THE SECRET LAIR!!! (that no one knows or cares about)

[Zarfef]

OOC: A NEWB walks in... I'm supposed to be eaten alive like a small fish in a really big sea... so I may as well have fun while I'm aytit!

: Within the dark halls of Zarfef's Lair within the New Siberian Islands... Zarfef approaches the room of his cohorts... for among other reasons, to find a way to pay the electricity bill and bring some more light to these rooms... he nearly tripped and fell down the spiral staircase o' doom fifty times already! :

: Approaching a cheap wooden podium he brought in a yard sale, Zarfef looked at the ragtag group of indivuals that were his most trusted friends... half were under the age of 16 because these were generally those individuals most pliable to his will and just plain wierd dreams of world domination... oddly enough 315 other individuals instantly flocked to his barren frozen wasteland on the edge of God-Forsaken Siberia in search of wealth and power that he told them they'd recieve from his infinitely wise business partners in Nigeria... :

Zarfef: I urhmm... Err so shall we begin?

: Some mumbling continues in the background as others continue to speak. :

Zarfef: Well... I guess not... I'm only the SUPREME EMPEROR the Aether Empire.

: The mumbling continues... :

Zarfef: Ah what the heck, I guess I might as well join in.

: Some thirty minutes later, and twenty conversatios that were absolutely fascinating but of interest to neither you nor I after that, Zarfef is sitting in a semi-circle with his cohorts singing on a banjo the newly decided national anthem "Slapped by Moe" by Dr. Steel. At this point, realizing the time was right. ZARFEF SIEZED THE OPPORTUNITY!!! And interjected a sentance that allowed him to take over the conversation. :

Zarfef: Well... It turns out that we don't have the technology to build a power-plant... nor do we have ports or even stip malls... But given that this is day one, I'd say we're doing rather well. I even have henchmen, SEVENTY HENCHMEN! But we need a harbor... and some means of producing power for my evil lair of ebil... how else will I develop my death rays?

: The room sings out in unison... as though they were drunk... but the Aether Empire lacks the resouce of beer and actually drinking is illigal as it "clouds the mind"... this would probobly get him in trouble with certain alliances... but he didn't outlaw their beer... just his own... and not root beer mind you... eh anyways. :

Room: ALL HAIL DR ZARFEF! DR ZARFEF WILL RULE THE WORLD!

Zarfef: Hmm... actually I don't have a doctorate... Ziggy!

Ziggy: Yes sir?

Zarfef: WE NEED TO BUILD A UNIVERSITY! That way I can start recieving honorary doctarates.

Ziggy: We'd need money for that... we've already spent roughly 30k in one day as well... That's more then my allowance pays me for my whole lifetime! At the same time, I've used my new brain-washing ray gun to brainwash our henchmen to work for $2 a day while the average citizen earns $61.26 per day.

Zarfef: Hmm... I see. eh, so.... when does that mean the university will be built?

Ziggy:....

Zarfef: Eh... anyways! Onto the next topic! I SAW 150 spies today spying on me as I walked through town!

Intelligence Officer Zhukov: O_O. MINE EMPEROR! I HAVE FAILED YOU!

Von Zak: Wait... wouldn't that be over half the population of our country? I don't think we're that important... in fact many countries have decided to exclude us from their geography texts for next year. Something about evil leagues of power don't qualify on their lists.

Von Zepplin: Wow, you are quite dedicated to the education of the world about our Emperor's Glorious cause!

(Von Zak and Von Zepplin control the air and naval forces of The Aether Empire).

Ziggy: Maybe it's because we lack the technology and monetary support to actually give you something else to do... sigh. WAIT! YOUR A GENIUS ZARFEF!!! I SEE YOUR GLORIOUS PLAN NOW!

Zarfef: Uh? Really?... EH OF COURSE! I KNEW YOU WOULD BE THE FIRST ONE TO REALIZE THE BRILLIANCE OF MY MASTER PLAN! Now... tell everyone else... so I can be proud... and know what I was I thinking as well.

Ziggy: OF COURSE MY EMPEROR! So, his plan is as follows! We're going to flood our country with spies! Spies from every country imaginable!

: Everyone stares... even Zarfef ... :

Zarfef: Eh... tell me... why do we want to do that again?

Ziggy: BECAUSE THEN THEY'LL SPEND THEIR MONEY HERE! LIVE AMONG US MAKING EXORBIANT AMOUNTS PAID BY THEIR OWN COUNTRIES AND EVEN PAY TAXES! They'll be a great boom to our economy... we'll use our own enemies credit cards to boost our power!

