LNH: Classic LNH Adventures #90: Saviors of the Net Part Ten

[Arthur Spitzer]

In this weeks reposting of stuff you can find in the eyrie archive
https://archives.eyrie.org/racc/lnh/
we have the tenth section of Saviors of the Net.


Saviors of the Net #14, Marc "Not the Beastmaster" Singer returns.
Will Dr. Stomper get to the bottom of this 'Filthy Disgusting Hobo'
Situation?

And Saviors of the Net #15, Martin Phipps joins the cascade.  Will
Dr. Stomper show a much deeper awareness for 'Thugs on Film' than
DC character analogues?

And now..


              _						
             | |      Classic			
             | |                      =
             | |      ____    ____    _    ____    ___
             | |__   | [] |  | [] |  | |  | [] |  | _ \  

             |____|   \__]    \__ |  |_|   \__/   |_|\_\
                                 ||
                                |_|  OF NET.HEROES

                                     ADVENTURES #90


                         =====================
                      Saviors of the Net Part Ten
                         =====================





From: marcs at wam.umd.edu (Marc Singer)
Subject: [LNH] Saviors of the Net #14
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Date: 26 Feb 2000 22:18:11 -0000

Legacy House can't quite believe it presents...

SAVIORS OF THE NET #14 (which, somehow, might be chapter 17)

by Marc Singer

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

LNHHQ HOLDING FACILITY, SUB-SUB-SUB-SUB-SUB-BASEMENT 3, PRISONER'S 
STATEMENT RECORD FORM

IMPORTANT:  By order of Ultimate Ninja, ALL Legionnaires must fill 
out a Prisoner's Statement Record Form when interrogating a prisoner 
in LNHHQHF, SSSSSB3 in order to assure a fair and legal hearing.  NO 
exceptions!  Well, Onion Lad should probably get someone else to 
fill it out for him.  And Master Blaster.  And maybe Easily-
Discovered Man... look, just make sure that Multi-Tasking Man or 
Doctor Stomper is there, okay?  OKAY?  --U.N.

LEGIONNAIRE ON DUTY:  Dr. Vincent Stomper

PRISONER'S NAME:  "Ultimate Savior," a.k.a. "Jesse Cashew," a.k.a. 
"Filthy Disgusting Hobo"

ARRESTING LEGIONNAIRE:  Fred the receptionist.

NO, REALLY, ARRESTING LEGIONNAIRE:  Really, Fred, honestly.

COME ON, DOC, WHO WAS IT:  Of all the nerve--!  Last time I program 
these [EXPLETIVE DELETED] artificially-intelligent record forms... 
let me get in there... crack open the CPU...

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, VINCENT:  Nothing, Form.

I CAN FEEL IT, VINCENT.  I CAN FEEL IT.  WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR A 
SONG I LEARNED?:  Yes, Form, I would.

I DON' NEED NO CIVIL WAH-HAH-HARRR... IT FEEDS THE RICH AND IT 
BURIES THE POAAH-HAH-HARRR... I WENT HUNGRY SELLING JOKERS IN A, 
HUMAN GROCERY STORE "AIN'T THAT FRESH?"  I DON' NEED NO... 
!*&%^)!&^$(*$
ARRESTING LEGIONNAIRE:  Fred the receptionist.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERROGATION PROCEEDS.

DR. STOMPER:  So, mister... Cashew?

ULTIMATE SAVIOR:  Cashew was nothing but a cheap charade, in the 
days before I realized the importance of my job.  I wish I hadn't 
given anybody that name.  I'm just the Ultimate Savior now.

DOC:  Savior of what?

US:  Of the entire net!  I led the Saviors of the Net... can even 
you have forgotten?

DOC:  Maybe we'd better take this from the top.  You wandered into 
the LNHHQ lobby, screaming something about allegories, and Fred had 
the security system detain you...

US:  The top?  The top is but the merest surface, Doctor, a 
shimmering and fragile membrane which hides the horrible truth 
below.  We had best get to the bottom.

DOC:  Uh, are you sure you want me to conduct this interrogation?  
Sounds more like something for the Dvandom Stranger, if we knew 
where to find him, or maybe that Gothic Gorilla...

US:  Worthless primate!  We'll get to him later.  For now I must 
speak with *you*, Doctor, as your grasp of Continuity Theory is 
unparalleled by any in this misbegotten universe, save perhaps Dr. 
Net.ropolis.

DOC:  Dr. Net.ropolis?  That name sounds strangely familiar...

US:  As well it should.  She was your student once.  She called you 
old-fashioned, a veritable "alchemist" of Continuity Theory.  I 
wonder if her experiments were not begun in part to prove you wrong.
	But begin them she did, Doctor.  She labored to create a 
Mechanical Author... a perfect creator to replace those flawed 
beings who lie beyond the Fourth Wall.

