Jinxed

Well, I guess I jinxed myself by saying I would keep a blog schedule. I have come to the decision that I have to stop blogging indefinitely. Thanks to everyone who has stopped by and read my writings. I really appreciate it. My plan is to hike a lot, chip some items off my bucket list, and try to decide what to do with my life for reals. Take care everyone!

Wednesday Wanderings

Hey Everyone. I'm sort of experimenting with actually keeping to some sort of blog schedule. Shocking, I know. For a tangential girl, schedules aren't always the best, yet I am also a nerd, so I might just make it work. I'm going to try the Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing and see what happens. Probably, knowing me, I will end up writing all the posts on weekends and posting in advance, but we'll see.

Today, on this lovely, hot (for Washington) day, my mind is more on being outside than writing--but not really. I'm kind of always thinking of potential storylines, edits, or other fiction-related things. Even the songs I hear on the radio spawn stories in my head. Sometimes I feel like I'm addicted to stories.

Anyone else feel like that, or am I crazy? Where do you get story ideas?

Character Arcs

I've been thinking a lot about character and character arcs lately. Part of this came up from some comments my sister brought up about the main character in the novel I'm currently revising. Sapphire starts out pretty snotty and full of rash opinions and slowly comes around to a more balanced perspective by the end of the novel. My challenge, though, is not making her too annoying at the beginning so that she is likeable, yet still has room to grow.

Graphics Fairy

It's all about timing, I'm guessing. Nobody likes a perfect Mary Sue character that has no room for improvement, yet we have to give our characters enough redeeming qualities at first to make our readers care about them. Sometimes this is done with a hated character and you hate them so much that you read on just hoping they will get theirs. I think those are a lot harder to pull off, though if done well it can be amazing.

Back in my college days, everyone was reading The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You. I remember a girl we knew scoffing at us all liking the book and saying that she stopped reading when the protagonist raped a woman. He was a really terrible person at the beginning of the book, true, but I remember thinking how sad it was that the girl didn't read on to see how he was healed and changed into a good person through the magic of dreams by the end of the book. That whole story is really all about this man's character arc.

I'm not saying I have the answers here, but I'm guessing that there are ways to make these flawed characters likeable even in their low moments, and perhaps because of what they do with those bad times to make things better. If we give them small chinks in their armor, little glimpses at the prospect of goodness, like the "save the cat" approach, readers will stick around to root for your character. It also gives characters depth. Conflicting goals and interests can make for a very interesting read.

I've been reading Donald Maas' Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook and there are some great ideas about character development in there. Know of any other good craft books on character arcs?

What do you do to ensure that your characters grow and change throughout the novel? What do you do to make characters likeable, even if they are pretty awful at first?

A-Z Reflections Post

Wherein I reflect about the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge. First of all, I have to say that I had a really wonderful April in Bloggyland because I participated in this mega-blogfest. It's like the Nanowrimo of blogging--if you don't do it, you feel left out. I know that I felt that way last year and the year before, but this year I went for it.

As far as the organization of this blog hop, I have absolutely nothing but good things to say. The hosts and their "minions" were awesome, organized, and answered every question I might have had before I even realized it. I especially appreciated the codes on the sign up list for indicating what type of blog you have. For me it was "WR" for writing blog. I found lots of like-minded bloggers that way, and they found me, too, so that was awesome. I know that not everyone designated their blog that way, but it was a good idea anyway.

I wrote a serial story throughout April that is now posted in its entirety at the top of my blog on a tab. I need a few more tabs to make that obvious, but hey, I learned how to add "pages" to my blog, so yay. I love to learn new things. Another great thing about A-Z was that I learned a ton about random subjects such as comic book characters, Star Wars, law,writing, stories and even software development. I made new friends (probably about 40 new followers all-in-all) and learned new things about old friends. Overall, it was an awesome experience that I will probably do again next year.

As far as my own approach with the fiction story from 26 different perspectives, well, it was certainly a challenge, but I'm not sure I would do a serial story again. While I did keep a few followers going throughout the challenge, I do feel like a lot of people were overwhelmed with trying to keep up with a story. It was a lot to ask of folks, so I really appreciate the ones who stuck by me and kept me going. I love to write a story while people are hanging on the plot, waiting for more. That was great. I had only written up to J when the challenge began, so a lot of what came after that was totally inspired by comments. In fact, Dylan was a big favorite, so he played a WAY bigger part in the ending than I would have planned on my own.

What did you do in April? Did you do the challenge? Would you write fiction for A-Z? If not, why? I'd love to hear it.

