Spherx's Domain

I was orphaned at a young age and, thankfully, never taken in as a ward of the state. Instead, I grew up on the streets, scavenging for food and shelter. Because most of the stuff I found to eat was either tasteless or extremely flavorful (read horribly flavored), I learned to mix foods and flavors to make it easier to eat. I eventually was able to mask the flavor of rotting meat, or make flavorless old shoe leather taste great. It was either that, or waste precious nutrients puking from the flavor.

Because I was a street urchin, I was constantly running from the police and Quirxfleet. I was barely able to eat enough to survive. Back then I weighed a svelte 6 pounds, in contrast with my current 21. I was constantly on the move in order to avoid being caught by the fleet. I hitchhiked all around our galaxy, looking for the next best restaurant dumpster to scavenge. One pilot I hitched a ride from tried to stick his finger in me, so I bailed onto the nearest moon. I had to hang around there for months until another ship came by.

This cocky looking, punk kid (Spherx), barely managed to land his ship without crushing half the station, then wandered out as if he pwned the place. He was followed by a dog that was covered in it’s own feces and urine, I felt bad for the little scamp. It wasn’t ’til later that I realized that it wasn’t a dog at all, but Idiot Chittix. I was scouting his ship to see if I could grab a meal from its galley when a Quirxfleet ship, expertly piloted, landed just next to it. I’d developed a healthy mistrust of the fleet, and immediately ran onto Spherx’s ship and, naturally, made my way to the galley.

I had my run of the place. There didn’t seem to be a chef on staff, so I just played it off like I belonged there. With all that food around, and all my experience telling me to eat while it’s available, I ate both my servings, and the leftovers from other’s plates. Spherx crashed the ship of course, and just acts like it’s not a big deal. Nobody has ever realized that I don’t really belong there, and I’m happy because I get free food. On a happier note, my ability to hide the off-flavors in the food worked in my favor, there aren’t many grocery stores in the vast reaches of space so food has to be stored for a while, and we still haven’t figured out how to generate a steady income here on Earth so I take the stuff the stores are throwing away.

I’ve been asked by Spherx to explain how it is that I came to join the Domain. While this takes time away from my own personal research, Spherx claimed it would make me feel a part of the “team”. I’ve never been one for sports, or the associated analogies, but then Spherx added that if I didn’t write my origin, he’d revoke my funding and lab space….

Without further ado, here is how I came to be a member of Spherx’s “crew”:

Approximately 13.7 Billion years ago, I came into existence. I wasn’t much back then, primarily consisting of Hydrogen atoms, but I had potential. I was amassed into a large star that underwent an amazing process known as fusion. The atoms that were me were being bound together with other atoms that were me into a heavier element, Helium. At first I was concerned with my weight gain, but I grew comfortable with my bulkier appearance. Given more and more time, my atoms fused into still heavier elements, Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, all the way up to Iron. Around the point of forming Iron, my atoms “decided” that fusing was becoming more work than was worth doing. So, the atoms that were to become me required more energy to fuse into something heavier than Iron than they would give off.

This atomic Marxist revolution of sorts wouldn’t be allowed to continue unanswered. And in the Pyrrhic victory to end all Pyrrhic victories, the star containing all my atoms went supernova. Some of my atoms in the explosion had inadvertently become still heavier elements. My atoms drifted through the cosmos for a time and after some negotiations, started this process over and over again. Each time ending in the same result, the working class atoms get tired of holding up the upper classes, the star collapses on itself and goes supernova. 

This last run through, however, my atoms decided they needed a break and hung out in the solar accretion disk (sometimes called a protoplanetary disk). It seemed like a nice enough vacation spot at the time. But oh no, the universe couldn’t let me just lie around and drink in the peaceful quiet for a couple billion years. It had to bombard my atoms with all sorts of rocky material, which just made the planetary body I was hanging around on get bigger, which just meant it was going to bombarded more and more. Eventually, this little chunk of rock, my oasis of peace and quiet, developed a primitive atmosphere and primitive oceans. I mean, I guess I could hang out on a beach, I thought, but I wasn’t going to pay for the upgrades I didn’t request.

My relaxing beach never came about. Instead, there were all sorts of storms and the oceans were anything but tranquil. Eventually, atoms started bonding into molecules, and the molecules began to self-replicate. When I saw this happening I immediately tried to get a hold of my travel agent to complain I didn’t want a vacation that involved abiogenesis, which is a lot of work. But, too late, I was already there. The atoms that were to become me were grouped into molecules, and then the molecules coalesced into cells which were forced to compete with other cells in order to pass on genes to the next generation. And the cycle repeated over and over again for thousands of millions of years. 

