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For those who have not been following the previous installments of this sage, here are the links to part 1 and part 2. For those who would rather not read through my previous adventures, well, I can only assume that you had a regretfully unhappy childhood which has manifested in an inability to appreciate the previous history of others. We are all so sorry for you. Really, we are.
At the end of part 2, as you may recall (assuming you have not become senile, had a lobotomy, been assimilated by the Borg, or voted in some precincts in Florida), I have been participating in a Gorn campaign against the ISC. Rather remarkably, this had not actually involved much fighting against the ISC. One can only assume that the ISC have cleverly managed to husband their resources by letting the Orions and Romulans do their fighting for them. While this would not be at all unlikely for the Romulans, who aren't even bright enough to design their own ships, having instead to use Klingon designs (which doesn't say much for the Klingons either), at least one can usually count on the Orions to be more intelligent than this. Only the Orions are smart enough to mask the specific ship designs; when your viewscreen says "O-DN", do you know whether it is a DN1 or a DN2? Of course by the time you find out it's because you are most likely reading it off the manufacturer's certificate plate which by chance is located next to your station on the treadmill in the bowels of the ship. Treadmill, you ask? (or, as Lyrans, make vague grunting noises)? Yes, sentient-being-powered treadmills. Where do you think the Orions get that extra bit of power for their built-in ECM? Really, I thought you knew....
Anyway, after the previous encounters with the Romulan Super-Duper-Razzle-Dazzle-Ha-Cha-Cha KillerHawk (or as the Klingon who built the ship call it, "Frigate Escort") I knew it was time to travel to the nearest Gorn-mart and check out the latest ship offerings from my benevolent government.
"Good Afternoon, Captain"
"Good Afternoon, High Council Member Gddsssz. I am here to check out the latest ship offerings from my benevolent government"
"You already said that three paragraphs ago".
"Sorry, but we have to make allowances for the forum members who are not used to actual dialog in a literary form."
"Ah, sort of a Rosetta Stone of the forum? Very good thinking. Would it help if I made some disparaging remarks towards Taldren, or who is that fellow, Stinxx?"
"No, I think if they have gotten this far they have grasped the concept, except for those in the Double Plasma Holding Cost. Too Much???? thread. I believe that there is no way to make those beings understand much of anything, much less the intricacies of brevity."
High Council Member Gddsssz rose from his chair, walked over to the wall safe and started punching numbers into the combination lock. After several futile attempts he growled in frustration, pulled his blaster and blew a hole in the door. Sadly, it was the wrong door, although is was no doubt some comfort to his secretary that the last third of a Gorn's tail has no nerve endings. Gddsssz shrugged, mumbled "My bad" under his breath and took a second shot at the safe. This time the shot missed both doors, but did hit the floor under the safe which, like a drunken virgin, momentarily hesitated then gave way and went down with undue haste. We both walked over to the still smoking hole and peered down at the newly revamped office of the Under-Minister of Weighty Affairs, commenting on both the clever ironies of fate and the brilliant and innovative obscenities now briskly emanating from the Under-Minister.
After a joint "We bad" Gddsssz gave himself the Gornian equivalent of a dope-slap and bent over to pick up the available ship list which by the worse of luck had been sitting on top of the safe all along, and now resided precariously balanced on the edge of the hole. At this moment it probably should have occurred to High Council Member Gddsssz that the same damaged floor that let a safe fall through was probably not likely to sustain the weight of a full grown and then some Gorn. With a second echoing crash the floor once again gave way, dropping to the level below myself, Gddsssz, the list, and the now-twice unlucky secretary who had just entered the room to discuss the matter of the her still glowing tail. We struck the floor in a reversed order, which had the one happy outcome for Gddsssz in that the previously indignant and incandescing secretary was now not in any shape to file a complaint with the Gorn Office Workers Union. The Under-Minister of Weighty Affairs, having by now appreciated that it was not a good day to work in the office, rushed past his secretary and left for the day. A nearby Gorn Office Workers Union steward made note of the infraction ("management member departs while failing to properly acknowledge coworker") and left to head downstairs for his own office to file a report. By incredible coincidence his desk was positioned on a direct line between the reclarant safe and the center of gravity of the planet. A few moments after the steward reached his desk the aforementioned line was shorten by the height of a building floor, minus the diameter of a high compressed Gorn torso.
