The Babylon 5 Episode
of
As the Shadow Shifts
Next Week on Babylon 6!!! A deadly alien Virus threatens the entire shadow, and Captain Keverian must battle the DEMONS of AMBER to stop it!!! Next week!!! on Babylon 6!!!
[opening shot of some nicely computer-animated cows, grazing in a field. The grass waves in the wind, and a couple of fractal clouds drift by. An old grain silo is visible in the distance.]
[The scene suddenly switches to the inside of the grain silo. Sitting in the middle of a big pile of dried corn is Ambassador Nikrowd Mollari. He has his head tilted back, mouth wide open, eyelids squeezed until he can barely see, with a tear forming at the corner of one eye. A trump gate is open about six inches above his mouth, and steaming hot liquid, milky blue in color, is drizzling onto his outstretched tongue.]
Nikrowd: Ahhhhh, hot jallah, just the way I like it.
[A little of the jallah spills out of the corner of his mouth. Before a drop can hit the floor, another trump gate opens, catching the spill nicely.]
Commercial Break
Sally Vacuum: This is a special Campaign News Update on the Campaign Trail here in Campaign New Hampshire, where Senate Majority Leader Bleys Dole is leading a full trump deck of Campaign Candidates to replace King Random in the upcoming 1996 November Election and Army-Fest. Bleys has promised to "lead one last mission for our generation, before those spoiled brat nieces and nephews of ours wreck the whole universe."
Recent polls show that Senator Bleys' slim lead over non-candidate General Delwin Powell has narrowed further. The Times-Mirror/CNN poll of 87,392,348 telephone respondents (that's 611,746,436 in dog telephone respondents) in the Ring Kingdoms and New Hampshire produced the following results (poll figures have a margin of error). (Margin of error is +- some number of voters, and a different +-%)
Bleys Dole 1% Delwin Powell 1% Elaine Buchanan 1% Cannell Dornan 0% Katarina Keyes 0% Corwin Gramm 0% Torquil Forbes -3% (-21% in dog percent) This is a low-tech shadow. We have no telephones. 100%
Not included in the poll are Reynard Gingrich, who has not declared whether he will run for King, and millionaire industrialist Dalamar "Morry" Taylor, whose plan to replace the Castle Amber staff with conjured birds and a fleet of three million clipper ships (21 million if manned by dogs. I mean, dogged by dogs. Well, you know what I mean.) has aroused much scepticism.
Televison and radio commentator Elaine Buchanan declared in a speech today before her loyal supporter, "I am the only candidate who is really sending a message of real, honest change in Amber. I will stop the pro-Pattern, anti-Logrus, job-destroying policies of the Random administration, appoint the most pro-Logrus cabinet in the history of the universe, and I just might invade Cuba. Seven times. Woof."
[Babylon 6 theme music starts up]
It was the dawn of the third generation of Amberites; eleven years (seventy-seven in dog years; time to retire) after the Patternfall war.... The Avalon project was a dream given form: its goal, to start a war between Amber and Chaos so that Ur-Corwin's pattern can become supreme. It's a home away from home for renegade Amberites, their children, friends, and henchmen. Two dozen Amberites and their co-conspirators wrapped up in more Pattern and Sorcery than you can believe; all alone in shadow. It can be a dangerous place, but we accept the risk, because it was our last best hope to show up our siblings. This is the story of the last of the Avalon shadows. The year: heck if I know. The place: Avalon 5.
[Really impressive dirge goes here]
President ur-Clark of the Earth Alliance sits behind a large mahogany desk, quietly smiling to himself while fidgeting with something under the table. Suddenly, he notices that the camera is pointed at him; he immediately assumes a positively maniacal look, and drops the cat he had been strangling in order to rub his hands together with villainous glee.
"I've wanted me dead for so long...I'm mean, I've wanted Corwin dead. The other Corwin. See, there's this other guy who looks just like me....forget it, just blow up the damned ship and everything will be great."
