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Did you get the joke?

The Evil Overlord found a nice site, but needs to raise an army. Join the ranks of the Evil Overlord! Click Here: http://www.stargatewars.com/recruit.php?uniqid=yb1117997429 I command it.

OR: Developing Superweapons for Fun and Profit.

Every Evil Overlord has faced the situation sooner or later: National Governments just don’t believe your threats. Or worse, you are downgraded from “Evil Villain” to some purely ordinary threat. It’s harder and harder to truly be a villain to be feared. In the old days hijacking nuclear weapons was enough. Nowadays it seems just about any terrorist could manage that. My old boy scout troop could probably manage it (admittedly I was a member of a troop more destructively prone than constructive. Suitable for an Evil Overlord, of course.).

What can you do? Well, when blowing up a city isn’t threatening enough, there’s only one resort: Destroy the planet.

I’m not talking “killing all humans” or even “killing all life on earth.” Both are evil enough, I suppose. But nothing gets attention like total global destruction. When a planet isn’t there anymore, people notice.

Of course, destroying the world is harder to do than you might think. Consider the target:

Age: 4,550,000,000 years
Mass: 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000 metric tonnes
Radius: 6,371 kilometres (average)
Surface gravity: 9.798 metres per second per second
Escape velocity: 11,186 metres per second

Physical structure (simplified):

Crust: 0 to 35km; Rock, hard and soft sediments, ice, miscellaneous; 0 to 1000°C
Mantle: 35 to 2900km; Oxides of silicon, magnesium, iron and aluminium; 1000 to 3700°C
Core: 2900 to 6371km; Iron (liquid, turning to solid at 5150km); 3700 to ~5000°C

Chemical composition by mass:

Iron 34.6%
Oxygen 29.5%
Silicon 15.2%
Magnesium 12.7%
Nickel 2.4%
miscellaneous 5.6%

Let’s face it. A giant superlaser probably isn’t going to destroy the world, despite what various documentaries on galactic conflict have indicated. Slag the world, maybe. But not blow it up.

Over the next few entries I shall take it upon myself to provide plans for aspiring Evil Overlords seeking to develop superweapons with which to hold the world hostage.

Why am I doing this? For reasons of my own. Mwahahahahaha!

Next: Destroying the World, Part I.

Many people think being an Evil Overlord would be a good career choice. It is! Mwahahaha! But there are some people who are far more suited to the job than others. Long term survival is helped by having at least some of the following characteristics:

**A desire to commit spectacular crimes and/or rule the world through whatever means necessary. This is essentially a requirement. If you don't want to rule the world, or at least cause lots of chaos, Evil just isn't for you. Perhaps you might consider Heroing instead?

**Intense megalomania. If you aren't prepared to be egotistic and ruthless in the pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition, well -- life just wouldn't be worth living.

**A generally irritable and spiteful disposition. Not required, but somehow "happy" villains just don't seem right. On the other hand, leaders of bizarre cults and ideologues seeking to impose "universal peace" are allowed to be serene and cheery while trying to brainwash people.

A sadistic nature and tendency to revel in their anti-social behavior. Remember -- Torture is Your Friend! MWAhahahaha!!!!!

**A brilliant scientific mind that he or she chooses to use for evil. Actually, I prefer to just rent scientific minds for evil purposes. It's more of a timesaver, and in today's job market people will do anything for a steady paycheck.

**Superhuman abilities or some special skill, similiar to those of superheroes. It is useful to stave off superheros with similar abilities. To acquire them a mystic crystal or radiological emitter is often needed. But I think it's too unlikely to work, and far too likely to give you cancer instead. The better solution is probably to avoid superheros, or if need be use neutron bombs on them.

**An enemy or group of enemies that he or she repeatedly fights. You know what they say: If you aren't making enemies, you aren't trying.

**A desire for revenge against said enemies. The method of their revenge often goes beyond simply killing them to making them suffer before death such as using deathtraps. This one might be linked with some of the other traits. For example, I find crocodiles are an excellent way to kill people, but that's mostly because it's fun and comes with easy cleanup.

A dark and threatening-looking headquarters or lair. Gloom is Life! People expect it. Besides, black goes so well with everything...

**A theme by which he or she plots his crimes. This just makes life more fun. Let the Heros go mad trying to figure out why you are obsessed with the number 3!