"Well" hissed Gddsssz, the prodigal list now tightly grasped in his claw, "let's see what ship you want afford."
"Afford? I'm not buying a ship. I'm a highly respected and decorated officer of the Gorn Deep Space Fleet. I am requesting that a ship that reflects my skill, expertise and experience be provided to me."
"And how do you expect us to measure your skill, expertise and experience?"
"Why, through the standard measures of course! Performance evaluations, Department of Personnel evaluations, standardized testing..."
Gddsssz looked down his nose at me, no small accomplishment for a lizard with a snoot that could have been used as the main keel of a battlecruiser. "We send all that information to Records Retention. The probabilities of ever recovering something from them is so small we developed an entirely different method of evaluating performance. It's called Prestige Points. You get points for successfully completing missions, destroying enemies, and the like."
"And these points are then compared to a standardized evaluation system to determine what class of ship I should command?"
"No, you 'buy' a ship".
"Buy! I can't afford a warship! It must cost billions of credits!"
"More, if you include the overhead" smiled Gddsssz, who by the looks of his teeth was certainly not spreading the wealth to the members of the dental profession. "But you ignored the little quote marks around the 'buy' word".
"Sorry" I said, looking up the page and indeed, there were little quote marks there. "So I obtain a new ship with Prestige Points. What keeps me from getting two or more ships? After all, I have the prestige."
"Well", noted Gddsssz, who was now starting to look slightly uncomfortable from letting slip all these internal bureaucratic secrets. Or maybe it was a delayed reaction to the fall? It's so hard to understand a bureaucrat. "Well, you use up your prestige when you get a new ship."
I let this sink in a moment. By 'this' of course I meant Gddsssz's saliva, which he produced at an astonishing rate, no doubt another outcome of the lost dental opportunities. "Wait, I LOSE prestige when I get a ship? What kind of sick system is this?" Momentarily I thought I might have hurt Gddsssz's feelings, but I quickly remembered that those are surgically removed in the first year of government service. "Alright, I give up. I'll 'buy' a new dreadnought, then."
"You don't have enough prestige for a dreadnought."
"Certainly I do. The points in my account plus the points I receive when I trade in my currently ship." I smiled, pleased that while wiping off the saliva drops I had gotten a quick glance at Gddsssz's list and did a little quick math in my head. The pain would come later.
"No, you don't get those points for a trade-in until AFTER you buy your new ship." said Gddsssz, rummaging around in the rubble for some liquid sustenance to reload his gland reservoirs.
"This is just insane!! Never mind who thought up this system, who in their right minds could have approved it?"
"The beta testers didn't seem to mind."
So, beaten down and defeated (and half drowned), I purchased a Heavy Battlecruiser, the most I could afford. I traded in my old Command Cruiser, banking the points against another purchase in the future. After a few futile inquires into the possibilities of investing prestige points in a 401(k), the stock market, or even a tired Altairian race glot, I accepted the reality that those points weren't going to increase in value by any means save combat.
A few days later, I sat in my command chair on the bridge of my new Heavy Battlecruiser. Things seemed a little better now that I was back on shipboard. I sat back and let Lieutenant Gzznttn take the ship out of orbit. Safely clear of civilized settlements (we Gorns always chuckle at the irony of that thought) we prepared for our first weapons trial.
"Lieutenant, go to red alert and power up all weapons! Make it do so!"
"Ah, Captain, we have a small problem..."
"If it's small it can wait! Do make it so!"
"Captain..."
"NOW, LIEUTENANT!! IT SO DO MAKE!"
The Lieutenant sighed and pressed a few buttons. The pleasing sound of plasma tubes warming and phaser capacitors filling was immediately drowned out by the crash of objects throughout the ship as we instantly dropped from a blazing speed to a crawl.
"Ah, Captain, there does seems to be a difficulty reconciling the needed weapons power versus speed needed equation. Basically we're, ah, slightly underpowered."
As the Lieutenant finished speaking the bridge lights flickered, flared momentarily, then dimmed as if to hide their shame. Moments later there was a brief sparking from an overhead panel and the whole ship plunged into darkness. The crew stumbled about a bit and then started removing and igniting the emergency utility candles that apparently are standard equipment of all Gorn ships of this class.
"It's going to be a long voyage, Lieutenant."
"Aye, Captain... a candle for you, sir?"