We can see that he speaks to someone, who is presumably operating the camera. We hear a voice respond. It sounds remarkably like that of Brand Morden, who all long-time viewers know to be a nasty-bad who has a habit of coming back from the dead and trying to conquer the universe.
"Don't worry your pretty little head about one eensy-teensy itty-bitty little thing, Mr. President. See, while everybody hates my guts, and figures I ought to be dead again, nobody actually seems willing to do the job. Meanwhile, they're constantly talking to me and offering all kinds of useful information. Now, if I could just get the Eye of the Unicorn, we could make Nikrowd Mollari the Emperor of Rebma."
ur-Clark: "Isn't that the Eye of the Serpent?"
Brand Morden: "Uhh, no, wait, I think it's the Horn of the Serpent."
ur-Clark: "That doesn't sound right. Why don't you turn off the camera, transmit what we've got out into the depths of space where no one will pick it up without insanely powerful tech hooked into bizarre Psychic powers."
Brand Morden: "Good plan." (mutters something about 'maybe it was Fist of the Beaver?' as the screen flips to static)
We bring you now an update on the state of the Amberite Royal Primaries, currently being held somewhere in Shadow. As our loyal viewers must know by now unless they've been asleep the whole time, the throne of Amber is a hotly contested prize, with candidates of every hue and stripe and cry contend for the right to be their faction's nominee to make a run at Random, current holder of the vaunted position. Of course, frontrunner Bleys Dole occupies much of the media spotlight, with his commanding lead based upon his three thousand years of experience as leader of the occasionally loyal opposition. But many wonder what exactly he would do as King, and other upstarts have claimed that he represents simply more of the same waffling and generally obtuse vagueness that we have come to expect from the Elder Amberites.
One of the most fascinating entrants into the race would have to be Psyche-billionaire Torquil Forbes, with his message extolling the virtues of "one simple height tax" to be levied on all denizens of shadow above 5' 4". His opponents decry this measure as unfair to the tall, and see in his proposal the invisible hand of his widely-feared (and very short) mother. However, Fiona Kemp has yet to endorse any candidate, and has been largely silent. Big surprise.
Our latest news comes from this wacky poll, conducted by our Ubiquitous In Shadow pollsters, with a margin of error of plus or minus X(i) percent (where X is the fractal dimensionality of shadow i).
Bleys Dole a bunch% Delwin Powell slightly less% Reynard Gingrich please, no% Elaine Buchanan you have to be kidding% Katarina Keyes wasn't Keverian the one with the vandyke?% Dalamar Taylor at least he's beating Torquil% Torquil Forbes our hero!%
Scene: a desolate plain of pink dirt. The sky is pink, the dirt is pink. Torquil Bester, with his lovely wife and charming children, are out for a picnic on Syria Planum. The hardboiled eggs are exploding due to the low pressure atmosphere, but hey, at least there aren't any ants.
First Adorable Kid: But Daddy, why can't we take off our helmets?
Bester: You can. See, here you go. (removes kid's helmet)
First Adorable Kid: Aaaaaaaa. (head explodes)
Second Adorable Kid: Whoa. Cool. (removes helmet, head also explodes)
Lovely Wife: Oh dear, there's blood and bits of bone all over the sandwiches.
Bester: We'll go to McDonald's. If we mind ream the employees, I bet we could get half off on the new Arch Deluxe(TM). Now that we have no children, we can safely enjoy an Adult Burger(TM).
Lovely Wife: But do we have time? You have to go track down those missing blips.
Bester: Oh, right. Well, maybe if I give Garibaldi a hamburger, he'll like me better.
(Bester gets in spaceship; flies to Babylon 35)
Babylon 35 Control: Woof, woof.
Bester: I repeat -- Babylon Control, request permission to dock. This is a Category 4 Emergency; my neck itches, and I have to get out of this spacesuit to scratch it. I'm not a fucking telekinetic.
