft of cases of wine from a Napa Valley Winery in 1979.
The story such as it is, has been pieced together only from bits and pieces reported by people who “heard about it days later”, as well as two very drunk witnesses. It goes that on a Thursday night in late October of 1979, a group of college students decided to steal a few bottles of wine to place around the statue of the founder of a rival university the next day. That founder was known to be an alcoholic, as well as a great philanthropist. The students involved, so rumor goes, thought it would be funny to pull such a joke on the day of a big football game between their schools. So, they left for the winery right after dark.
Driving via a back road that lead up to the rear of the main warehouse, the students, along with two older friends, cut a hole in the 8 foot high fence, disabled the security system and cut through a locked service door to the heating & cooling room. This was done without much trouble because the security guards only made one round of the property every hour, and they had not had anyone attempt a break in over the 80 year history of the winery.
The student’s idea was to get in, grab a couple of cases of wine, then leave. However, once inside, one of their older friends suggested that it would be funnier to take a few more cases. They agreed, and so the case count rose to 8. With the wine in their van, the students left.
What happened after that gets very unclear, but it is likely that the students drank some wine, got a good buzz on, then were persuaded by those older friends that it would be “hilarious” to go back, remove a bunch more cases of wine and just stack them up behind the warehouse. The students, who now numbered close to 50, thought that was a great idea, so off they went.
Reports from the two eyewitnesses, a couple of local men in their 50’s who were on top of the hill behind the winery and already on day 2 of a proposed 3 day bender, the following happened.
“Well, as best as I remember, about five cars full of people drove up, lights off, just after the security truck drove past. Then a shitload of people piled outta the cars and went inside the warehouse. Pretty soon, they had a chain going, moving case boxes out and stacking them up there on the ground behind the warehouse. They did that for a good 45 minutes or more. Must have gotten two or three hundred cases out before they all loaded up and drove back up the road. Then, a few minutes later, the security truck drives by and he doesn’t even slow up. I guess he’d been behind that warehouse hundreds of times, plus there’s that fence and those bushes, so he never even noticed. But once he was past and around the corner, damned it the cars didn’t come back and they started the chain up again. My memory really gets hazy after that, but I think they must have done it 1 more time. Anyway, I woke up a couple of hours later to piss and there was a big rig backed up with a conveyor belt running from the wine cases into the trailer, and about a dozen people moving that wine onto the truck. That’s the last I remember until all the cops and helicopters and the sunlight woke me up.”
The hard facts are that 1,200 cases of wine, all expensive high end stuff, were stolen that night. The security guards were drugged around 2:00 AM when a young man posing as a delivery person brought them donuts and coffee, allegedly courtesy of their boss, who had done such things before. The actual non-student portion of the robbery took place between 2:30 and 4:30. No fingerprints were found, and the thieves had scattered dirt and dust from at least 5 cities, thereby contaminating any other possible evidence. The value of the wine was placed at just over $900,000.00.
Information gathered from students who had “heard from a friend of a friend who heard it from some guy”, says that all the students involved were awakened early by phone calls telling them to watch the early morning local news. After hearing about the heist, those involved in the initial prank swore each other to silence. It is also rumored that they were never able to find those older friends who they had gone to the winery with.
The morning of the big football game, there were indeed 8 empty wine bottles circling the statue of the rival school’s founder. They were all washed and rinsed to remove any fingerprints. The case of the Wine Heist of 1979 remains unsolved.
X is for X.S. Trubbel, the stage name of Danita Carver, rogue artist. She is famed for her pieces that embarrass politicians, religious leaders, and big business.
Born in Atlanta in 1980, Danita was the youngest daughter of two of the cities most prominent black leaders. Her father was a judge and her mother was a university professor. Their two older daughters became a US Senator and a very successful lawyer. Danita never attended college, instead going to New York in 1997 to join the art and music scene.
She quickly made a name for herself with her paintings that depicted famous people in the midst of their most embarrassing moments, such as famous movie stars getting arrested or politicians caught cheating on their spouses. Since all of her paintings were based on publicly available photos, she was never in danger of legal reprisal.
At some point, people in the news media began leaking big upcoming stories to her, with the proviso that any art only be revealed after the story broke. That was fine by X.S. as she now called herself. Paintings, sculptures and other works of art would appear an hour or two after the stories broke. These always got major coverage on the nightly news.
Eventually, X.S. Started getting leaks from people in politics, business, and religion, such as the story of the famous Catholic Cardinal who had a huge collection of child porn. His painted image appeared on the side of the Empire State Building 2 hours after the story broke. It hung from the Observation Deck down to the 60th floor and was there for 11 hours. The Cardinal tried to flee the country, but instead ended up in prison for 25 years.
