“Hello? Anyone down here?”
Downie looked around.
“Psst! In here!” said a low voice.
“Five-o? Is that you?”
“Shh!”
A small hand came out from round a concealed door and beckoned. Investigating, he found a small cramped cupboard.
“Is this where you’ve all been hiding?”
“Has Ray been deposed yet?” said Five-o.
“As our leader? No. Though he is looking a bit rattled these days. Something about a female berserker with a funny accent who’s more powerful than he is.”
“Are you hiding from him too?”
“No, I was just told this would be a good place to learn the art of metaversal strategy.”
“I thought you always said you hated the idea of space travel? You said it lacked narrative coherence and threatened the consistency of the mileu, whatever that means.”
“Well, I changed my mind.”
“What’s the matter? Had an argument with the girlfriend?”
“OK, so she found out I’d lied to her when I told her there were no such thing as half-elves. Doesn’t she know the difference between artistic and literal truth?”
“Anyway, galactic conquest is fairly easy. All you have to do is get into one of our ships, press the button marked Start, and it will take you to the nearest alternative earth which would accept you as leader. Then, once you’ve conquered the galaxy, you can come back here.”
“So I have to drive GROSS out of that galaxy, do I?”
“Oh, no. They won’t be there. Just a bunch of alien races.”
“Then how will this help us defeat the pirate menace?”
“Once the galaxy is united behind our way of thinking, we can create a link between them and the greater metaverse, send out some advisors to teach them our style of combat, and leave them to fight for our cause.”
“Hm. That almost makes sense, I guess. OK, I’ll give it a go.”
He forced the door closed and walked away.

A magical-technician saw Downie enter the hangar, and ushered him into one of the spacecraft.
He stared at the controls awhile, then pressed the Start button, and waited. A list of options appeared. “What the heck is a Corporate Machine?” he wondered. He selected the only one with the word Galactic in, and at once found himself somewhere else.
Looking at the view-screens, he saw a cloudy sky, and a city below. “Hw you land this thing?” he muttered. There wasn’t any button marked ‘land’.
The city seemed to be getting closer, so he decided to relax and wait. It would probably all be taken care of.

“Oh great dictator, please may we carry out some enhancements to our soil?” pleaded a farmer.
“Certainly not! I’m collecting tax revenue money! I have just reached the trillion credit level!” said the Supreme Dictator of Earth.
“But sir, if we could improve this planet, you would bring in a greater tax revenue.”
The dictator sighed. “Some people have no understanding of the finer points of politics. Guard! Shoot this peasant!”
“As you wish, sir,” said the guard.
He raised his gun, but his aim was disrupted by something crashing through the roof, looking like an enormous ring of gold. It squashed the dictator flat as a pancake. Only his boots survived, protruding from under the edge of the hull.
Someone stepped out, a tall man with pointed ears.
“I come in peace!” he declared. “Take me to your leader.”
“Are you from the planet Vulcan?” asked the farmer.
“No, I’m from Middle-Earth,” said Downie.
“The Wicked Dictator is dead! Let’s make this complete stranger our new leader!” said the guard.
Everyone cheered.
“Funny customs you have here,” said Downie.

“What is the situation?” said Downie, seated on his new throne.
“We have just discovered a hyper-drive. We are ready to conquer the stars!” said the scientist.
“Oh good, that'll help. Do you people know anything about any alien races?”
“Don’t worry about them; they’ll have no reason to be hostile to us! Not after what we’ve done for them!”
“What is that?”
“Well, the simple communication we established with them suggested that they had stargates, which allowed slow and inconvenient space travel between their worlds. So, reasoning that they must have eliminated all their hostile urges to survive this long, I decided to transmit the hyper-drive design to all of them simultaneously.”
“Grr... You’re lucky I’m a pacifist,” said Downie. So saying, he pulled out his war-harp and shot the man in the leg. Twang!
“Ow! My leg! What did you do that for? Where’s the gratitude? Have you any idea how difficult it is to explain the design of a hyper-drive in a manner that can be comprehended by seven different species, without so much a Universal Translator to help? We even had to develop a faster-than-light communication system to make sure everyone got it straight away!”
Twang!
“Ow! My other leg! Look, these races need a hyperdrive! Their gate technology only permits them to visit worlds where someone else has built a gate on the other side! Without our technology, they couldn’t even colonise other planets!”
Twang!
“Ow! My arm! What’s the matter with you? I mean, if I hadn’t done it, humanity would have a massively unfair advantage!”
Twang!
“Ow! My other arm!”
“Guard! Take this man away, and give him urgent medical assistance,” said Downie.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like a challenge?” said the scientist.
Twang!
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, guard!”
“That’s quite all right, sir. I hardly ever used that knee anyway.”
“That’s a relief. Oh, and no need to call me ‘sir’. I prefer ‘sire’.