Insecure Writer's Support Group May Edition

Hi, I'm Shell and I'm an insecure writer. Are you one, too? If you are, join the list of insecure writers and post about your writing experiences on the first Wednesday of the month. It's a great community and a nice chance to share the trials and tribulations we face as writers.

So, I'm just coming down off the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge, so I spent most of April and a lot of late March focusing on that. I've sent my latest novel out to beta readers and sent a few queries out, but after the 4 queries I sent, it is clear that I need to work some more on my query and probably my novel, so I'm backing off of querying again.Also, I've been thinking a lot more about self-publishing. I just keep reading horror stories about publishers screwing people over in various ways and I'm not sure I want to deal with that. Yet, I'm also really busy with my day job and the rest of my life, so I don't want to have all the work of self-publishing taking away from my writing time, either. It's a difficult choice. Anyway, that's just sort of one of my thoughts this month. I'm about to launch into a new novel, too. Not sure what this one will be yet, but the ideas are flowing and I'm excited to delve into a new world and new characters again. Right now, I'm more about writing for fun and trying to figure out what to do with my life so that I can have a day job I actually like. My job has been getting me down, I have to admit, and I know writing won't rescue me from that, but I don't want to give up my writing time to work on finding a new job. They have started laying people off at work again, so I'm secretly hoping to get laid off so I am forced to find something new. 
 

Z is for Zyzenquinthisulanuu

The final installment in my serial story for the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge. Each day in April, I introduced a new character with a name beginning with the corresponding letter of the day to tell one story from 26 different perspectives. This is the concluding chapter. If you want to read from the beginning, you can find links the posts to the right in the blog archive. The first post is A is for Amethyst. I plan to post the story in its entirety on a tab in a few days. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but it isn't easy to wrap up a story told from 26 points-of-view, and hey, it's the last day! It's been a wild ride and well worth it.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu had been sifting through his father’s Universal Confederacy of Galaxies (UCG) database all morning. Sea was right to be concerned about Earth. Zyzenquinthisulanuu would have never guessed that such a tiny, barely technological planet could be so important—but it was. Sea had unwittingly stumbled onto a personal battle that could affect their entire corner of the universe.

Thirty-six-hundred Earth years ago, two Aztecan princes were sent to Earth by their father, the great Quetzalcohuātl, to milk it for all it was worth.

At first, the geo-computer had been created to generate a shield that would cloak what the Aztecan’s were really doing. Even then, it was illegal by Universal Confederacy of Galaxies standards to interfere in the evolution of a species that had not yet met the level of technology it took to fly a starship outside of its own galaxy.

These two brothers began to fight for control over the planet as blood-lust and gold-lust consumed them. One of the brothers, Tezcatlipoca, even drank the blood of a native shaman, forever changing his make-up so that he could shift into the form of a jungle cat. This allowed him to kill more humans without detection and saved much time over the tedious blood rituals his brother, Quetzalcohuātl, demanded.

As a jaguar, Tezcatlipoca roamed the Earth gaining power and learning of all the gold-veined pathways they could use to compute, places to store energy from Earth’s young sun, and ways to outsmart his brother. His young wife and baby son were stuck in space, orbiting a planet on the other side of the galaxy for safe-keeping. All he ever wanted was to gain enough power to bring his family back to Azteca to claim the kingdom that should be his.

When he felt ready to fight his brother for dominion over Earth, he returned to the jungle where Quetzalcohuātl was living like a king. He tried to sneak up on him in jaguar form one night atop the sacrificial pyramid, but Quetzalcohuātl tricked him into entering the chamber at the top, where he was infected with a disease and died.

Quetzalcohuātl II then decided to take the gold back to his father on Azteca. He abandoned the shield-generating computer, using its last surges of energy to send his ship through a wormhole back to Azteca, saving 80 light years of space-travel.

According to the database, the Universal Confederacy of Galaxies terminated Azteca’s membership due to the infringement of the evolutionary code and assigned such restitution that all the gold stolen from Earth didn’t pay half of it, leaving the planet destitute. The UCG sent some nanobots that would dissuade anyone from entering the portal back on Earth and sealed the wormhole. Case closed.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu had to dig more on his own because the database files ended there. Using passcodes stolen from his father, a UCG General, Zyzenquinthisulanuu hacked into all the surveillance satellites he could access. Originally, he was just worried that his friend would get busted for broadcasting to a forbidden planet to meet up with his Earthling lover, but now he realized that there was a war brewing.

He watched in horror, using spy satellites built by the primitives, as Tezcatlipoca, Jr. moved stealthily to the docking site where he would meet up with Quetzalcohuātl III.