**A back story or origin story that explains how the character transformed from an ordinary person into a supervillain. The story usually involves some great tragedy that marked the change. It doesn't need to be a true backstory, of course. But telling the hero all about your tragic upbringing as an orphan can distract them at a crucial moment. It's as good as having one of your grandchildren with you, so when the hero comes the kid can shoot at them. Heros never see that one coming.

Mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

It's so easy to overlook when planning to take over the world. Where do you get the weapons to do it with? Many a would-be evil overlord has found his plans delayed because he couldn't find the gear to equip his minions. One way is to start off governing a country... but that's just doing an end-run around the answer. How's the evil overlord with the Shed of Evil to get going?

It used to be you could go to villainsupply.com for all your evil needs -- lairs, handweapons, plutonium, and superweapons. Alas, it seems the do-ers of good finally caught up to them; the site is no longer in business.

Now where does the villain go? Well, the former Soviet Union still is a good source for small arms, assuming malfunctioning Soviet-Arab equipment suits your needs.

Superweapons are harder. One needs to find a genius who is either: (1) insane or abstracted enough to not care what he is working on or why, but is sane enough to actually produce a working device; (2) amoral enough to work for money, but who also works cheap; or (3) who has a family who can be held hostage. This is surprisingly difficult! I blame the education system. Why aren't our schools turning out the genius physicists the Evil Overlord market depends on for doomsday devices?

Ah, well. There's still one place left where one can shop for Weapons of Mass Destruction, at least: Nick's.

If it wasn't for those pesky Heros, my Weather Control Device would never have malfunctioned and blanketed the entire Northeastern United States with snow. If you are going to tamper with delicate Superweapons, you could at least read the manual first. Why else do I leave it out? It clearly states "Project Malevolent: WCD Manual", but apparently the Hero can't spend the time to read 1000 pages.

What is wrong with the educational system these days? Nobody has the patience to do a decent quality job. I mean, that damn Dash Boredom bursts in to my Evil Lair, kills a dozen minions, smashes the control panel (which of course immediately discharges the weapon -- the designer said it's a feature, not bug. That designer is now encased in liquid nitrogen. But I digress) and leaves. One call to a 24 hour electrician and I'm back holding the world hostage. But it's so irritating. And those electricians charge outrageously.

All Evil Overlords require a Superweapon of some sort. But it is often helpful to have several. That way the Overlord can lose one and still be feared. I've currently got a Weather Control Device, an ex-Soviet suitcase nuke, an Orbital Superlaser (with a glitch in the target alignment), and the Mysterious Orb of Klasdhe. I'm not sure what the last one does. I think it's a doomsday weapon, anyway, and who's going to argue?

It's probably worth mentioning that Heros appear to be immune to the laws of physics. Precisely how to deal with that is always a problem. I suspect they adjust the universal statistical probability of things. I read of a FTL drive that worked that way. I think the designer was Dr. Douglas Adams. Heros must have a similar effect, because how else can they cause minion expert marksmen to miss time after time?

Or maybe it's gravitational? Maybe Heros distort the Space-Time Continuum. That could explain not only how they dodge bullets, but also how they can dodge lasers and alter chronometers so that a 30 second countdown can begin, one cuts away for 10 seconds, and then the timer has only lost a second or two.

Perhaps I need to develop a wormhole device of some sort. Being able to adjust the gravitational field myself might let me counteract the Hero Effect... Oh, how I'd love to see a Hero trying to Save The World at the last moment only to find that my 30 second countdown actually is precisely 30 seconds!

Or better yet, forget the countdown. I'll just hit the fire button and forget all the other stuff.

Mwahahahahaha!!!!!

Ah, another Evil Entry for another Evil Day.

I have found that when engaged on any sort of covert operation, or at least when doing anything that doesn't involve random destruction for the sake of chaos, it is always best to insist that you are the Good Guys. Admittedly, no-one who is ever actually on the side of Good will ever actually use the phrase "good guys" in that context. However, this fact rarely seems to occur to the naive types usually being talked to. Sometimes saying "We're the good guys" can really fool people.

And it's always fun to get the ordinary people to fight, unknowingly, for Evil against Good.


On a completely unrelated note, I recently acquired an iPod to play all my Evil mood music on. Alas, I am worried I may not be able to use it as I would like. There I was, paging through the apple license agreement (because no Evil Overlord worth his black heart would ever NOT read the fine print) and there it was:

THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.