In recent years, her art has brought down a pair of Supreme Court Justices, a presidential candidate, several religious leaders, and 4 billionaires. X.S. Trubbel is now a national hero to most folks.
The Doclopedia #2,390
The Alphabet In A Week: Y…Z
Y is for Young Women Of Christ Movies, which were a series of “uplifting” motion pictures that were actually quite subversive. The stories told of the perils to young women who indulged in any of dozens of “unchristian” activities, but presented them in a way that caused a fair percentage of the intended audience to go, “Hmmm.”
The first six of these movies were silent, with the first coming out in 1921 and the sixth coming out in 1926. They were made by Bible Truth Productions, who also made a dozen short movies depicting biblical stories. When the stock market crashed in 1929, the company stopped production. Unable to raise funds, the owners sold it in 1932 to Reality Films, which was owned by a young couple named Arthur and Georgia Dearing, who had previously made short comedies.
Unknown to the people that sold Bible Truth Productions, the Dearings were both skilled actors, confirmed atheists, and ardent feminists. They were also anti-racists and supporters of sex education. Backed by their beliefs and skill at making movies, they set about reinventing the Young Women Of Christ series, but with a hidden message or two in each one.
Their first effort “The Temptation of Drink”, was made in 1933 and set the basic formula for each movie that followed. The story would be about one or two good girls who would meet or hear about one or two bad girls and their sinful exploits. On the surface, these seemed like straight up Christian indoctrination films, but a closer examination, which apparently no parent or church leader did over the 45 years the movies were made and remade, would show that the bad girls were sure having more fun than the good girls. The bad girls often looked exotic and fashionable, while the good girls looked prim and proper. The bad girls had all sorts of naughty fun, while the good girls were obedient and followed expectations. At the end of each 30-45 minute film, a minister of whatever church was buying the film would come on and tell all of the terrible things that no doubt were coming for the bad girls, while extolling the good girls choices to become good Christian wives and mothers. It should be noted that the man of the cloth doing this preaching was never less than 60, only spoke for maybe two minutes, and the bad girl’s downfall was never actually shown, just the good girls rather boring life.
The first film was a huge hit, probably because the Dearings offered it for free for two weeks to any church that wanted it. They also strongly suggested that the film only be shown to mothers and daughters, so as not to “give boys ideas.” After each showing, most churches had a man come in and give a sermon about the subject in the film.
The intended effect of these subversive films was picked up on right from the start. Women who saw them in the mid-1930s said that they thought mostly about all the fun the sophisticated bad girls seemed to be having, as well as how the good girls reminded them of older relatives and friends. They also got that the preacher at the finale was talking down to women as if they were stupid. Many feminists of the 1960s were women who had watched these movies as girls.
In their 45 years of making the Young Women Of Christ movies, Reality Films made 104 of them, about half being remakes for more modern audiences. The covered topics including…
Drinking
Premarital Sex
Drugs
Atheism
Race Mixing
Working Outside The Home
Immodest Dress & Makeup
Jazz Culture
The Adverse Effect Of Certain Movies
Voting Liberal
Questioning Male Authority
Adultery
Rock & Roll
Communism
The Adverse Effect Of Certain Novels
Marijuana
Birth Control
Abortion
The Adverse Effect Of Certain Television Shows
Lesbianism
Feminism
Not Taking Proper Care Of A Husband
Pornography
Masturbation
and several other topics.
Both Reality Films and the Dearings won many wards from various churches. They also raked in hundreds of millions of dollars and, according to surveys they paid to have done every decade from the 1940s to the 1980s, changed the views of several million women.
In 1992, at the age of 91, Georgia Dearing published an autobiography telling how and why she and Arthur “pulled the wool over so many people, while setting so many young women free.” The book sold millions of copies and, not unexpectedly, the Christian Right lost their shit over decades of being hoodwinked.
Z is for Zatzi The Zebra, a beloved cartoon character. Starting in 1943, she was the star of 26 cartoon shorts made by Marune Studios. In all of them, she was voiced by Rachel Bryclef, a native of Jamaica.
Zatzi was always the smartest toon in the room. Everyone else was either an overconfident nitwit, or a bumbling boob with good intentions. Her best friend, Rosie Rhino, fell into the latter category. Her archenemy, Philo Lion, fell into the first category.
Zatzi would outsmart or outmaneuver her opponents throughout each 6 minute cartoon, all the while trading snappy insults with then. A few cartoons were silent of dialogue, having only sound effects and music. Six Zatzi cartoons won Academy Awards.
The last Zatzi cartoon, “Space Age Zatzi”, was made in 1961.
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