The Universal Confederacy of Galaxies’ true failure was their underestimation of the power of the feud between the now-warring families. When the cosmic confluence of planets came back around, bringing Azteca near enough to Earth to make it just reachable by the old Toltec ships, Quetzalcohuātl forced his son to fly a ship there to fight his battle with Tezcatlipoca’s son and once again gain control of the geo-computer they had built so they could fry neighboring Ubexig and commandeer all their outlying ships.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu immediately contacted Sea.

“Alright, friend, I’ve been doing some digging and you are right. Your Earth girl is in danger and so are you. We all are. Those warring aliens are going to use the Earth as a weapon, and if they do, it won’t just be Ubexig that explodes, but perhaps the Earth itself.”

“You believe me?” Sea sounded shocked. “And what’s that about Ubexig?”

“Yeah, Bro. Long story, but mostly the Aztecans want Ubexig’s modern ships. We have to hurry. I’m going to give you my dad’s access codes to the stereo relay connection so your range down there is better. Go get Penelope, put in the coordinates I give you, and prepare to fight some feathered serpents.”

Sea listened as Zyzenquinthisulanuu laid out the plan. Within an Earth hour, Sea was knocking on Penelope’s front door.

Penelope grabbed Sea in a massive hug. “How did you get here?”

“No time for questions, just come with me.”

He pulled out his computer, plugged in the coordinates, took Penelope’s hand, and they were off through space. Zyzenquinthisulanuu saw them disappear on the satellite link and switched to Phase II. He worked on undoing the wormhole plug, but there was some kind of interference.

Suddenly, Zyzenquinthisulanuu’s attention was drawn to the satellite feed. A ship was landing atop the overgrown pyramid, shaking much of the debris from the upper levels. Below, a group of humans cowered in the dust. They were illuminated by a glowing creature he couldn’t identify. Then another human came rushing toward them.

“We must activate the geo-computer. Now!” She was struggling up the collapsing dirt, trying to get a hold to get up to the ship on top of the pyramid.

“Amethyst? Is it really you?” A man grabbed the woman in his arms, slowing her down. “Amethyst, it’s me, Ryan. Oh my god, I knew you were alive.”

“We must activate the geo-computer.”  She said again.

“It’s too late,” voices said behind them. “They are already here.”

It was two more humans, but they seemed to be the slaves of one of the feathered serpents. He had them bound with magnetic fields.

“Now all we need is your blood,” the feathered serpent said.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu recognized him as Yoltlaz now. What was he up to and where was Tezcatlipoca? The ship must have caused the disturbance, but now that it had docked, Zyzenquinthisulanuu worked to connect to the portal.

Watching the feeds as he worked, Zyzenquinthisulanuu almost missed the jaguar stealthily climbing up the pyramid while the ship’s walkway opened. Quetzalcohuātl III walked out with his father’s advisor, Vincent, who looked highly disappointed that there were only a few scraggly humans there to pay tribute.

“What is going on? Where are the trumpets? Where is the gold?”

“There is something wrong,” Vincent said. “Perhaps we landed in the wrong time. The pyramid has ways of warping time here. They were supposed to be here with the gold. It’s 2012, right?”

Zyzenquinthisulanuu laughed at that. Those Aztecans never calibrated anything right.

Before Quetzalcohuātl III could answer, Tezcatlipoca, Jr. sprang, sending Quetzalcohuātl tumbling down the pyramid.

“Help us,” the girl stuck in Yoltlaz’s net screamed. “He’s going to kill us.”

Just then, another human jumped out of a tree, landing on top of Yoltlaz. The human, a male, zeroed in on the device powering the electric net and was able to extricate it from the feathered serpent. Smashing it against a tree, he freed the two trapped humans.

“Eduardo?” The newly-freed male seemed surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I would ask the same of you, Cameron, but I don’t need to. We are here to start the geo-computer.”

Z yzenquinthisulanuu could see in the enhanced feeds that every one of these humans had nanobots in them. At least it made them easier to locate.

Z yzenquinthisulanuu almost lost track of Quetzalcohuātl during the human drama, but he quickly zeroed back in to see that Tezcatlipoca had Quetzalcohuātl cornered on a tree branch. Slowly, he crept closer to his cousin, going in for the kill.

“Tezcatlipoca, I know you hate me.”

“Oh, it’s not you I hate. It’s your father. But, killing you will hurt him far worse than killing him.”

Z yzenquinthisulanuu noticed that the humans were all scaling the pyramid while Yoltlaz and Vincent circled each other in the old fighting style of Azteca.