Babylon 35: Woof (pant pant pant).
Torquil Forbes, who until now has conducted his campaign largely by remote control, eschewing the actual physicial presence required for traditional baby-kissing and handshaking, met with voters in Lindy's Diner, on Gilbo Ave., in the all-important First-Primary-In-The-Universe shadow of New Hampster. Known for their rugged individualism, distrust of powerful government, and their ability to shoot a stream of deadly poison up to fifty feet, the eight-foot rodent residents of New Hampster are frequently mistaken for beavers.
And now a clip from Lindy's Diner:
Likely Voter Rexarg: "Mnnnnnaarhhhh."
Torquil Forbes: "In terms of this campaign, I think that this will be one of the most important reigns in Amberite history, certainly more important than Random's. I say that not just because in the last couple of months I suddenly have a personal vested interest in what happens in this campaign. Nor is it simply because Random seems to have failed to do much of anything at all. But this really is, despite the cliche, a crossroads. This will determine what kind of people we are, what direction we'll take both at home and throughout Shadow. It is a post Patternfall War campaign. The first time in eighty thousand years we don't face a major external threat. To those who would fear Chaos, I assure you, they suck. We also sense that we are entering a new era, whether you call it the high-tech age, the information age, or the Psyche age, it will alter the way we live and the way we conquer."
"We do, I think, have an opportunity in these, in this new era to to remove obstacles and barriers that stand in the way of our moving ahead. As you know many Amberites today are frustrated. They don't understand, for example, why is it that if we won the Patternfall War, we're still no good at fighting. Theoretically, we're the most powerful nation in the history of the universe; why is it that we aren't doing better here at home? Why is it, for example, that two Amberites in a family can't seem to do the job that one Amberite could in previous generations? Why is it that many young people feel they won't have the opportunities that their parents and grandparents had for getting ahead, drawing their own Patterns, conquering the universe? And why is it that the quality of life in Amber seems to have come under assault from the Barimens, from Delwin, or from any of these other guys?"
"Before I get to a discussion of what I see are some of the fundamental strengths of Amber and then some of the obstacles and barriers that stand in the way of realizing our full potential, I would like to make one observation. That is, that despite what a lot of pundits and writers would have us believe, in Amber the vast perceived difference between Psyche and Warfare is largely a false one. After all, while Psyche is useful for turning someone's brain inside out and making them think that they're a bowl of rice pudding for the nex ten thousand years, Warfare is much better for picking locks, and for cooking that rice pudding to a delicate golden brown."
"Many say that in winning the Patternfall War we seem to have won the battle but lost the war. Well, for one thing, it wasn't called the Patternfall Battle. For another, duh. You've been spending too many points on powers and not enough on allies. Powers are great for winning battles, but then everyone hates you and despises you and wouldn't vote for you in a million years. I don't mean to sound bitter or anything. You see, we do need both Warfare and Psyche if we want to win the War, since then you can serve that golden brown rice pudding with the nice crisp little crust on top to your new allies."
Rexarg: "Gguguguggggghhhh." (bites off Torquil's head)
(the following mysterious transmission was found lying on the side of the road on Sherman Street, suspiciously near to the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. No, wait, that's not a very mysterious transmission; that's a VOLVO transmission. This is the real mysterious transmission.)
Thirteen: Confirmed. Eliminate all witnesses.
Mary Control: Understood. Does Fiona present an obstacle to our mission?
Thirteen: Affirmative. Her P12 rating will be sufficient to withstand any psychic attack you attempt. Recommend use of physical force.
Mary Control: And what of the fire angel?
Felicia Winters: My bird? What are you going to do with my poor little helpless bird?
Mary Control: The Pattern is mother, the Pattern is father.
Ninety-One: Woof.
Avoiding the limelight by chance rather than choice, Julian Lugar has been quietly presenting a message of responsible foreign policy, tax reform, and increased equestrian subsidies. Lugar filed papers in New Hampster today.