The room: Oooo....

Ziggy: It will be a great way to grab some extra money so we can fund some real experiments, and lighting.

Room: Huzzah!

Zhukov: AND TOILET PAPER!

Room: YES!

Zarfef: And a world class university to grant me world class doctarates!

Room:...

: Some time later... Zarfef revealed himself to the vast arrays of powers that be in the world... every alliance... evey nation... well... as many as actually read this thread and pay attention... To them he revealed himself... generally on a massive flatscreen TV... because all such organizations need giant flat sceen TVs to broadcast the faces of evil villians. With a melodramatic tone he revealed his shocking plan to the world... :

LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD! FEAR ME! LOVE ME! FALL TO MY WILL! I AM ZARFEF, LEADER OF THE EVIL LEAGUE OF THE AETHER EMPIRE!

: The chorus of 22 henchmen (the max number Zarfef could muster without his population suddenly rioting in spontanous anarchy over their abundance of joy and jubilee they could not contain without the use of molotov $@tails) sung out "ALL HAIL ZARFEF!" :

I HAVE COME TO REVEAL TO ALL THAT I, EMPEROR ZARFEF! AM BUILDING AN EVIL DEATH RAY O' DOOM IN MY SECRET BASE WITHIN THE NEW SIBERIAN ISLANDS! WITH IT I WILL RULE THE WORLD! SEND YOUR SPIES IN THE HUNDREDS! BUT IT SHALL NEVER BE REVEALED TO YOU! Eh... other than in this very obvious speech... I WILL SOON CONTROL YOU ALL!!! Uh... and send lots of money with those spies in the form of foreign aid so we can build roads, power lines... a sanitation system would be nice and diners, a real death ray o' doom, new land and other things for them to be live happily in while they... SEARCH MY NATION OVER FOR THE DEVICE THAT WILL DESTROY YOU ALL! And remember, spies cost at least 1000 US dollars a day to support in my country because of the over-inflated price of the Euro... our national monetary unit... other costs apply for chasing down my henchmen or cohorts of doom and integregating them futily... they will always lie to you and claim it doesn't exit... some restrictions in your meddling apply.

Ummm... Thank you.

And uhmm have a good day!

Okay... we're done right? What? The cameras still on... ah THERE!

: The screen goes black or to whatever picture these nations had on them before... leaving the audiences in shock... likely from the pure stupidity of it all... or maybe some actually believed it... which would be great! :

[Zarfef]

Emperor Zarfef: Hmm... it appears as though my PM replies are limited and I cannot send large lengthy replies of happiness, rejection and insanity to those I wish to speak to... I suppose a link to this post will have to do.

: A MESSAGE FROM EMPEROR ZARFEF OF THE AETHER EMPIRE :

To whichever alliance this may concern:

While the prospect of nations sending in huge swaths of armed forces, tanks, airplanes and other undesirable artifacts into my frozen hole in heck near the polar region is unfortunate… I am hoping that they have better things to do then invade my little portion of the world instead of say… someplace with sunlight and temperatures above freezing for most of the year… that is… until I reveal the ultimate power of my death ray and conquer the- eh… so that stated, I am honored by your offers of comradery and friendship, but feel saddened that for instance, none of you included an evil laugh of doom within your letters. Neither have you discussed how you plan to use giant robots to take over the world. You see, I am honored that the Green Protective Agency wishes to extend its hand to evil madmen like myself and change their ways towards world domination… but sadly I just don’t feel the love for evil death rays of doom, or plans of world domination anywhere in their future.

I think a re-evaluation of your and their status is in order. Ask yourselves:

“Would I build sharks with friggin lasers on their heads? Or would I be happy with disgruntled sea bass?”

Think of that question deep and think of it hard. I cannot accept your hand in alliance at this time, although I do respect you and honor your apparent cardboard friendship as a brilliant scheme for amassing power… you have my deepest respects. Perhaps I was most honored by the offer of free beer… but alas we have banished beer in my state in favor of a root beer monopoly. You can’t very well build death rays while you’re drunk… all the same, I am deeply touched.

When I have finally taken over the world, I will have my thirteen year old evil genius cohort, Ziggy discuss ways in which you too can fit within the new world order… remembering full and well the hand in friendship that you offered me. To tell you the truth I could almost cry for the love I have felt from your messages… I reiterate that I am deeply touched…

So whether we are roasting the everglades together over a barbecue, or your spies are blowing up my nuclear silos in hidden in my top secret Antarctic base. I know that we will have an excellent most exciting time that I never could have enjoyed at the asylum!

