Parody Earth History Revision Notes: The Briefing [This was originally going to be the footnotes to UT#347 but it never made the cut] The Scene: While the new recruits of the Lair Legion are off journeying to the centre of the Earth in Untold Tales #346, #347, #348, and #349, Visionary bravely continues giving a specialist class to his charges in the Junior Lair Legion. Present at his lecture are: Kerry Shepherdson, the Probability Arsonist Samantha Bonnington, Fashion Accessory Harlagaz Donarson, demihemigod of thunder Vespiir of Earth, exiled Caphan prophetess Randy “R.J.” Clement, the Mutate Liberation Army (MLA) and slouching in the corner not being a Junior, Danny Lyle, Denial Visionary: Okay, I know this can be a bit complicated, but pay attention and I’ll make sure you know about this stuff. Fashion Accessory: Whoa. First date flashback! Vizh: No, really. You need to understand all the stuff they don’t put in the history books. MLA: Like the second shooter at the Kennedy assassination? Vizh: No, not like that. There was no second shooter. At least we don’t know about any second shooter. Kerry: Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you. You’re an agent of the Man. Vizh: What man? Where did this man come from?” Vespiir: Perhaps this man was the hidden assassin of whom you speak? Denial: Vizh is denying the man. Not me, Teach. MLA: Is this a cover-up? The Man saying there was no man? FA: Whatever they’re covering it with, I bet I can design something with a more tasteful colour scheme. Harlagaz: If foul deeds wert done and the villain hath not been fathomed and smooten then this clear we shouldst leave yon class and go forth to wreak justice. Kerry: Or just leave the class? Vizh: No more wreaking! Or smootening. Just listen. This is important background about the research mission the LL are on right now. Kerry: The mission we weren’t allowed on? The mission you let Ham-Boy go on but not us? Vizh: Ham-Boy graduated the Juniors. You blew up a volcano. Kerry: Yeah, that was a good day. FA: But HB gets to go to the centre of the Earth and we get a lecture on some Kevin Costner movie. Harlagaz: I bet Ham-Boy art smoothening right now. Vizh: The LL do the missions. You guys do your studies. Maybe one day… Vespiir, worriedly: Must all of us blow up a volcano? Because that was not a standard part of my training as a pleasure slave. We were only taught to blow… Vizh: No. No, volcano detonation is strongly discouraged in this course. As is any other kind of blowing. FA, muttering: I could have told you that, Vesp. Just look at my grades. Denial: If the all-new LL are doing the mission why do we get the briefing? Why not just e-mail it to the field team? Vizh: The team are adequately briefed. Now I’m preparing the Juniors for a time when… MLA: When we get dropped into a big hole? Harlagaz: Mayhap we might be looking for yon Man in it? Vizh: A time when you are all judged ready to go into the field. Or anywhere without causing disaster. Kerry: Is this about that incendiary toilet incident? Because that could have happened to anyone, and nobody could possibly prove that anyone attached anything to the plumbing at all. FA: Right. And what could HB give you that I didn’t offer, teach? You’re supposed to be building our confidence up, not making us rethink our make-up and lingerie choices. MLA: Ham-Boy’s the guy in the photo at the frat house, right? The one looking through that fern stuff and sneezing? Harlagaz: T’was no fern, T’was the Coat Rack ere he dids’t become yon dictator of Badripoor. Vizh: So the mission background… Kerry: That’s another thing. spiffy gets a city to rule and I’m not even allowed a line of credit at Turrets Inc. Vespiir: Perhaps Lord spiiffy was granted his domain in honour of his high and puissant deeds? Danny: You really are from another planet, aren’t you? Vespiir: Perhaps Lord spiiffy is the Man? Or at least the man? FA: Nobody’s ever accused him of being a man before. Vizh: So, the Celestian Space Robots are these unfathomable mile high beings created to maintain the integrity of the Parodyverse. Harlagaz: Mayhap we couldst use a time machine to go back and prevent yon shooting? Then we couldst discover yon Man who wast the second shooter and chastise him to the uttermost. Danny: I have a question. If these Celestians are unfathomable how did you work out what