Tantalus

Quicksilva, 1986

The Universe - a History in One Volume by Albertern Einsteiniman

Permission to quote from this exceptional volume has been given by both the author and the publishers Matthew-Long-Murray-Hamilton-Peng. It is still available from your local Unistore at just 3.5 millicredits.

Date - 2537-3027 - The First Interstellar War and the Last Humanoid Deviant

The five hundred and ninety years of interstellar conflict had positive as well as negative effects on the civilisation of the inhabited planets.

I fully understand that the loss of seven hundred billion humanoid life forms can hardly be described as a positive act, but here we have to take a fully historical view, and even the most sceptical of observers has to admit that without the wars there would be no mutant factory producers - in fact no mutant work force at all. It will only take you a few moments of reflection to discover that without our present mutant forms life, as we know it, would be completely impossible.

For this reason alone I believe that the interstellar wars had an effect on the history of the universe which is hard to compare with any other effect, including the instant agriculture revolution and the fall of the micro-electronic civilisation. Mutants were developed in order that the war cabinets of the Centuri Alliance could use non-humanoid fighting groups in their new attack vessels, the Protonthrust 3000s. Although the first mutant strains were not fully developed and still had useless features such as digestive tracts and grey brain cells, the could be produced in large numbers and this made all the difference in the conflict. As you all fully appreciate, the Centuri Alliance won the war within just 15 more years and the enemy Jaglan Group were no longer allowed any access to the Universe by being exiled to the realm of anti-matter.

The development of mutant forms continued in the newly peaceful Universe and many varieties of mutoids, as they came to be known, were developed for domestic, industrial and strategic use. Unfortunately all progress has its associated difficulties and the breakaway Punkoid Development Corporation comprised such a problem until the Master Planners found a use for these beings also.

Project Spike was the code name given to the assassination attempt on the last remaining Jaglan Group member in this universal realm. A team of four Spike Punkoids was sent to the planet Tantalus to kill the deviant, but it wasn't an easy task. The planet's surface was riddled with caverns and hidden passages, known latterly as the Fortress, and the human had used his time well in protecting the planet from invasion. There were found to be 32 fatal doors on the planet and the activator locks were well disguised and hidden. The Spike Punkoids were the best fighting mutoids developed at that time and they soon decided that they would need all the defenses of their ship, their amazing instinctual cunning and the six defensive weapons systems too.

This is where you enter the pages of history...

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