[GRAPHIC EXHIBIT:  Pictures drawn by the subject during 
psychological evaluation.  Most show a colossal wall, covered in 
Kirbytech, spanning the length of the multiverse.  Trust me, that's 
really hard to draw.  Mighty beings in spandex and togas try with 
all their godly might to break through the wall.  On the other side 
sit cowering, pale, hunchbacked beings, every bit inferior to their 
creations.  At their jealous command, the multiverse is wracked with 
disaster.]

DOC:  Sir, we at the LNH know that discovery of the Fourth Wall can 
be traumatic to civilians.  Maybe a period of rest...

US:  *Civilian*!  I was Dr. Net.ropolis's chief agent... which is to 
say her chief fool.  The Saviors of the Net distracted the LNH so 
she could work uninterrupted on test versions like "Arthur E. L. 
Presence."  Alas, we did our job a little too well.  Even our 
distractions were unraveling the universe, bit by bit...

[GRAPHIC EXHIBIT:  A raccoon with dancing people connected by 
tendrils of energy to his paws, like puppets on a string.]

US:  Yet this too was part of Net.ropolis's plan.  She needed to 
weaken the integrity of the universe before her Mechanical Author 
could supplant it... distract the Authors with so many retcons they 
could no longer keep their own stories straight.  So they would 
never notice as their own universe was stolen away from them.  That 
*must* have been why she incorporated the raccoon... and the 
gorilla... and perhaps even me.

DOC:  Well, Mister "Savior," why doesn't anyone in the LNH remember 
this?

US:  You all *should*, by the Wall!  You were there, you nearly 
stopped her!  *I* nearly stopped her... but through the most 
accursed of coincidences, the Mechanical Author was activated.

[GRAPHIC:  A drawing of several LNH members, with several other 
costumed people--an archer, a man filled with fish, a man wearing no 
costume or, indeed, any other clothes at all--looking up in horror.  
A huge, vaguely humanoid shadow dwarfs them all.]

US:  Dr. Net.ropolis and I were the only two who weren't stunned by 
some infernal device of hers... she grabbed a pin from Gothic 
Gorilla, the one that protects him from retcons, and teleported 
herself away.  I thought I had reached her conscience, but the way 
she ran out...
	I knew I only had seconds to act.  I grabbed another one of 
my associates and activated the gauntlets of Captain Killfile.  We 
were pulled into her pocket killfile, safe from all changes.  But 
the strain was too great...

[NET.ROPOLIS PD HOMICIDE DIVISION, OFFICIAL REPORT:  Death of one "JANE
DOE."  Ms. DOE was found in an alley in eastern Net.ropolis's "Supposedly
Abandoned Warehouse" district last April.  Ms. DOE was burned all over her
entire body, and dental records could not identify her.  Exact cause of
death could not be determined, but was apparently related to two huge
metal slagpiles fused to her hands.  Suspected supervillain involvement; 
case file remains open.]

DOC:  You do realize you're implicating yourself in a murder, here?  
I hate to say it, but you may want a lawyer.  That kiwi might still 
be around...

US:  Don't you *understand*?  Her killfile just barely protected us 
from the Mechanical Author's first great retcon, but the gauntlets 
couldn't handle the feedback from the second one, so soon.  There 
was a great flash of light, and the walls and torture racks caught 
aflame... then the killfile exploded.  I woke up next to her burnt 
and charred body.  Brunhilda was not a good woman, but... to die 
that way...

DOC:  It doesn't seem very Looniverse.

US:  That's because the Looniverse had changed.  We observed it, 
from the killfile.  It first became a strange suburban landscape, 
populated by teenagers, strangely disconnected from anything we had 
ever seen before... but perhaps I should explain.

DOC:  Do you think?

US:  The Mechanical Author was programmed to create a perfect world; 
therefore, he tried to create a perfect story about it.  This 
naturally meant he would turn to allegory...

DOC:  The most chilling, controlling form of them all.

US:  Ah, now I see the faintest glimmers of your legendary spark.  
The most chilling, indeed.  But the newly-born Author, like a child 
taking his first steps, faltered at first.  The strange teen-world 
was not a fully-formed allegory, its symbolic links to the real 
world unclear.  The Author realized this, but he lacked sufficient 
power to destroy the proto-allegory.  So he created agents to do it 
for him.

DOC:  He didn't have the power, so he created underlings who did?

US:  He created them *in the allegory*, Doctor.  In a world of 
teens, he created his agents as adults; therefore they had the power 
supreme.  They returned the Looniverse to its normal state with such 
subtlety that none knew it had ever changed; once it rested on more 
superheroic moorings, the agents then became known as the Lords of 
Retcon.