Running second half of December on WAMBUR Channel 9 in New Hampster.
Length of ad is 30 seconds (50 minutes in slow-time shadows; 6 hours in slow-time shadows populated by dogs).
[`Day 1' written at bottom left of screen; Julian Lugar begins narration; cut to "terrorists" (men in coats, sometimes wearing dark glasses. Their bowling shirts have "Team Barimen" embroidered above the breast pocket.) unloading three cases containing spikards or possibly toothpicks from airplane into black GMC Jimmy]
"From the tragedy of that unnamed place near Ice Station Zebra to the first act of planned spikard terrorism is but one small step."
[Cut to Amber Intelligence Agency Headquarters; Cut to Official Seal of the Unicorn Rapid Response Team; Cut to "bulletin" advising of terrorist plot to detonate three Logrus bombs in Amber, ripped from printer]
"Suppose that terrorists had acquired a grapefruit-sized ball of highly enriched toothpick. Or worse, a toothpick-sized ball of highly-enriched grapefruit. Imagine that the Sun was this grapefruit, and the earth this toothpick. Then this toothpick would be a Twinkie forty-five miles long and weighing twenty-two tons (that's 154 dog tons)."
[Cut to terrorists moving cases from vehicle to house; cut to intelligence bulletin carried to analyst; cut to "terrorists" moving cases into safehouse; cut to analyst carrying bulletin to desk officer; cut to male news anchor who continues narration; cut to terrorist guarding house while cases are being unloaded]
"A rogue terrorist group has threatened to explode three Logrus bombs in Castle Amber."
[Cut to news anchor in control room set; cut to Castle Amber]
"Government officials are calling the report a hoax."
[Cut to man at a desk who reads AIA report, picks up telephone]
"I need to see the King...now."
[Fade to slate: 'Julian Lugar for King': to be continued...]
Running second half of December on WAMBUR TV.
[`Day 2' is written at bottom left of screen; sign standing in Bloody Fred's across from Castle Amber "Live by the sword, die by the spikard."; Male voice speaking]
"Your Majesty, I'm afraid this is the real thing."
[Pan to Castle Amber] "Ever since the Patternfall War we've had spikards running around unaccounted for..."
[Fade to Unicorn seal on cufflink of white shirt; male news anchor continues narration with a report and a cut to control room set]
"...700 cases of attempted spikard smuggling..."
[Cut to backs of "terrorists" watching news broadcast in safehouse suited up and ready to go]
"...60 arrests...11 attempted thefts of enriched Logrus..."
[Cut to father and mother (who looks a lot like Rachel) watching/listening to TV news report while children play; cut to "terrorist" taking case carrying Logrus material into bus station, placing inside locker]
"The central logic of terrorism is to maximize horror. What could be more shocking than to vaporize an Amberite child, thought safely tucked away in shadow?"
[Fade to little girl being tucked into bed by Rachel. Little girl has overheard TV report]
Little Girl: "Mommy."
Rachel: "What honey?"
Little Girl: "Won't the Logrus bomb wake everybody up?"
[Rachel and daughter hug; slate: 'Julian Lugar for King': to be continued...]
[`Day 3' is written at bottom left of screen; male news anchor in control room set speaking]
"To prove their threat terrorists will lead authorities to only one of the three cases...(Too bad they're not dogs, or else we'd have all seven.)"
[Cut to "terrorists" watching news report about their actions in safehouse; cut to law enforcement official opening locker to find case of nuclear material; cut to Castle Amber shot through the flags of Kolvir; King's staff member speaking]
"Your Majesty, since the Patternfall War, we've had toothpick materials leaking out..."
[Shots of chaos: Traffic jam. Police Car. Soldiers. Firemen. Policemen. Traffic jam.; male news anchor continuing report]
"Traffic jams... the police are calling for order... the Dow Jones plunges... the military has sealed off... Amberite cities and small towns..."
