[Episode 212839] [Episode 212839]Though Ranma had no way of knowing it, once upon a time, even the massive mothership he was currently squatting in had once been a living creature. A species of massive interplanetary life-forms of that which could be best described as 'space whales.' When stumbled upon by the Masters, it was instantly recognized that these giant space traveling creatures were perfect raw material to convert into vessels to house not only the Masters and their creature comforts, but their drone collection and conversion factories as well.
After all, the point of turning sentient beings into just parts of a massive machine was because it was simply much easier than building robots or growing clones from scratch. And these unfortunate life forms that were used as raw material for the Masters' various invading space vessels were a perfect example of this way of thinking on a much grander scale.
Not to say that the alien spaceships in orbit resembled or were shaped like living creatures. Quite the contrary, the mothership and it's 'siblings' were the crowning achievement of the Master's technology, having effective modified a biological lifeform into a living machine, to the point where while almost near fully technological, even the mechanical parts would function as organs and vital fluids as needed, all directed to the Master's cause of forever collecting more resources for their life of pleasure seeking and living-robot inventory: to call them a population would imply that they were somehow recognized as ever having been sentient beings with freedom of will and a sense of self.
The Masters in their surprisingly still formable genius, had as the decades past made a good deal more of the System for collecting raw material automated, freeing themselves more and more to pursue their own interests. This absolute inversion of altruism sealed their species' fate. Ironically, had the System been designed to recognize it, it would have seen Happosai as acting a lot more like a Master when it had last interacted with one. Indeed, so absolutely devoted to pleasing their carnal desires we the Masters, it was doubtful many knew or cared how no one was going about that "messy business" of having offspring, or that weaknesses in their cloning process was making their own replacement bodies age faster and faster "must be a bug, it'll work itself out soon" one had thought seeing how fast their hair turned white again.
The last Master died of a heart attack in a new body she had only entered in that morning, her drone had continued to entertain her not noticing it's master's death and continued to attempt to amuse the corpse until it was due for a recharge and maintenance cycle and of course was not called back.
The Masters hadn't trusted the System with more than minor amounts of their health, fearing the rebellion of their completely devoted property or some misguided well meaning idiocyncracies in their programming accidently absorbing the Masters into the System. So what if some of their fellow Masters might accidently die? Just more for themselves to enjoy after all.
And the drones and the System either didn't notice or care. To care was a quality of a person, and the Masters had been careful to make sure any qualities their equipment retained that would have qualified the machine parts as people were all focused on the service of their functions. The simple fact that Ranma's friends and fellows did not recognize him or each other, but only saw the resident Master unit RAN(MA) and other pieces of equipment like a screwdriver and the console, uncomforted Ranma but he did not let himself think about.
While Ranma gave up hope the way the IRS gave up money, a terrible thought did cross his conscious mind for a moment, just one moment, but since admitting that thought would be admitting defeat -something Ranma bad been conditioned near nice birth to NEVER do- Ranma brushed the thought off and plowed foreword. That thought was: were his friends and acquaintances even still in there at all?
The near total lack of emotion to himself, each other, and themselves was the first doubt setter. And those emotions that did appear all seemed related purely to being of use and having function.
Arrogant, incredibly intelligent and clever Nabiki reduced to and acting like as a pleasure toy, things he considered fundamentally against her most base nature was the second. Of course he just justified this to himself thinking that their bodies were just going through the motions but their real minds had to be just sleeping or were watching the entire thing like passengers in their own bodies right? Of course Ranma had no proof of this, and what little evidence he had suggested the contrary, but even if this was so, he told himself, 'I'm sure I'll figure out a way to fix'em, just like I'm gonna figure out a way to restore their bodies, even Mouse's.'
If anyone whatsoever had been there with Ranma who wasn't a piece of equipment had quoted, 'You can't change the hamburger back into the cow.' They would have been punched through so many bulk heads that PRON411 would have suffered another hull-breach.
Ranma from what he had seen so far, was fairly certain if he ordered for those under his control to be 'returned to normal' and was somehow able to convey was his meaning of normal was, he feared he might either blow his cover, or the System might think he was delirious. Could he 'upgrade' his friends and what not to 'Master' status as well? Was that possible? He had to be certain of what he could -not- do as much as what he could do. Then again, the only reason the System wasn't seeing him as raw material was a case of mistaken identity that the System really, REALLY didn't want to be prove wrong about and be left without a Master again. Or be left with only the ALTERNATE Master available.
Happosai being his normal completely selfish self and stopping doing anything really useful after collecting his 'harem' -did- have the slight bonus of causing System drag, and giving people who had managed to avoid the evil silver discs for one reason or another a slight margin of hope as the System, as it had been created to do, devoted more resources to fulfilling a Master's desires, even a third class sanitation worker's.
Ranma was distracted by ferreting and weeding out all of Happosai's 'modifications' of which there were many, and all rather predictable, still, apparently having a higher rank in the System than Happosai he was able to undo his damage one lecherous instruction at a time.
While Ranma's morbid curiosity did make him want to get some more answers out of a machine part numbered SA-Y0URI that once upon a time had been person named Sayuri (such her/it's function in all this), Ranma's disgust of Happosai's latest stunt had inspired him to say mentally and out load, "I wish that old lecher would at least once get a taste of his own medicine!"
ACKNOWLEDGED: TEMPORARY DISCIPLINARY MEASURE FOR SANITATION OVERSEER, CLASS THREE HAPO(SA)-1 OF PRON666 SELECTED AND APPROVED BY PLANETARY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR RAN(MA) PROCEEDING
"Uh, what?" Ranma blinked wondering what just happened, through strangely, he had a gut feeling it wouldn't be so bad.
If the alien mothership PRON666 had been allowed to feel true relief, it would be feeling it this moment by the cartload, and more than a little satisfaction.
When Happosai mentally heard TEMPORARY DISCIPLINARY MEASURE FOR SANITATION OVERSEER, CLASS THREE HAPO(SA)-1 OF PRON666 SELECTED AND APPROVED ... PROCEEDING he had little or no clue what that meant and was too busy to care.
However his attention -was- quickly brought to center around this message when his dozen strong harem began to poke him with needles and hypo-sprays and he beheld the sudden changes occurring to his body. The true master of Anything-Goes screamed. If any who knew him had been there, it would have been music to their ears. In particular the octave that the voice was rising in.
Karma was a beotch.
The pleasure drones continued to service their Master after the disciplinary measure had been administered, but Happosai (still totally his/her self in mind at least) held her head of full silky blond hair and stood much taller than before, and began to run around the room like a chicken with it's head cut off on shapely legs, round orbs of flesh bouncing up and down on her chest. The pleasure drones as per following their instructions, followed their Master around the control room. Had Happosai known the whole truth, she'd have screamed even more and ran even harder.
Happosai, like any decent up right and self respectful and honorable pervert, never once thought about those on the wrong side of puberty, however the System, a machine, had no bias, and followed Happosai's instructions of drones being of biological age 19 and female to the letter. The end result was, the kindergarten class collected by PRON666 having been nearest Happosai at the time, had become the twelve pleasure drones the aged pervert had ordered. Yes, Happosai would have screamed louder and ran faster.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Alex Warlorn
(Posted Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:47)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.