[Mordante]

(In which the 3rd placed player in a large pbem game attempts to ensure revenge against his foes by surrendering his entire empire to the second place player)

*Senate Homeworld; Productivity, Aldan System, Central Military District, Shards Protectorate*

Unified Galactic Calendar 2404.1

Dusk on Productivity is a time of peace and pause, a contemplative period of self-examination and gentle jest in company or isolation. The million lights of the city of industry are dim suggestions of the gleaming majesty to come. The factories are still, the process silent, the crystalline spires of vision cloaked lightly in the ironic murmurs of a populous at play.

Today the world is host to guest-ambassadors from the great and glorious Playbodium consortium; a loose affiliation of pornographers turned merchant adventurers and free-lance spin-doctors from the spinward reaches of the galactic cluster.

The Playbodium/Shards relationship is an old and an odd one; and in the years since first contact, the Senate had endeavoured to build friendship and cooperation with the eccentric pervert-forces of Playbodium Primus. In recent years this relationship suffered greatly when the Playbodiums attempted to interfere with the Senate’s rimward expansion into contested space, culminating in the “broken peace” atrocity when Playbodium forces were intercepted by a Senate carrier group in the process of invading the Wertreken system with a “Jiz” class mine-layer.

In recent months the truce had been restored with the Playbodiums agreeing to cede the Qornor system in part-payment for their past infractions in the field of espionage, disinformation and (albeit) talentless martial aggression.

Now the Playbodium ambassador “Girthus Stem” had come to Productivity in an heralding bow-wake of diplomatic froth and high-handed incivility. Refusing to discuss politics by sub-space, the obese Playbodium claimed his right to speak before the gathered Senate of the Shards Protectorate and the ambassadors of many allied and assimilated neighbouring species.

Galadan hall of public works had been cleared and appointed with the accouchements of diplomacy for the occasion; seven full senators of the oligarchy were standing present and serene, while a host of lesser dignitaries lined the approaches to the glittering splendour of the adamantine conference chamber.

To the left “Girthus Stem” lurched past quarrelling ambassadors from the Shanshu Imperium and LGM Collective. The Shanshu dignitary cloaked in a shadowed robe of star-silk and counter surveillance drones; the LGM diplomatic staff croaking complaints and inducements in a pointed barrage of lisping undertones.

To the right the Playbodium trundles past the waiting agents of the Emphirian Hive and Sarnek Pash. The Emphirian’s anxious and agitated; the Sarnek Pash leaking swamp-stinking liquid from their poorly-designed environmental suits.

Now approaching the conference hall Girthus Stem draws up his not inconsiderable bulk and belches once, twice, and a third time for luck, before breaking wind in the general direction of the representatives of various minor non-aligned pocket empires and twilight powers.

“Representatives of the Senate of Shards”, the Playbodium begins without preamble, “I am here to strike a mighty blow against the tyranny of your empire, to roar defiance at the plans you have set, to begin the struggle which will seal your doom … to break the crystal table settings of your hopes upon the brushed-steel ornamental dildo of our revenge!”

Rising silently to address this tirade, the seven senators of the oligarchy gaze with polite smiles at the impromptu theatre of the absurd being re-enacted for their pleasure.

“No more will the Playbodiums suffer the insufferable good-natured cooperation of the fragile nithling wisp-born shards!

*Some gentle applause from the Senators*

“No more will the Playbodiums play games of diplomacy with a race determined to avoid the pigsty ambience of debauched malignance!”

*A few murmurs of “bravo”, “extraordinary”, “it is most convincing”, from the gathered Senators and audience*

“We will now undo your plans in one foul swoop, oh how you will gnash your teeth with rage when you understand the immense cunning and deplorable insight of our mighty ruler!”

*The onlookers are entranced and spellbound at the sight of the purple-faced fat-man from the Playbodiums ranting in animated zest*

“How? You ask, How? Muhahhaaha, muhahhahaha, muhahaha … muhahaha … muhhahhhaahh HA! I’ll tell you!”

Gilthus Stem now wheels about with wild staring eyes and spittle-flecks arching in astonishing trajectories up and above his bloated sweating features.

“How? How? – Know this Shards, in one gesture we undo you, we consign your future to oblivion, we bind your dreams in the used condom of our cunning lust”.

Struggling now to breath, the Playbodium staggers forwards a pace and drops his voice to a not entirely affected wheezy-rasp.

“We ……”

*Choking and spluttering*

“Weeeeee ……”

*The beginnings of something like a death rattle*

“Weeeeee eeeeee … We …”

*Girthus staggers to his knees*

“We … offer unconditional surrender … to … The Sarnek Pash!”

*Silence*

*Then a ripple of applause*

The playbodium is clearly in great difficulties; the years of eating to many diplomatic feasts and indulging heavily in every vice know to the prodigious imaginations of his people have taken their toll.

The Senators rise to their feet and offer their own gentle applause for the amateur dramatics of the Playbodium ambassador. A medical team approaches discretely and with the aid of a anti-gravity lifting platform, they convey the unconscious form of Gilthus stem to the hospital facility.

“Ahem,” a small voice is heard. “Ah, I say!”

A slight-formed sub-clerk from Girthus’ retinue addresses the Senate.

“We meant what we said Senators, the Playbodium Eroticarchy hereby surrender life, liberty, and the pursuit of sexual experience to the amphibian mercies of the great and glorious Sarnek Pash”.

The Senators are silent for several moments.

The clerk continues, “From this day forward the Eroticarchy is no more than a subject people destined to exist on the sufferance of our greater neighbours, we kneel before the Sarnek Pash, we crave the attention of their shock-rods, we worship their dank crevices, and we will pledge ourselves to the maintenance of their every physical need and pleasure. This, by order of our Primus, is our revenge against the Senate of Shards”.

The Senators now turn as one to address the ambassador from the Sarnek Pash.

“In view of this surrender, will your empire honour the commitments previously offered by the Eroticarchy in the Qornor system and beyond; will our relations continue essentially unchanged?”

Approaching the snivelling playbodium clerk with flurry of slick-footed movements, the Sarnek Pash ambassador dips his eye-stalks in affirmation, answering the Senators with a quick and steady response.

“Indubitably kind hosts, we accept the playbodium surrender with pleasure and will happily maintain those commitments they made before assimilation. I am sure that the Sarnek Pash will make good use of our new food; the storehouses of the Commonwealth are bottomless in their needs”.

*A whispered exchange between the Ambassador and an aid*

“Friends … not food of course”, his amphibian features wrinkle in pan-cultural amusement, “you’ll pardon the eccentricities of our prototype translation software I hope sirs”.

And thus the pinnacle of the Playbodium hopes had passed into History. New friendship gleamed between the Senate of Shards and the Sarnek Pash, and having been most fittingly (self-abused), the remaining population of the Playbodium worlds was taken into bondage and servitude by the smelly fish people.

Unconfirmed rumours tell of the ontime Playbodium Primus working in a organ-farm under the close attentions and lash of a Sarnek Pash overseer (third class) on Lapzooli IV. Of Girthus Stem the news was perhaps a little happier; for having made such a successful debut appearance (and subsequent recovery) in the field of comedy-drama on Productivity, he was catapulted to pan-galactic stardom in a continuing panoply of such genre-defining roles as “fat-man runs amok”, “the flesh is not weak” and the eternal classic “the price of blubber”.

The End (of the playbodiums)