This cycle continued, with subtle variations between parent and child, giving rise to new species that looked nothing like what I started out as. Eventually, some cells banded together to form multi-cellular organisms, but the underlying process was the same. Each organism would try and propagate its genetic information as far and as wide as it could. After several many billion generations, or more, this iterative process gave rise to me. Bug Einme. Nice to meet you.

It was the best of times it was the worst of times.

Back on our home planet I was destined to be a professional athlete.  I excelled at rockelby.  Our national game.  It is very similar to your games of football, basketball, and auto racing combined.  In fact there was a movie that was very similar to this game called “Rollerball”, only less gay.  I was captain of the team in high school.  Went on to college and became a star.  I was named to the All-Quirx squad for the Quirx  Rockelby Association of Colleges, or QRAC, 5 times.  After a stellar 7 year career, and graduating with a double major in Awesomeness (that really is a degree)  and Chittix Literature (I read both books), I was all set for the draft.  I was taken 9th overall pick in the Rockelby Draft by the Raminskis Flying Nutrons of the Quirx Rockelby Association of Professionals, or QRAP.

The Flying Nutrons were suddenly a favorite to win the Glycern Platter that year, which we came close to doing, losing in the playoffs.  I narrowly lost the Rookie of the Year award to Chalep, the first pick in the draft, who played for the champion Terrasoda Invigatrons.  After an off-season plagued by bad press where I got 3 quirx teenagers pregnant, beat up 6 photographers, and pissed on a lawyer who tried to pee on me, year two started.  We ran away with the championship and I took home the Most Valuable Quirx award.  After another off season of issues with my attitude, and another VUI (virlacting under the influence) I was released from my contract.  Nobody would touch me.  I was the Terrell Owens of Rockelby.

Soon after, the dreaded chittix bombing of the Hackanian University occurred.  Causing the loss of 956 quirx citizens.  Flushed with anger and rage at those dumbass chitti, I enlisted in Quirxfleet.

My military career prospered.  I ran up the ladder quicker then Paris Hilton on a 40 year old cock.  I trained for the regular fleet, the special fleet, the very special fleet, the black fleet, the gray fleet, you name it, I trained for it.  But all this training did nothing for me.  I wanted action.

I demanded action, so the command gave me a super secret quadruple awesome mission, or SSQAM.  On this SSQAM, I was ordered to follow another agent to apprehend a criminal they called Spherx.  But first, I was ordered to take out this chittix lawyer who was causing problems within the quirx justice system.  I made up some awesome story about his mother dying and that I was his brother.  I got a great disguise going and he bought the whole thing.  As our conversation went along, I discovered that he was a total dick.  So I cracked him with my lucky rockelby stick.  I figured he was down for the count.  Then he woke back up.  So I hit him again.  Figured he be down for sure this time.

With part one accomplished, I just had to find this chick who was supposed to do her end of the bargain.  I finally caught wind of this Cora chick and her bounty Spherx after about a month.  I caught up with them at the spaceship that Spherx had hijacked.  In the passenger compartment I spied a quirx who I remember had previously been arrested for illicit chittix-on-quirx porn, a felony on our planet.  Not sure why he was there, but I knocked him out with a sleep dart.  Once on-board, I passed what looked like a lab and felt a presence I had not felt in a long time.  But this was not part of my mission.

I stowed away in the air ducts as the ship took off.   After we were airborne, I hid in the air duct while I waited for my next move, watching movement after movement of these strange travelers.  This included the guy who I sleep darted, Spherx, and a massive quirx who was the cook aboard this craft of adventure.  The only place that I could not see from the air duct was inside the “lab” of the ship.  I was strangely curious why this ship had a “lab” in the first place.  Suddenly, from the back, a furry smelly ball emerged.  It was that fucking lawyer.  I couldn’t believe that stupid fuck survived.  As he wandered around that stupid bitch Cora entered from the air lock in her spacesuit.  She had “finally” caught up with the rest of us.  She approached the lawyer from behind and startled him I think because he ripped one that made me quiver from where I was.  She completely passed out.  Spherx then came down and dragged Cora away.  Now I was getting nervous.  She hadn’t done her job.

I waited for my orders living in the air duct on whatever I could find for over 2 weeks.  I watched as the idiot chittix lawyer met up with the porn guy who I had knocked out with a dart earlier.  They had an interesting encounter that involved the porn guy slipping in vomit of the idiot lawyer and hitting his head, which I think did some damage.  I heard the shouting matches from Cora and Spherx as their little charade continued into the days and nights.  It was like they were fucking married.