[Cut to Castle Amber; Royal staff member speaking; fade to King's hands]
"Amberite Bureau of Investigation says this is the real thing. Droppa MaPantz says we can't possibly meet these demands without more whipped cream. AIA says they may blow them anyway. They're waiting outside, Your Majesty. We need a decision."
[Slate: 'Julian Lugar for King': to be continued...]
[Begins with male news anchor speaking in a control room set]
"A rogue terrorist group has threatened to explode three toothpick bombs in the Pattern Room...(that's twenty-one toothpicks in dog toothpicks)"
[Cut to "terrorists" unloading plane]
"...Smuggling from the Court of Chaos..."
[Cut to bulletin torn from printer]
"...60 arrests involving the seizure of stolen Logrus materials..."
[Cut to "terrorists" unloading cases and taking them into a safehouse; cut to AIA desk officer receives bulletin; cut to three cases containing highly enriched pancake syrup or cream cheese on table at safehouse; cut to Castle Amber through flags of Kolvir; cut to King's hands listening to briefing, while his ears fidget with a pencil]
"...A complete plot derailment can be created with as little as 2 1/2 Patterns..."
[Julian Lugar looking into camera with head and shoulders shot, in an office, and speaking; 'Julian Lugar' written at bottom right of screen. His five dogs (thirty-five in dog dogs) stand to his right; Morgenstern stands to his left, gazing steadily at the camera. Julian occasionally feeds him a blood-drenched carrot.]
"Nobody wants to talk about Logrus terrorism. But hiding from it won't make it go away. I've been on the front lines fighting this battle in Arden, and I can tell you that, ready or not, the next King will be forced to deal with it. Starting now, the contest for the throne must change. All of us in the race promise to balance the budget, cut taxes, shrink government, and draw no new Patterns (read my lips). And with a mindslave Golden Circle, any of us will do this. But the King never gets to that agenda if Amber isn't secure. What this is about is electing a King you trust with your life. We need to build SkyHorseNet now."
[Fade to slate: `Julian Lugar Everything a King Should Be'; Male announcer speaks]
Scene: a very dark place filled with weird tech, and lots of smoke
machines in the corners.
Katarina Alexander, renegade daughter of six generations of Amberite
also-rans, has been gifted with gills by the mysterious Santa Claus, a
red-and-white besuited benefactor from the past. Her gills pulsate
regularly and emit kaleidoscopic patterns (no, just regular patterns,
not Patterns) of light, as she absorbs the intransigence of her
forbears from the ghost of her dead father. He also gives her a
blowtorch.
Katarina: "I have sworn no fealty to Amber. That means I'm not bound by their rules. So if I felt like it, I'd find Liesl, and before ur-Clark took me away, I'd plant a nightmare so deep that no one else could ever find or remove it and that person would spend every night for the rest of their lives screaming."
Mary Control: "You can't. Your Psyche is too low."
Katarina: "How did you get in here?"
Mary Control: "Through the back door. Kosh grows trees back there."
Katarina: "Trees? I thought he was a methane-breather? Won't the oxygen from the trees damage his lungs?
Mary Control: "He doesn't have lungs; he has gills, like yours. Anyway, you can't mind ream Liesl."
Katarina: "Well, then I guess I'll just have to beat the shit out of him."
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the station, Dalamar Lennier is engaged in his favorite pasttime, of fixing up old motorcycles. He grips a conjured screwdriver, which does Deadly Damage, is immune to all physical attacks, can turn invisible and fly, and is pyschically neutral.
Dalamar Lennier: I seem to have erred. I spent eight hours conjuring this thing, and I forgot to make it a Phillips-head screwdriver. By the way, did you know that the Phillips head screwdriver was invented in Oregon?
Mikele Garibaldi: One quiet day. That's all I ask for. One quiet day. With no explosions, coups, malevolent aliens, political intrigue, or spies. Especially spies. I hate spies. Like you.