Now, I'd planned to run iTunes off the control panel for my thermonuclear reactor. Or possibly the Weather Control Device my reactor powers. Now I need to worry doing so will cause my reactor to melt down and wipe out my evil base.

I want to play evil theme music, and it can blow up the world. Somehow that just doesn't seem right.

On the other hand, if it's not right, then it's probably Evil, so maybe it all works out.

In fact, that raises the plan for a nice Evil Scheme. I shall install this software into nuclear submarines across the world, and send sailors to their deaths as Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkeries" plays.

Mwahahahaha!

It's been a whole year since I've written in this thing. Has anything changed? Not my feelings towards this day. Gods, how I hate Valentine's Day. It's as bad as Christmas. Maybe worse.

Normally I'd try and cheer myself up by torturing a minon to death, but even that doesn't seem to help. Besides, the Wrongful Death suits get irritating. Not that I pay anything. I usually just drop process servers into my crocodile pit. But you'd think lawyers would leave an Evil Overlord alone out of professional courtesy.

I suppose things aren't all bad. I found one of those Cadbury Creme Eggs in the store the other day. Easter must be coming soon. I'd not be overly fond of Easter but it means Cadbury Creme Eggs. Every Evil Overlord has a weakness. Some have a magic crystal. I have Cadbury Creme Eggs. I must find more! I shall have my minions ravage the land until all the Creme Eggs are brought before me.

Perhaps it's not such an odd weakness. A rabbit that lays eggs sounds like an evil monster to me. If those eggs aren't eaten they might hatch, and who knows what might be born?

I hope it wouldn't be an evil beast. That might mean eating them was a Good Deed, and I'd never live that down. It's unlikely though. Those things are just naturally good. So eating them must be Bad.

Mwahahahahaha!!


Incidently, the Evil Overlord has decided to look for an Evil Assistant. I need an attractive woman to walk around in impractical high heels and revealing attire, who can torture heros. Evil a must. Someone with a Bachelor's Degree in Evil preferred. Apply to the Fortress of Doom, Realm of Evil.

Ah, no one knows what it's like to be the bad man. Except maybe The Who.

Next time: I always lie. I'm lying right now. Mwahahahaha! I am your father. And other phrases to irritate heros with.

Well, my least favorite day of the year has come and gone. A day devoted to, of all things, love.

Horrors.

At least when you're an Evil Overlord you can steal Christmas. That's practically traditional. Or if you want to go the Lord Protector route, you can cancel it outright.

But Valentine's Day. How I hate it. People actually show each other they care. Horrible.

It's particularly horrible, of course, for an Evil Overlord. No one loves the Evil Overlord. No romance for the Evil Overlord.

Lonely. So lonely . . .

Ehem. I think I will go chuck a minion in the crocodile pit to cheer up. And yes, this isn't what I said last time I'd write in my next column. So? I'm an Evil Overlord. Lying is part of the job.

Mwahahahaha!

Ah, minions. No Evil Overlord can lack them. Without them, an Evil Overlord has no one to lord it over evilly. But the problem of finding minions remains. It is incredibly difficult to find people willing to perform diabolically evil deeds so their employer can take over the world, because Microsoft and Big Tobacco drain the available labor pool.

There are two basic types of minions. The first is your typical minion, also sometimes known collequally as a "redshirt." These are your basic labor source, the footsoldiers of evil. Brawn tends to be the primary requirement for your general minion. Brains is a detriment, since smart minions tend to be more suseptible to fits of conscience and can be swayed by the Hero's moral arguments. On the other hand, a brawny but dumb minion can become a sudden threat when the Hero points out what will happen to his dear old mother when your Superweapon is used.

The best target for hiring minions are strong men who lack close family ties. If available, Orcs are the best source. They work hard, fight well, don't care about morality, and often don't need to be paid.

The other type of minion is the Trusted Lieutenant.

A trusted lieutenant has to be smart and reliable enough to run your day to day evil operations and command your minions in your absence. On the other hand, they cannot be completely trusted (unless they are dead). Trusted lieutenants are always subject to the temptation to try and replace their employer, after all.

The best thing to do is never have just one minion. Your trusted lieutenants spend too much time with your minions. Just one allows them plenty of time to build the supporters for a coup. Have at least two, and make sure they are competitive rivals. Each lieutenant will react by empire-building, spying, and plotting against the others. That takes all their energy and attention away from trying for your job, and there's nothing more evil than that.

Mwahahaha!

Next Time: Identifying Heros and Targetting Them For Elimination.