Finally my orders came.  I was charged with bringing Spherx in.  I emerged from the air duct with guns drawn.  I confronted Spherx and the little fucker was a wicked fast draw.  We blasted away on the bridge of the ship causing who knows how much damage.  As we fought into the night, I heard a strange noise from behind me.  I turned to see a strange little thing.  He was wearing a helmet and standing over the body of the IC lawyer.  At that moment a large figure emerged from the shadows.  It was the blasted cook!  How the hell did he get here?  No way he could sneak up on me.  He’s a damn planet!  He charged at me with the speed of a rhinoceros.  I used my superior athletic ability and dodged and watched as he went barreling into Spherx.  I grabbed my lucky rockelby bat and cracked that fucking lawyer over the head again.  He HAS to be down for the count now!  I felt good.  I gave a little celebration.  After yelling “Home Run” I turned just in time to see that the cook and Spherx had banded against me.  As they charged me again, I dodged easily.  But they kept coming, and I kept dodging.  As I cracked the cook over the head with my rockelby bat, Spherx and I squared off.  But we never got the chance to throw any punches.  At that moment, the ship we were in crashed into a spacecraft.  If memory serves me correctly, it said something like MSNBC on the side of it.  As our hull was breached Spherx and I ran to the controls only to find with horror that our firefight had blown most of the control panels to pieces, leaving none operational.  Spherx and I strapped ourselves in and tried to control the ship, but it was to no avail.

The impact of our crash was seen for 80 miles.

We landed somewhere near Tagish Lake in what you call British Columbia Canada.  The date according to your newspapers was January 18th, 2000.

After rounding up all of the survivors of the crash and the one casualty, and got out of there.  We walked in the forests all the way to the border of what is called “America”.  Since no one was guarding it, we went across.

We’ve been here ever since.  For the most part we all get along now.  For the most part…..

I guess it’s my turn to do this. I hate bringing up the past because it disappoints me so much to think back onto how great things were for me before this… living here in this dirty warehouse with these morons…

So Spherx kinda touched on my history already. I was a mid-level officer at Quirxfleet. I had a promising future ahead of me. My superiors were pleased with my abilities and my quick grasp of any situation. They also admired how tough I could be, for a female, something that has served me well in my present situation. Then one day, shortly before I was about to be promoted in rank, an alert was posted for all personnel to locate and retrieve the Admiral’s grandson (that brat Spherx). Because of his family ties, Spherx was a bit of a celebrity, so it wasn’t hard to study him and anticipate where I could find him and the ship he hijacked.

I tracked him down to a moon not far from spacedock where I assumed he’d taken rest on the surface. So I boarded his empty ship until I could capture him upon his return. However, I didn’t anticipate the stinky stowaway he’d picked up. At first I thought it was a noxious gas booby trap he’d set… but no, it was just the stench of that piece of shit Idiot Chittix… to this day it embarasses me I was subdued that way… passing out from his smell and waking up in cuffs in the cargo bay.

I demanded Spherx release me and return to the homeworld, but of course he refused and kept me on board until I agreed to go home without him. Naturally I refused to give in to his demands. And shortly thereafter, there was a hull breach and the next thing I knew I was pushing a metal plate off me in the wreckage of our ship.

As much as I’d like to be free of these jackasses, it’s safer to be among them than among this planet’s dominant species. So until I can find a way home, I’ll just have to suffer through this predicament.

April Fools! You know that post from yesterday about our origins? We were just kidding. That’s not how we got here. Or who we were back in our home galaxy. Those were just jokes. Instead, we’re going to spend the next seven days telling you the real stories, one day at a time. One thing is true from yesterday though: I should go first…

Back on my homeworld, I was heir to a clan that ruled our planet for centuries. With the disappearance of my parents at an early age, my grandfather Aderan was left to raise me into the aristocracy. However, I rejected the high society and stole a starship so I could travel the universe and find my own destiny. Unfortunately, there is a good reason they have starship training for that sort of thing.

A few days into my escape, Cora, under orders from Quirxfleet Command, tracked me down and ordered my surrender. She boarded my ship to take me into custody but I knocked her out with a little stowaway I picked up: Idiot Chittix. His smell rendered her unconscious. And while she was out, I blew up her ship and locked her in my brig. Things were pretty tense from then on, but I’m sure she’ll explain her side when we get to her.

While the next few weeks between me, Cora, and Idiot Chittix were ‘uncomfortable’, we soon met up with our next crew member… Patches…