Z yzenquinthisulanuu called out to Sea. “Dude, where are you?”

Nothing.

He didn’t have time to keep trying. The humans were getting closer to the ship, atop the ancient landing pad. Amethyst was in the lead, and she knew where she was going. 

Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcohuātl were playing at dueling, but mostly talking.

“You know, I hate my father, too,” Quetzalcohuātl said. “Maybe we can work something out. Why don’t you go back to Azteca in my place. Take the gold.”

“What gold?” Tezcatlipoca laughed. “You don’t really think the humans remember all that crap about you returning? Ha. They misunderstood the whole message. Just last year they all thought the world was going to end. Now that it’s 2013, they think they dodged the old apocalypse bullet. Gold was never in the cards, Cousin.”

“Fine, kill me, then,” Quetzalcohuātl whined. “Just get it over with. Father will kill me himself if I go back with no gold.”

“That’s not all he wanted, is it? Come now, Cousin, tell me what you were really after on Earth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Surely he told you about the weapon.”

Quetzalcohuātl stared, saying nothing.

“Vincent knows.” Tezcatlipoca said.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu directed his attention to the ground area of his viewer.Yoltlaz and Vincent were alternating between pecking at each other and hurtling insults.

“You lice-ridden fool. Do you really think you can beat me after all this time?” Vincent yelled, going for Yoltlaz’s abdomen with his talons.

“You’re just a slave of the not-so-royal Quetzalcohuātl family. You know Azteca is the laughingstock of the UCG?” Yoltlz shot back.

They rolled about it a swirl of rainbow feathers, pecking and slicing with their talons in the darkness.

Meanwhile, the humans were surprisingly industrious. They had all made it to the top of the pyramid and were looking for ways to get up under the ship to reach the portal. The woman, Amethyst, led the way safely past the ship’s heat sinks as if she had known where to go all along.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu risked one more check on Sea and Penelope. He was starting to worry. They should be here by now.

“Sea, come on, Pick up. This isn’t the time to be making out with your Earthling or anything.”

“Bro, you really think that’s what we’re doing?” Seas voice was music to Zyzenquinthisulanuu’s ears. “Penelope is a natural at navigation. She found the control room. Your directions were so wrong.”

“Are you in position?”

“Give us thirty seconds.”

Everything depended on this hasty, half-crocked plan. Right now, the shield would not activate as the humans had been programmed to believe. Not like it mattered, since the enemy had landed. If Amethyst and her crew made it to the portal and actually knew the incantation, the earth-sized computer would activate, but it would focus all of that energy into a beam that would melt UCG-controlled Ubexig, sparking an instant galactic war.

“Okay, we’re ready.”

The plan was for Sea and Penelope to fly the ship and destroy the pyramid with the ship’s weapons system. It was sad that these humans would die, since they truly believed they were working to protect the planet, but at least they would die doing just that. Collateral damage, as they called it on Earth.

When the ship’s engines started, the humans scurried into the portal beneath the concave airway of the ship. The eight of them just fit inside the chamber. Zyzenquinthisulanuu couldn’t see them anymore, but he could hear them.

“What the hell is going on?” A frantic woman asked.

“They are taking off, I think.”

“Do we really want to put up a shield when they seem to be leaving?” Ryan asked.

“We must activate the geocomputer,” a few of the others said in the same monotone.

“Wait.” Amethyst said. “He’s right.”

The ship was lifting off and it was hard for Zyzenquinthisulanuu to hear. He focused on Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcohuātl. At the sound of his ship’s engines firing, Quetzalcohuātl flew to the ground. Tezcatlipoca shifted back into feathered serpent form and landed right next to him.

Now they noticed Yoltlaz and Vincent shredding one another to pieces.

“Let them kill each other,” Tezcatlipoca said.

Quetzalcohuātl watched his ship lift off and come around in a great banking turn. 

Yoltlaz and Vincent kept fighting. Zyzenquinthisulanuu took one last peek into the portal to see what the humans were doing with their last few moments on the planet.

“There is something up with Dylan’s tattoo. It has been calling out to me this whole time. Amethyst, Dear, can you read it?”

Someone lit a butane lighter, a quaint Earth technology that Sea loved, allowing Amethyst to see Dylan’s arm.

“Oh my god. Where did you get that?”

As much as Zyzenquinthisulanuu tried, he couldn’t see the tattoo in his feeds.

“I was pretty drunk at the time. The artist--Uftzi or something--talked me into it. Do you know what it says?”