“What are your commands, sire?” said the farmer, now promoted to chief advisor.
“Increase taxes until people stop being so happy. Set all spaceship factories to maximum output, building colony ships.”
“What about scientific research and social projects?”
“Put them all on hold. All scientists and sociologists shall be forced to work in the spaceship factories.”

“Sire, we’ve met some aliens!”
“Big surprise. What do they have to say?”
“Snetz zorb squick tu squack squarble!”
“Oh, very well. Release the scientists from the spaceship factories. Have them find a way to communicate with other races. Anyone who was working in the factory can help them by... making cups of tea or whatever.”

“Sire, we can now communicate with the alien race.”
“Then put me through to their leader.”
“Ah, so this is what a human looks like,” said the Altarian high commander. “Fascinating. You look just like us, except you have pointed ears.”
“Mm. No doubt there’s some clever explanation for the likeness, involving genetic experiments carried out by an ancient race. But who cares? Let’s trade!”
“’Trade’? What on Altair is that?”
“We will share our technological secrets, such as this universal translator, with you, in exchange for your technology.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. We don’t want to lose our technology.”
“You won’t lose anything! We both gain, at the expense of all the other races! It would be madness not to!”
“Maybe, but you don’t seem Good enough to meet our high standards.”
“What do you mean? I’ve ordered my men to opt for the high ground in every moral dilemma!”
“Yes, but our information suggests that you’ve only had three moral dilemmas so far. That really isn’t enough for me to base a decision on.”
“Not enough? Do you want me to colonise more low-grade planets in the vague hope of finding more native species so I can choose not to exploit them? And even if we were evil, you’d still gain from this deal I’m proposing.”
“Oh, very well. I’ll give it a try.”

“Wa ha ha ha ha! Your skin looks tasty, man-thing!”
“Ah, you’re a Drengin, aren’t you?”
“That’s us! And we’re evil! Pure evil!”
“I... see. So how does this evil manifest itself?”
“Well, I’ll give you an example, puny human. Here’s my advisor. He’s given me many years of faithful service. Say hello, advisor.”
“Hello,” said the Drengin advisor.
“Hello,” said Downie.
The Drengin leader drew a pistol from his belt as he continued. “Now, I have a moral dilemma: Should I reward him for the work he’s done, or kill him? Clearly, killing him is the more evil option.”
“Yes, I can see that, but...”
Bang!
“And that sets an example of fear that will act as an inspiration to all my other pitiful slaves.”
“Well, if that’s what happens to the obedient ones, why don’t the others all rebel? Doesn’t it occur to them that you’re not the best person to obey?”
“You know, you’d think it would, but it never does. So, what did you want to say to us?”
“We want to trade technologies.”
“’Trade’? What’s that?”

“Sire? You just gave the Drengins technology that will allow them to build Battleaxe warships to use against us!”
“So what? I got something decent in exchange, didn’t I? And I can trade that to the Altarians, and make double profits!”

“So, you’re a Yor? How’s it hanging?”
“Your transmission does not compute.”
“Likewise. Now, we want to make a deal with you...”
“Our programmed objective is the replacement of all life with the Yor. Organic beings are inferior. You will be exterminated.”
“Good, good. And wouldn’t it be easier to replace all life with the help of this?”
“Please specify operational parameters.”
“It’s a trade good. An aphrodisiac. We hold the patent, strictly enforced by the hideous god-like overlords down at the Galactic Bank.”
“Your offering is found to be desirable. A deal shall be forthcoming. You will be exterminated. Do you take cash? Abort, retry, fail?”

“Did you get the red rubber ball we sent you, human? Did you bounce it?” said the Torian.
“Yes, it was very nice. Much better than the box of severed heads the Drengin sent me.”
“We felt that such diversions might amuse your kind.”
“Now, we recently acquired the secret of Tri-Strontium Steel, which we think you might find amusing. What will you give me for it?”

“We are the Arceans. We are neutrals. Fanatical neutrals, you might say.”
“Really? What’s that like?”
The Arcean shrugged non-commitally. “Anyway, in order to preserve peace in the galaxy, we’d like you to hand over the Sol system to our control.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem unreasonable... Hang on, that’s the one with the Earth in it, isn’t it? No way!”
“You are braver than you look.”
“Tell you what. You know the upcoming United Planets meeting? Well, I wield three thousand, six hundred and twenty seven votes. I will give you precisely one of them. As a mark of my respect for you.”
There were muffled whisperings at the other end.
“What’s he doing?” said the Arcean leader.
“He’s being sarcastic!” said his advisor.
“What should we do?”
“Be sarcastic back?”
“Right. Human, we thank you for this generous gift, and are willing to sign a non-aggression treaty.”
“Thanks! See ya,” said Downie, and signed out.
“Do you think I was too sarcastic?”
“Oh no, you handled it brilliantly,” said his advisor, in a sarcastic tone of voice.
“Oh, good.”

