Copyright 2001 by Jen Wardell

Rating: PG-13

Author's note: This thing is only in the most general of orders, and not nearly complete. I'm in the process of writing it, and I'm just posting bits as they come to me. As long, of course, as you want to keep reading them.

So You Want to Rule the World (or maybe just downtown Manhattan)
by Gatekeeper

Intro:

Everyone who has gone through high school knows that, while that point in the educational system is very focused on future career opportunities, there are certain vocations that counselors just aren't willing to cover. Strippers, for one thing.

One of the most ignored professions, however, is that of the supervillain. No class offers the barest hint of instruction to ease a student's way into this well-established but generally unrewarding field. Even counselors are unwilling to mention this field to students when they are trying out various career fields. Whether this is done out of ignorance or outright malice is uncertain, but either way it keeps precious new blood out of the field and causes the profession to stagnate.

The educational system, however, is not the only one to blame for this lack of awareness. No one seems to be willing to guide young supervillains through the challenges and unexpected pitfalls that come with the business, or continue to educate established villains that their skills might remain fresh.

So here it is, the complete guide to being the best supervillain you can possibly be. Whether you are trying to win world domination away from a costumed superhero or a karate master/vigilante that poses as a fry cook in between saving the world and speaks with an accent, these ideas may actually help you win (or at least look less stupid as you lose). Note: For the purposes of this book, the term villain and supervillain will be interchangeable. Technically, there are several differences between the two, with a certain higher scope of evil generally being attributed to supervillains, as well as a tragic overabundance of spandex. But the strict use of the word supervillain might be somewhat off-putting to certain suit-wearing evil individuals who have as much potential for a grand power play as their more gaily costumed brethren. Besides, the word villain doesn't take as long to type.

Getting Started:

Setting a Goal:

This may not be as simple as it seems for the beginning supervillain. Sure, everyone says that they want world domination, but is that what they're really looking for? There are a lot more options for a forward thinking individual than current publicity today shows.

There's nothing wrong, of course, with wanting to rule the world. It's a fine goal -- one your mother could be proud of, if she was the kind of woman to get a kick out of such things. Many worthy notables in the profession have shared the same goal, including several villains in the entertainment industry and historical supervillains such as Attila the Hun, Ghengis Kahn, Napolean, and Alexander the Great, though these later individuals had the advantage of considering the world a much smaller place then we now know it to be, so they had less territiory to cover. Still, a villian who chose this as an ultimate goal would be in very worthy company.

The only problem is, they wouldn't be in particularly successful company. Because, though ruling the world is a very nice aspirition for any villain to have, it is an impossible one to actually obtain. There is no way that only one person can control the whole world, no matter how powerful or devilishly good-looking you are.

Yes, yes, I know. Cue the chorus of all supervillain hopefuls currently reading this that want to voice their heated denials to the last statement that I just made. One, two, three -- "But I can do it!" There, now that we've gotten that over with, we can stop any attempts on your part to try and prove this to me, and most definitely the gratituitous boasting that is certain to go along with those attempts (not that I dissapprove entirely -- I myself have participated in gratuitous boasting on several occasions, and generally find it very relaxing. Now, however, is not the time), jumping right to the point where I explain why all of you are wrong.

Okay, so I lied. We're not going to jump right to that point. I know that you think that the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of supervillains that have tried to dominate the world and screwed up failed because they simply weren't impressive enough to succeed. That, or maybe the fact that their spandex was riding up on them.

You have probably spent countless hours reviewing tapes of their performances in slow motion, and, like the Olympic announcers during the gymnastics performance who circle the mistakes in red on the screen (possibly because they get utterly bored up there in the announcer's box -- there's only so much you can do in a small room without a member of the opposite sex in there with you), follow their evil macinations (if you hope to become a truly great supervillain you must know what this word means) as you point out to anyone unfortunate enough to pass by with your little laser pointer just what they did wrong. And you, of course, know how to do better. (Now, wasn't that short sentence refreshing after that beastly one you just finished slogging through?)

Some of you out there, the supervillain hopefuls that I really feel bad for, might even think that everyone else who tried failed to conquer the world simply because it wasn't their destiny. You know this because you have somehow discovered (possibly through the aid of a psychic hotline) that ruling the world is your destiny. This is, in fact, exactly what Alexander the great thought, and look where it got him.

But the sad truth of the matter is that, as I said before, it is impossible for one person to take over the entire world. This is even more true if you happen to be a lab rat with an unusually large head -- let the repeated humiliation of the poor Brain serve as a tragic example to us all.

Unless you happen to be fortunate enough to lead an alien race who sees earthlings as lower life forms and is conveniently equipped with a large and scary fleet of very well-armed spaceships (in which case, you would technically not be considered a supervillain -- more like an impartial enslaving and destructive force. Most aliens aren't allowed to enjoy world domination, a stigma which will be discussed later), the entire world is simply too large a territory for one supervillain to keep an eye on. And it's impossible to truly be the complete ruler of any area unless you can be exactly certain what's going on in every area of it. The often used phrase "information is power" may be a cliche, but that doesn't mean it doesn't know what it's talking about. This is particularly true when one has to deal with pesky resistance movements.

There's no need to be upset, though. Just sit down on your great and dreadful thrones for a minute and think about this. Do you really want to rule the world? Sure, everyone else is doing it, but popularity does not make something a sensible thing to do. I mean, everyone was doing the Macarena at one point (though now I'm starting to wonder if that dance craze was part of some nameless villain's evil plot. If so, good job).

Besides, ruling the world is no walk in the park. As I said before, there's all that territory you have to cover. Even if you were fortunate enough to have acquired a spaceship or jet in an appropriately underhanded manner, fulfilling all your duties as an evil dictator over that large an area can be tiring. And if you are a supervillain for whom these things unfortunately don't fit your m.o. (or weren't able to get them anyway and so are now just pretending that they don't work) these duties can be very tiring.

Also, there there is the bureaucracy to deal with. Most world governments today (except for a few dictators left who don't have to worry about this sort of thing) are 97% bureaucracy and 3% whatever else they're calling themselves. If a supervillain did choose to take over the world, sure, they would get billions of subjects the villain could crush under his or her thumb at whim. Unfortunately, the villain would also be saddled with dozens of bureaucracies and all the bickering and paperwork that go along with them.

Sure, you could attempt to subjugate and/or crush them as well, but the leaders of every country would have to spend six to eight weeks in a committee before they could get back to you with an answer on that.