they’re created for? If you know what they do then the word you’re looking for is “fathomable”. Vespiir: Are we allowed to question Master Viisionary when he is dispensing his wisdom? Will he not smite us with his wroth? Kerry: nah, you heard the Feebster. This is a no-smootening zone. You can’t have one law for the kids and another for the adults. FA: Except when it comes to fashion. There should be an age limit on spandex and lycra. MLA: And talking about ‘getting down’. Nobody should have to get down any more. The first rule of getting down is don’t talk about getting down. Vizh: So the, um, possibly slightly fathomable Space Robots visited Earth in prehistory. That’s before humans invented lycra, Samantha. And they accelerated the evolution of some of the squiggly lemur-type lifeforms that would eventually become the human race. Vespiir: Is this around the time that your Devil was hiding dinosaur skeletons? I was handed a tract by the loud shouting woman who said I was a blatant sex object and all kind of other nice things. Gaz: Yon loud wench went more quiet when I toldeth her that mine grandfather is All-Pappy of the Ausgardian Gods. Danny: Only because she was choking on her tongue. No really. That’s why I had to hit her. Kerry: Yes. And it’s why I had to make her handbag explode. MLA: And I had to date her daughters. Vizh: So the Celestians came to Earth and created a race of Austernals, immortal beings able to control every molecule of their bodies. FA: Yeah, my power’s a cut-down version of theirs. I can only do fabrics and stuff though. And now all the Austernals have gone into their Omni-Mind gestalt and left the planet and they didn’t even leave me with the keys to their city. Vizh: And the Celestians created the Deviates, a genetically unstable race of short-lived but rapidly-mutating multiforms. Gaz: Mayhap twas they who didst murder yon Kennedy? Vizh: The Celestians left and the Austernals and Deviates competed for the Earth. They each grabbed abandoned Celestian evolutionary technology and created other accelerated races. Can anybody tell me the names of any of these beings? Anyone? FA: The French? They can be pretty fast with their hands? MLA: Meh. I can be faster with my hands than anyone. I’d be willing to prove it in a set of public trials. A French-off. Vizh: The races that the Space Robots created? No guesses? Kerry: The Muppets? Vizh: Anybody at all? Vespiir: Master Bill Cosby? Gaz: President Kennedy? Danny: Okay, don’t pop a vein, V-man. The Austernals created the Abhumans. The Abhumans in turn took over the war against the Deviates and engineered a bunch of other races like the Racoon People, the Detonator Hippos, the Vesalian Apes, the Sea Monkeys, the Dynamo Dolphins and stuff. The Deviates made a pile of others like the Morshlocks and maybe those gomers on Monstrous Isle. Abhumans discovered this metamorphing gas that taps powers from the Negativity Zone to give them their unique abilities like Uhuna’s healing gifts. Deviates made a bunch of deep underground tunnels for sending newbie legionnaires down. They all had a big fight and the Deviates got clobbered and sealed away forever. Can we go now? Vizh: Er, well, that was largely correct, I suppose, in a broad sense. Vespiir: At least until Master Haatman and the others make their discoveries on their journey. Kerry: Okay, we’re fully briefed, despite all attempts to the contrary by some supervillain boyfriends to unbrief some of us. There were these big Space Robots that set up some action figures to fight each other and the two sides made more action figures until the Sesame Street People took out the Smurfs or whatever. End of story. Gaz: Now we go smite yon Man? *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2016 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2016 to their creators. This is a work of parody. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works are in fair-use parody and do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. Any proceeds from this work are distributed to charity. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

I really should institute a "raise your hand and wait to be called on before speaking" policy in class. It seems like it would help us get through the lesson plans in a more timely fashion.

I suspect this was what the Socratean method was really like.