Thank you,

Emperor Zarfef

PS If you’re planning on invading or getting an alliance just so you can borrow some sugar… just stop by my lair sometime, I’d be glad to let you borrow some… I’m not THAT evil after all. And… do you have any toilet paper by any chance?

Also, if you have so very much money that you really don’t know what to do with it other then help me out in taking over the world. I would be very appreciative that you would send me some, I do enjoy using it after all in my experiments on death rays and robot armies.

[Margrave]

OOC: Lurk more.

[Zarfef]

: Day 2 :

: Ziggy and Zarfef are walking the halls of Zarfef's Evil Lair. :

Ziggy: So, we're utilizing our stocks to institute trade agreements with other members of the world for the purposes of mutual growth and the happiness of their people and our henchmen...

Zarfef: So... Evil with a pension plan?

Ziggy: Yes, but while I am primarily focusing on using the mind control devices to influence the emotions of our henchmen and laborers, keeping them happy, our focus remains on enhancing our technology sector. Even though... what bothers me is the fact that I tested the mind control out on myself yesterday...

Zarfef: And?

Ziggy: I didn't experience any effects... this could be for any number of reasons... but... what if... WHAT IF WE'RE NOT REALLY ALL THAT BAD TO WORK FOR T_T.

Zarfef: We're stuck in a frozen wasteland, I think you're just being silly.

Intelligence Officer Zhukov: MASTER MASTER! I have some urgently interesting intel...

Zarfef: And what that be? ?_?

Intel Officer Zhukov: We've recently acquired intel that could lead to potential military strikes... our first moves in Global Domination! I recently was digging through our computational database when I realized something, these organizations are on the verge of complete and total collapse, their leadership apparently vanishing long ago and leaving the people to completely forget about themselves...

: Von Zuk, commander of the land forces of the Evil League of Zarfe walks in :

Von Zuk: So... if we use Ziggies mind control device and the might of our henchmen, we will most likely be successful against them and they'll hand us money in the masses just like the money tree!

Intel Officer Zhukov: We might even be able to steal some minor amounts of technology while we're at it.

Zarfef: At the very least we'll be able to provide aid for a forgotten people and test out our evil henchmen against them... it would be a perfect test of our abilities. Have you come to a conclusion as to which targets are most vulnerable to our abilities?

Intel Officer Zhukov: OF COURSE MY GLORIOUS LEADER! I have compiled a list and chosen those that are least likely to incur the wrath of other teams and or alliances... these territories are essentially ragtag bandits and we'd be doing the world a favor by eliminating them...

Zarfef: Remember now... if we actually do use force, because they are other mini forgotten leagues of evil that don't know it yet, if their owner returns and is terrified at the concept that his nation is being overrun, we'll cease immediately. We shall call this... OPERATION VULTURE!

: Everyone yells in joy and anticipation. :

: Five minutes before the operation... :

Intel Officer Zhukov: REQUESTING PERMISIONS TO RAISE THE DEFCON LEVEL TO 3!!!

Zarfef: Permission granted.

Von Zuk: Acquisition of henchmen from henchmen.com complete, proceeding to deploy our forces for hostile take-over... panted Aether technology has been sent to rendezvous with our forces.

Ziggy: Target Confirmed... beginning Operation Vulture!

Zarfef:... and pay those bills... done! COMMENCE OPERATIONS!!!

: The battle was fierce... the small encampment held by the Island Of Cuba came under massive attack by the small detachment of forty soldiers which leveled the ground in the region and laid waste to the enemy encampments in a series of two strikes.... In the end, the enemy force was reduced to two soldiers... but... :

Ziggy: So... it didn't work...

Von Zuk: No... the operation while tactically a victory was a strategic failure. We lost more men then the enemy during the night raids, endangered ourselves for retaliation from an opponent for little gains and the mind control didn't work... unless you set it to cause them to set fire to their money and destroy their infrastructure. There was further evidence that the region was already raided previous anyways. It was a critical battle however, something that I am very happy about. We learned some crucial info about the nature of warfare tactics when using our henchmen.

Von Zuk: As a result, even though our overall national gains for today were lost, our growth in this respect was quite good. What we have learned is that if Operation Vulture is to succeed in the future, our analysis suggests your mind control devices will have to be utilized against opponents which aren't nearly as old... and hence the risk of retaliation grows greatly...