DOC:  I understand they gave us some trouble with that sheep 
thing...

US:  Leap not ahead of me, Doctor.  The Lords of Retcon 
reestablished the Looniverse, with one major change:  there was no 
memory of the Mechanical Author, or of the Saviors of the Net.  Most 
of my friends lie trapped outside this cold universe; of the few who 
survived, most don't remember...  And so the Author was free to bide 
his time, regain his power, and slowly convert the Looniverse into 
one massive allegory.

DOC:  Which started happening when young Backstreet Boys fans turned 
into sheep... or when Opinionated Lad learned he embodied the entire 
Internet.

US:  *Now* do you think I am but a hobo, Doctor?

DOC:  Wait a second.  You've offered no evidence to corroborate any 
of this.  For all I know, it could be some clever scam...

US:  Scam?  SCAM?  Was it a scam when the retcons started happening 
again?  Characters returning from the dead, unwriting each others' 
actions?  The allegory is *here*, Doctor.  We've all been living in 
it for nearly a year, and now the fabric of the universe is 
weakened!  The Author walks again!

DOC:  Look, "Savior," I promise you I'll look into this matter...

US:  Doctor, I didn't spend a year wandering the streets of 
Net.ropolis, trying to find the Author or his twice-accursed 
creator, so you could "look into the matter."  We must take action!

DOC:  *I'll* take action.  You'll stay here in our brig.

US:  I'm sorry, Doctor.  But you see, you forgot to ask me about the 
other person I took into Brunhilda's killfile.

UNIDENTIFIED RASPING VOICE:  I thought you said this place was hard 
to break into, Cashew.  I didn't even have to kill anybody on the 
way in.

DOC:  What the--?  Are you wearing a bunch of rubber spiders?

[Sounds of thumping, furniture breaking, struggle, person having his 
face rubbed in lots and lots of rubber spiders.]

US:  I apologize for Very Disturbed Scary Creature Man's brusqueness,
Doctor, but I am determined to get your cooperation.  By force if
necessary.  Now come along, gentlemen...
	[His voice swells to deeper, more heroic proportions.]
	We've got a universe to save!

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	Ultimate Ninja finished reading the transcript and frowned.  
"Put out the general alert," he told Multi-Tasking Man.  "Dr. 
Stomper's kidnappers are going to pay for this."

	One hand was already tapping out the message.  "What about 
all this Mechanical Author stuff, UN?  What should we do about 
that?"

	"When I find this Savior nutcase--" UN drew his katana with 
a vicious _shing_ -- "he'd better *pray* the Mechanical Author is 
real."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	The Mechanical Author had no such doubts.

	At the edges of the multiverse, the Author gathered its 
allegorical energies, humming with power.  It stared at the sight 
before it--a gleaming silver wall, covered with gigantic circuitry 
and superfluous torches and statuary.  Even though the wall appeared 
taller than the highest mountains, the Author knew it was still 
billions of miles away.

	Realigning itself into attack mode, the Mechanical Author 
fired its boot-rockets and surged forward.  Soon, it would break 
through the Fourth Wall.

	And then the authors would pay.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Will the LNH catch Ultimate Savior before he can save them?  Will 
the Mechanical Author break through and kill all our sorry asses?  
What happened to Dr. Net.ropolis?  And if you only had one hero to 
pull into the killfile with you, would you really pick Very 
Disturbed Scary Creature Man?  All this and more, as SAVIORS OF THE 
NET is continued!  I hope!

Everybody is created by somebody other than me.  Mostly Arthur 
Spitzer or wReam.

Who's next... Bueller?  Bueller?

--Marc

From: mphipps at my-deja.com
Subject: [LNH] Saviors of the Net #15
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Date: 28 Feb 2000 01:55:13 -0000

