Friday, June 23, 2006

I'm Taking Over


I've decided to raise some Legions of Terror and take over the world. I've been watching a few old movies for pointers, and I think I've got my plans worked out well.

For starters, if I kill anyone, I won't be leaving their brother alive to harbor a grudge for 10 years, nor will I imprison my own half-brother those throne I usurped in a tower and leave him there with a sympathetic guard. My Legions of Terror will attack the hero en masse instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time. When arresting him, my guards will not allow him to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value. I won't explain my entire operation before throwing the prisoners in a cell, they won't all be put in the same one, and I'll keep the key in my pocket, not hand out copies to every guard. I'll also make sure I kill any dog, monkey, or ferret capable of untying ropes and filching keys.

My Fortress of Doom will be well constructed, and I can't see why it would ever need a self-destruct mechanism, but any device with a digital countdown will be set to trigger at 054 not 000. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through, and my shield generator will be inside the shield it generates. My computers won't have a map of my Fortress in them with the Main Control Room clearly labelled, and any plans I have on there will be too big to fit on a blank disk and won't have obvious filenames. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am. I won't shoot any major support beams, and my vats of chemicals will be covered when not in use; any walkways above them will have guardrails. A team of architects will examine the entire Fortress for abandoned tunnels and false walls, alcoves which intruders could use for cover, or machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity; it'll be in my safe.

My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship and will make sure people are really dead before leaving them. When they split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in twos. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup instead of peering around a corner. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not yell at them for incompetence then send the same group out to try again. No matter how many electrical shorts we experience, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff, so that if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could never accidentally stumble. I will treat it respect and kindness, so that if it ever gets out it will not immediately come after me for revenge.

Have I overlooked anything?

Links
Top 100 things I'd do if I became an Evil Overlord
The Evil Henchman's Guide

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