Dalamar Lennier: I'm a diplomat.
Mikele Garibaldi: You know, I'd kind of like you if you were telling the truth.
Dalamar Lennier: Hey, Chaosites can't lie. I'm a diplomat.
Commentator Elaine Buchanan's face hasn't popped up yet in television advertisements across the shadow, but she's spent more time walking main streets in demon form and chatting in coffee shops than any other candidate.
Still, Buchanan says many New Hampster voters only know her attack-dog image from her role as a panelist on CNN's "Crossfire," or her blistering attacks on Emperor Swayvill in the shadow's primary forty thousand years ago. They're not familiar with the full Buchanan.
"I have a reputation as a pugilist and a battler for the Logrus," Buchanan said Tuesday during a meeting with editors and a nine-foot tall reptilian reporter at The Telegraph. "And there's no doubt about it that that's the impression or image I have. And so we live that - that's right. But that's not the whole deal. After all, Pattern is bad."
In an hour-long interview, Buchanan said she would want to "take a look" at shrinking the size of the military in the wake of the Patternfall War ("as soon as we've gotten rid of those pesky Patterns"), and agreed New Hampster's recovering economy has given her economic message less appeal than it had before the Chaos primary.
"Read my lips -- no new Patterns."
Buchanan has been a vocal opponent of King Random's decision to send Benedict towards Chaos, and said that Amber should consider pulling its troops out of shadow entirely and re-evaluating its overseas military alliances.
"We're in a new world, a brand new world, and many of my friends with whom I shared every view during the Patternfall War - Chinaway, Mandor, and others -- I think their foreign policy is rooted in inertia and nostalgia," she said. "We call it tha Patternfall War, but here we are with a Pattern anyway; more Patterns than we used to have. We now have six different Patterns (forty-two in dog Patterns). That's not Patternfall at all."
Buchanan supports a major downsizing of the Amberite government, with the shadows making their own decisions on physics and timeflow, without interference from the Pattern. She said she would support a one- or two-year residency requirement before eligibility for walking the Logrus, to prevent certain shadowdwellers with more Endurance from becoming magnets for Logrus sorcery.
"I generally believe that the various shadows have different histories, different ethnic groups there, different backgrounds and different philosophies," he said. "Let them compete as social laboratories. That's the way the Serpent believed."
Some Amberites have suggested Elaine's strident economic nationalism -- with assaults on big business and attacks on free trade -- represents an abandoning of the traditional conservative view. But Buchanan was unapologetic, saying she was "not hostile to the idea of capitalism" but committed to conserving the standard of living for demons everywhere.
The widespread dissatisfaction with government, Buchanan said, is largely due to its failure to give shadow suckers things they clearly want, such as limits for exalted powers, phasing out of foreign aid, stopping illegal trump contacts and allowing for voluntary death curses in public schools.
"Now every time the voters get a chance to vote on it they'll go 90 percent for it, but every time they vote on it, it never gets done," she said. "And they vote again and again and finally they say, 'They don't care about us anyway, they don't care what we say, politics doesn't matter, it doesn't mean anything.' And she's right -- when you can summon armies at will, who cares what the shadow suckers think?
"So you get an enormous growth of cynicism and hostility and alienation. The government has got to get back to the point where it is responsive to the people."
Cael: I'm tired of typing. Time to bring in all the rest of the characters.
(a mob of people enter Mikele Garibaldi's quarters, shouting and shoving each other. The odor of anchovies, garlic, and olive oil permeates the air.)
Mikele Garibaldi: Hey, that smells like that Italian dish whose name I can never remember. I love that stuff.
Martin Franklin: But it's bad for you.
Mikele Garibaldi: How come you're Franklin? You're nothing like Franklin. Franklin talks too much and wears his heart on his sleeve.
Martin Franklin: Oh, that was my heart? I thought it was a ketchup stain, so I had it washed off. Took three dry-cleanings, and now my uniform doesn't fit. (That's twenty one in dog dry-cleanings.)