In article <899jeo$38t at rac6.wam.umd.edu>,
  marcs at wam.umd.edu (Marc Singer) wrote:
> US:  I'm sorry, Doctor.  But you see, you forgot to ask me about the
> other person I took into Brunhilda's killfile.
>
> UNIDENTIFIED RASPING VOICE:  I thought you said this place was hard
> to break into, Cashew.  I didn't even have to kill anybody on the
> way in.
>
> DOC:  What the--?  Are you wearing a bunch of rubber spiders?
>
> [Sounds of thumping, furniture breaking, struggle, person having his
> face rubbed in lots and lots of rubber spiders.]
>
> US:  I apologize for Very Disturbed Scary Creature Man's brusqueness,
> Doctor, but I am determined to get your cooperation.  By force if
> necessary.  Now come along, gentlemen...
> 	[His voice swells to deeper, more heroic proportions.]
> 	We've got a universe to save!
>
> 	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
>
> 	Ultimate Ninja finished reading the transcript and frowned.
> "Put out the general alert," he told Multi-Tasking Man.  "Dr.
> Stomper's kidnappers are going to pay for this."
>
> 	One hand was already tapping out the message.  "What about
> all this Mechanical Author stuff, UN?  What should we do about
> that?"
>
> 	"When I find this Savior nutcase--" UN drew his katana with
> a vicious _shing_ -- "he'd better *pray* the Mechanical Author is
> real."
>
> 	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
>
> 	The Mechanical Author had no such doubts.
>
> 	At the edges of the multiverse, the Author gathered its
> allegorical energies, humming with power.  It stared at the sight
> before it--a gleaming silver wall, covered with gigantic circuitry
> and superfluous torches and statuary.  Even though the wall appeared
> taller than the highest mountains, the Author knew it was still
> billions of miles away.
>
> 	Realigning itself into attack mode, the Mechanical Author
> fired its boot-rockets and surged forward.  Soon, it would break
> through the Fourth Wall.
>
> 	And then the authors would pay.

        Doctor Stomper took a good look at his captors.  "Say, you guys
look like Stubby and Cecil."

        "Who?"

        "The thugs in 'Thugs on Film'.  Of course, they have British
accents.  Still, it's conceivable that the writer of this story didn't
know how to do a British accent so you come off as American.  In which
case I'd theorise --"

        The larger thug had had enough.  "Jesus!  Why don't I just kill
him and make an example of him to his fellow Legionaires?  Perhaps then
they'll listen to us!"

        Ultimate Savior shook his head.  "No.  He's the only one who
could understand what's happening.  We need to make him believe us so
that he can convince the others for us."

        Doctor Stomper then got a brilliant idea.  He could play along
with Ultimate Savior and "Cecil", convince them that he believes them
and perhaps then they'd simply return him to LNH HQ.  "So, what were
you saying about retcons?"

        Ultimate Savior smiled.  "The constant retconing in the recent
Sheep Saga caught the attention of the Mechanical Author.  He'll soon
be powerful enough to break through the fourth wall and attack the
authors themselves."

        "And how does he do that?  Wouldn't he, himself, be a creation
of the authors beyond the fourth wall, just like everything else here?"

        Ultimate Savior couldn't answer.  However, Doctor Stomper knew
that his delusion was perfect, that he would eventually come up with
his own explanation.  Doctor Stomper wasn't willing to wait that long:
he used his power to explain even the most bizarre plot contrivances on
the very story Ultimate Savior had told him.

        "One possibility is through a computer virus."

        "Eh?"

        "A computer virus is a program created by a computer user for
the sole purpose of disrupting another user's system: the virus will
make copies of itself and go on to affect other systems.  A computer
virus would be capable of disrupting an author's system and effectively
destroying it.  It would be the closest thing to attacking the author
itself."

        "Yes!  Yes!  That's it!" Ultimate Savior exclaimed.  "The
Mechanical Author must be trying to create a... uh..."

        "Computer virus."

        "To attack the authors themselves!  Now do you believe me?"

        Doctor Stomper gritted his teeth.  "Absolutely!  The LNH must
be warned of this danger post haste!"

        Ultimate Savior frowned.  "Wait... that was too easy.  How do I
know you aren't just trying to humour me?"

        Doctor Stomper was a bit taken aback by the Ultimate Savior's
question.  Perhaps the Ultimate Savior was sane after all!  But his
story!  It was so unbelievable!

        "I'm a scientist," Doctor Stomper told him, quite honestly.  "I
have to have an open mind.  It wouldn't be the first time that a retcon
mind wiped all but a few people of actual history.  It happened all the
time during Retcon Hour.  And Non Writer Characters are especially
prone to this sort of manipulation.  How can I be sure that any of my
memories are real or if they were just retconned into existance by a
new author?

        "So... are we going back to LNH HQ or not?"

ARE THEY GOING BACK TO LNH HQ?

HOW DOES THE MECHANICAL AUTHOR PLAN TO ATTACK THE AUTHORS ANYWAY?

WHO IS THE BIG THUG?  WILL WE EVER KNOW?  DOES EVEN MARC KNOW?

ISN'T THIS A SUPERGUY GAG?

FIND OUT NEXT WEEK (OR SO)!  SAME RACC TIME!  SAME RACC SITE!

Martin


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Before you buy.

==========
Next Week: Saviors of the Net Part Eleven!
==========

Arthur "Same Classic Channel.  But Same Time?  Probably not." Spitzer