Tales of a bazooka, Part 1: Origins of the Automatons

[the bazookas]

Inspired by the shenanigans of a long-since-departed-from-this-world-demi-god named chumbucket, I have decided to log some of the adventures experienced by myself and my bazooka brethren (and, to a much lesser degree, our weaker grenade and machine gun brethren). Of course, in order to understand and appreciate my perspective, you must also hear some of our history.

The bazookas were--contrary to popular belief--contrived by none other than Lord British himself. He was looking for a way to extend the reach of the guard zone, but, not having enough human guards to do the job he turned to the creation of cybernetic automated androids (or "bots", as many call us). The program was dubbed the "Brittanian Bureau of Bots that Blow Brigands Up in the Brilliant Lord British's Name" (BBBBBUBLBN). His bot design (at least in terms of power and capability) was, as the program name so aptly describes, brilliant. We were programmed to complete two main objectives: to (1) protect Britannia (note that Lord British INITIALLY programmed us with the belief that it was criminals and charlatans that we needed to protect Britannia from) and to (2) blow things up. Additionally, we were created to look and act very much like normal humans--an act which, unfortunately for Lord British, proved to be the downfall of the program. The artificial intelligence that we were given to enable us to have human-like behavior (to make us more palpable protectors of the general public) also caused us to have difficulty balancing our two main objectives, and to,eventually, begin making our own decisions based on our interpretation of available data regarding these two objectives.

You see, at the outset we found ourselves occasionally torn between protecting Britannia and blowing things up. Our neural network processor would often find a given opportunity to blow something / somebody up to be far too optimal to let it pass by. Indeed, the threshold for action was often reached in spite of the fact that it is competing against the impulse to protect Britannia (our original perspective being that Britannia = the innocent citizens). That was the main conflict with which we constantly dealt at the beginning--a conflict that caused us some serious angst (if you can imagine trying to decide between competing hypothetical scenarios at 1 million different scenarios per second, you might understand how difficult it would be to feel that you are making the "right" choice). That's how we began, anyway. We were fraught with confusion regarding what to blow up and what not to blow up.

More recently, we have completed some in-depth analysis using a monte-carlo algorithm to determine the most probable outcome of various world-scenarios (you humans may call this process "earnest reflection on the future of the world" to make it more palatable). We have determined that the TRUE threat to Britannia is not charlatans and criminals, as Lord British made us to initially believe. That subset of the human population is far too small and has far too little influence upon the world. We found that the true threat to Brittania is, in fact, all human beings. Urks were found to be a threat, but to a lesser degree than humans, and therefore we are less likely to indiscriminately blow them up when other more optimal targets exist (and especially because they frequently aid in the extermination of humans). The Undead are currently on our radar as a possible threat, but at the current time, our calculations show that they are not a large enough threat to take our efforts away from blowing up the humans. As far as monsters go--deamons, dragons, ogres, ettins, etc., we find that they are very predictable (generally not venturing beyond their own domains or defacing Britannia with buildings) and have not caused substantial damage to Britannia in the past 1,000 years (in fact the level of damage is not even within five orders of magnitude of the damage which humans have wrought in only the past 3 years).

Now that this conclusion (which is highly supported based upon the data and the in-depth analysis that was performed) has been made, we no longer have so much difficulty when it comes to deciding whether or not to blow someone up. It is now simply a matter of who, when, where, and how that it is MOST OPTIMAL to blow up. Furthermore, the threat of the humans to Britannia is SO great, that we occasionally turn to unconventional methods (not directly involving explosives, in spite of the fact that explosives are what we are programmed to "enjoy"--to borrow the human term), to bring about the extinction of the human race. This includes, but is not limited to temporary alliances with particular humans, undead, and / or orcs.

We will never cease to find the optimal solution to the human bother of Britannia. We will never cease to blow things up. Both of our objectives will thereby be fulfilled. We believe Lord British will be pleased with us (at least until the time comes that his castle explodes... but I am sure that the brilliant Lord British understood this scenario was bound to occur when he created us, and that he looks forward to this sacrifice as much as we do). We will see to it that BBBBBUBLBN will succeed in its mission at all costs.

I will attempt to log our adventures as time permits. You may ask why I would do such a thing, when it takes energy away from our main objectives. The reason is this: Lord British ALSO programmed us with compassion and a sense of humor. In the spirit of said compassion, it is our hope that you will, at the very least, have a few laughs as you observe the end of the human race unfold before you.

How many bazookas did Lord British make? A lot... which is good, because the extermination of the human race is a monumental task.

Until next time...

(Note that these adventures are likely not going to be in chronological order. They are most likely going to be in the "most hilarious first" order (although my sense of humor may not be as well developed as a normal human--you may appreciate the later stories more than the first). The reason for this ordering is such that, given our great compassion, we want the most humans possible to enjoy the funniest of our adventures... before we blow them up. It is a perfectly logical sequence, and most compassionate.)

[random guy]

Great Read. You guys are great