Zarfef: And that would be just plain wrong to begin with. I don't believe this is going to lead us to world domination. But it has lead us to a valuable lesson. Von Zuk, pull the troops back... we're not going to chase down two poor soldiers so we can blow up more of a defenseless nation. Honor the 14 henchmen that died in fighting for our cause. Given that we might be taken advantage of by even lesser minds... its probably a good idea we raised our defenses anyways. Dismissed...

Zarfef: Two weeks... that's a long time... but that’s just too evil... isn't it?

Edited April 21, 2009 by Zarfef

[Zarfef]

: The daily business meeting in the evil lair :

Emperor Zarfef: So... how has everything gone?

everyone:...

Ziggy: Actually it's not all that bad, I've managed to stabalize the economy... but in general it seems like it's going to be slow growth... really slow growth... we'll acheive a semi-ok power status in 3 months excluding the posibility of future wars or raids from other nations. On the plus side, several of our trade agreements have been accepted and so we are showing growth instead of collapse for these reasons... if we had spent much more this wouldn't quite be the case.

Ziggy: All the same... we're in really risky waters and we won't make the top thousand evil lairs of dastardlyness if we don't make some modifications quick... Operation Vulture was a complete failure and has only acted to decrease the effectiveness of my mind control device and my faith in it... I've doing some more investigations to see if it will EVER be of use, but in the meantime we've had to turn to this...

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?s...t&p=1446163

...

Ziggy: YEP! We're begging the world for monetary donations to our evil empire of doom... If this turns out to be a sucess we can start work on a real base infrastructure and I might even think about making an ad campaign for public support of our evil organization. Then we can focus on the important things... like building submarines shaped in our image, and... reconfiguring the statue of liberty so that she's playing a slot machine... or building moon bases for housing Morjillnir strike capacity tungsten rods... we'll finally give the world something to look forward to, a real live news story about our laser cannon of doom defacing Mnt Fuji with a smily face.

: Cheers from accross the room :

OOC: So remember folks... GIVE ME MONEY

And while you wait for my laser cannons of doom... please enjoy this picture of a wonderful Russian Hat... which will also rule the world one day when I am Emperor.

And yes... I do own such a hat and wear it on cold nights within the frigid land of Flagstaff. Brrrrrrr, comrade.

Edited April 22, 2009 by Zarfef

[Zarfef]

Another uneventful day had seemingly happened in the world of the evil Aether Empire and now night had fallen... well, as close as night could fall in the land of the midnight sun as summer approached. Of course, within an evil lair which was trying to conserve money... lighting was at a minimum, so things were "always" dark... All except for the slight glow of a computer monitor as certain members of the organization burnt away the midnight oil... without the possibility of having oil.

Ziggy: What's this? :clicking on a recently arrived document :

A message pops up.... and whatever is on it apparently enthralls and excites upon instant viewing... and no it was not a cute girl (Nor the opposite which wouldn't really interest Ziggy). In the end, there was a shout for joy which awoke the whole community... they rushed in to find the answer... and responded in like joy... except Zhukov who apparently was still grumpy and a bit self constrained as he awoke... Whatever it was, it was something to be happy about.

You see, the answer was... Spices... Now you may have heard various things about spices, but when when it all comes down to it, spices in the frozen north are what make the world go round. They flavor your daily grind of pork into pork chops, bacon, bbq pork sandwhiches and all kinds of things that you and I would never consider doing with pork. So spices are just what were needed to cheer everyone up... especially after a long hard day in which you find yourself not actually being considered a nation by the global community and may actually be kicked off the a frozen chunk of heck into the ocean by the nation that actually owns your region (because when it comes down to it, they really don't own alot so they can really focus on YOU).

At the same time, because spices made everyone so happy Ziggy found that his mind control device worked much better... and consequently they could grab 1/4 of their civil units wages for the purposes of personal growth... This seemed extreme, but with spices, no one really seemed to care all that much, in fact... after being told their taxes were being doubled, they were still applauding... (The mind control device HAD to be working... right?) it begged the question, WHAT WAS IN THOSE SPICES TO BEGIN WITH! Independent of this question though, it really didn't matter because this was going to mean positive growth for the organization... maybe giving them a chance to build up some more infrastructure and perhaps even a harbor or tech for getting into the global tech trade business... Of course... Certain nations, might notice if they suddenly built a second harbour where national policy didn't denote that there could be such a thing... this was a problem, but Zhukov and the rest of the gang were working very diligently to blend in to their current enviroment without causing too much trouble. Thus, in the meantime they were only independent in spirit, while working their plans from the shadows... and that is where evil organizations of doom SHOULD do their work after all.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Zarfef