Dalamar Lennier: That doesn't sound too pleasant for the dog, getting dry-cleaned. Aren't those chemicals poisonous?
Mikele Garibaldi: While I've got you all here, I'd like to take a little poll.
Torquil Bester: Forbes. He's the best one for the job.
Mikele Garibaldi: No, not that kind of a poll. What I want to ask everyone is....
Keverian Marcus: Fasten, then zip. By the way, I've discovered a way to model the interactions of all the Amberites by combining this diagram of the Ottoman Empire with this chart of all the characters from Times.
Torquil Bester: Suleyman the Magnificent was not strictly an Ottoman.
Keverian Marcus: Well, he sure doesn't look like a love seat.
Torquil Bester: No, no, I mean that Suleyman doesn't belong on your chart. His reign wasn't during the Ottoman Empire.
(Keverian Marcus shoves Bester into snowbank)
Torquil Bester: This snowbank has no snow in it. In fact, it's a pile of hay.
Pile of Hay: Mmmmhmhfffmgl.
Felicia Winters: Your haybank appears to be talking.
Pile of Hay: Everybody's cute!
Dalamar Lennier: This is not good for the motorcycle. All this hay is going to get into its valve chambers, or as the Japanese call them, the "heyano baruba."
(Pile of Hay struggles to its feet, to reveal itself to be Nikrowd Mollari, who appears to be intoxicated on his hot jallah.)
Felicia Winters: Not you again! Ugh. You're ridiculous. Jallah isn't even alcoholic.
(Nikrowd Mollari splits into twelve identical copies, who all simultaneously fall over.)
Keverian Marcus: He's become one with his inner self!
Felicia Winters: He's passed out.
Keverian Marcus: That too.
Martin Franklin: I'm sorry everyone, I seme to have gotten addicted to being stabbed by Brand Morden. I'm going to have to go out and just walk the earth.
John Travolta: Walk the earth?
Martin Franklin: Yeah, like Kane in _Kung_Fu_.
Torquil Bester: Good luck. Don't forget to take off your helmet as soon as you get out the airlock.
Martin Franklin: People talk about spacing someone as if it were some kind of joke. Well, when I was eighteen,....
Torquil Bester: I wasn't joking. (spaces Franklin)
Martin Franklin: Aaaaaaaa. (head explodes)
Martin Van Buren: Excuse me, but is the election over yet?
Benjamin Franklin: Yeah, after all that fooling around, they went and nominated Bleys Dole.
Martin Van Buren: Sigh. It's not like I think Random is doing a particularly good job, but who wnts to spend the next three thousand years watching Dole do the "I am President" dance?
Vorlon Ambassador Dworkin: The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Pebbles: Fasten, then zip. Vorlon Ambassador Dworkin: Understanding is a three-edged sword.
Three-edged Sword: (cuts off Torquil Bester's head)
Vorlon Ambassador Dworkin: You seek meaning? Then listen to the music, not the song.
Chinaway Neroon: Bramner was a really spiffy guy. Now he's dead, and I'm feeling peeved, so it's time to knock some heads.
No-Amber-Character Delenn: 'fraid not, Mister Chinaway. I'm going to have to pull rank on you. Go home and play with your fifty-ton dolls.
Chinaway Neroon: Grrrrr. (rips hole in bulkhead, stomps off.)
Felicia Winters: What kind of a name is 'Chinaway,' anyway?
Mikele Garibaldi: No, no, no, I was going to ask everyone, do you still think there shouldn't be any PCs on the throne of Chaos?
Everyone: Aaaaaaagh. (get sucked out through hole in bulkhead, heads explode.)
![[CAEL]](../../Graphics/Icons/caels-splat.gif){kind=icon}
![[UNICORN]](../../Graphics/Icons/unicorn.gif){kind=icon}
![<[TARA]](../../Graphics/Icons/tara.gif){kind=icon}