“Hello little boy. Can you put a grown-up on the line? I want to speak to the leader of your planet,” said Downie.
“What are you talking about? We are the mighty Carinoids, and we claim this part of space in the name of the mighty Carinoid empire!” said the three foot tall emperor.
“Isn’t that cute? Now, how about a tech trade? We will give you nineteen technologies and five trade goods. In exchange, how about.... a trillion credits a month for the next fifty months?”
“Deal!”
“Are you sure? There is such a thing as haggling, you know. Maybe I’d be prepared to accept less?”
“Don’t patronise me!”
“I mean, a trillion is thirty times your monthly revenue, and your home planet is at risk if you fail to keep up the payments...”
“If we can’t pay, then we’ll borrow it from the Galactic Banking Overlords! Eventually, we will have paid off the debt! Maybe in as little a century!”
“OK, your funeral.”

“Sire, thanks to your policies, we are now by far the most economically powerful race in the galaxy! If you’d just allow us to switch to the production of military ships, we could crush them all!” shouted the advisor.
“No,” said Downie, from one of the higher branches of the tree he’d had planted in his throne room.
“Sire?”
“I believe we could win, but I’d estimate that in order to do so, we’d have to kill somewhere in the region of 850 billion aliens. That seems wrong, somehow.”
The advisor was confused. “In what way? I don’t think that would make us evil.”
“I know, but... There’s just something about it that makes me feel a little uneasy.”
“Come on! Think of the glory! Think how it will feel when we win!”
Downie lay back, and started to wax poetic.

debris of smashed ships
space was never so silent
all aliens gone

fallen galaxy
now we are wholly alone
in winning, we lose

“Sniff...” said the advisor, deeply moved.
“I believe we should instead conquer the galaxy with our culture.”
“How?”
“I’ll compose some songs about why the human way is better. I’ve also written a script for a movie trilogy; a historical epic. I think the alien races will find it quite stimulating. Oh, and step up the mining of those little glowing blue cubes. They make great novelty lighting.”

Alexians are all on drugs.
Yors keep needing to reboot. All
Drengin really want is hugs.
Arceans are stuck in neutral.

Kwilasians smell like a sewer.
Torians are green and mushy.
Altarians think you’re impure.
Scottlingas chicks are awful pushy.

But the greatest race in outer space
Are the ones behind the hyper-drive,
Forget the rest, seek out the best
Join us and you just might survive!

Much later...

“Hey, boss, there are still some Torians holding out,” said his new advisor, a Yor who had been culturally assimilated into humanity.
Downie was ready for this. “Release two separate DVD editions of each film, each time with different extra material; include half an hour of additional footage in the second one and jack up the price. Then, when people have bought all six...”
“Yes?”
“Release the whole thing in a boxed set, with yet more extra material. Available from all good supermarkets and party palaces.”
The Yor gasped through its voice synthesiser, and then succumbed to a coughing fit. It knew the elf had a ruthless streak, but it hadn’t realised just how far he was prepared to go.
“And no smoking in my presence!” said Downie.
“Sorry, boss.”

“How did they respond to the new bouncy ball we sent them?”
“Your Greatness, they have built yet another party palace in an adjacent sector.”
“So? What business is that of ours? It’s light years away!”
“Not so far as to not affect our people.”
“I have more important concerns! We have almost finished work on our first Avatar class ship! With this in our fleet, we shall be forever safe from human interference!”
“Your Greatness, the humans have not launched a single military attack on any other race, yet they now control 98% of the galaxy...”
“What are you babbling about? Human culture will never affect us! And what’s that you’re wearing?”
“It’s a baseball cap, your Greatness.”
“I know what it is! Why are you wearing it back to front?”
“I don’t know. I just saw some other people doing it, and I copied them.”
“Take it off at once!”
“Yes, your Greatness.”
“And go and buy me a copy of the new Extended Edition DVD! I must see that extra footage of orcs being slaughtered!” “At bloody last. I was starting to get bored. Now, how do I get back to middle-earth?”
“You might try pressing the button marked ‘There’s no place like home’ on your ship’s console.”

“All done?” said the technician.
“How many decades was I gone?” said Downie, finding himself back in the hangar.
“You were away for about six hours. Time goes at a different rate when you’re out in the metaverse.”
“Oh. So the humans I knew here are still alive then?”
“Most of them, I would imagine. Anyway, good work. That’s another galaxy loyal to the Fellowship. We’ll send through some mages to teach them the art of metaversal combat, and they’ll be out blowing up pirates before you know it... Oh. Damn.”
“What’s the matter?”
“That whole galaxy has gone anomalous. That means we can’t risk adding it to our metaversal territory or it might collapse in on itself. You must have had too much money.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Don’t you know that the weight of one hundred trillion credits worth of gold in one place is sometimes enough to rip a hole in the fabric of space-time?”
“You neglected to mention that fact.”
“Well, I would have thought it was obvious.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Govern less well next time, of course!”
“Next time? Are you mad? There isn’t going to be a next time! Life’s too short!”
“But you’re an ageless elf!”
“Hm. Good point. OK, one more go. But this time, try and find me a more challenging galaxy...”