“It’s a code. I can read it, but I can’t tell what it will do. It is similar to the incantation I learned from the shaman, but I don’t know how it will change the computer,” Amethyst said.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu called out to Sea, “hurry, the humans are about to put in a verbal code and I don’t know what it will do. Fire on the pyramid!”

“You’re going to kill them?” It was Penelope.

“Earthling, look at it this way, it’s these humans or the whole planet. You choose. Sea?”

“I’m working on it. I can’t figure out the launch sequence.”

Zyzenquinthisulanuu reviewed the schematics and realized that they were for a later model ship. Cursing, he went back to his father’s old files, searching for the right one. Leave it to an Aztecan to send his son across the universe in a crappy old ship. Finally, he accessed the right schematic and sent it to Sea. Within seconds, the ship was ready to fire.

Just as the rockets launched, a great mass of blue lights covered the entire pyramid, deflecting the weapons up into the sky.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu struggled to hear what was going on in the portal chamber.

“What was that?”

“It’s me, Xyliah, and my gang of fairies. We used shield magic to save your asses. Go on, say that code. It will save us all.”

Amethyst’s voice grew stronger and louder as she read the ancient language from Dylan’s tattoo, shifting the inner workings of the geo-computer into self-destruct mode.

“What did it do?” Dylan asked.

Xyliah giggled.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu’s access to earth’s power readouts showed that the geo-computer had just melted its own key circuits, effectively disarming itself, as well as all the nanobots. Brilliant.

“Sea, can you land that thing?”

“I’ll try.”

By this time, all the humans had descended to the jungle floor, no longer wanting to be in the pyramid that had been shot at.

When the ship landed, Zyzenquinthisulanuu told Sea to start Phase III.

Two feathered serpents lay dead while Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcohuātl battled in the canopy. Tezcatlipoca was just about to land a slicing blow on Quetzalcohuātl when the ship’s tractor beam hit him, sucking him into the belly of the ship.

Zyzenquinthisulanuu connected into Tezcatlipoca’s ship’s grid and used that ship’s tractor beam to transfer all the Aztecans to that other ship, which he then put into an encrypted auto-pilot that would take them right back to Azteca. He had simultaneously sent a file to the United Confederation of Galaxies to alert them of the breach of protocol perpetrated by the Aztecans.

Quetzalcohuātl flew down to meet the humans, knowing deep in his bones that he was finally where he belonged. “Francesca?”

The woman seemed shocked, but went to him. “I’ve been having dreams about you. Are you real?”

“Yes my love. Let’s travel the galaxy together.”

“That’s your cue, Sea,” Zyzenquinthisulanuu said.

Sea took Penelope’s hand and led her down the lowered walkway and into the pyramid’s chamber.

“Will you leave your Earth body behind and come to Sirius with me?”

“Can I really? I’ve never felt like I belonged on this planet.”

“It’s sort of illegal, but I know people in high places. I think I can score you a visa.”

“I love you.”

Zyzenquinthisulanuu directed his attention back to the humans to give his friend some privacy. They would have to use the ship’s liftoff power to get Sea and Penelope through the portal. Zyzenquinthisulanuu only hoped he had really unplugged the wormhole.

Francesca and Quetzalcohuātl ascended his ship’s walkway and it closed behind them. Zyzenquinthisulanuu didn’t know where they would go, but it didn’t matter. Quetzalcohuātl was all right, and Francesca would keep him humble.

He watched the humans hug as the ship took off. They would have some stories to tell that nobody would believe. The UCG would need to clean-up any news originating from those seeing the flare of the fairy shield, but that was no problem.

All in all, it had been pretty fun saving the universe.

THE END

 
A special thanks to those who read daily and kept me going. We survived A-Z! Yay!!!

Y is for Yoltlaz

Installment #25 in my serial story for the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge. Each day I introduce a new character with a name beginning with the corresponding letter of the day to tell one story from 26 different perspectives. The story follows a mystery woman found at the base of an Aztec pyramid who was air-lifted to a San Diego hospital where chaos ensues. Now several seemingly-unrelated people are converging in Mexico to start the geo-computer to save the Earth from an unnamed threat (or so they think). If you want to read from the beginning, you can find links the posts to the right in the blog archive. The first post is A is for Amethyst

Yoltlaz was upset with his charge, young Tezcatlipoca, who had just left the spaceship in a huff. The feathered serpent Aztecan had transformed into a jaguar that was able to cover great ground in the jungle. He would surely reach the portal pyramid soon.

Yoltlaz considered the thousands of years it had taken to reach this point in the plan and dreamed of his return to Azteca in full glory. Deep in thought, Yoltlaz didn’t notice the interlopers until a servant disturbed him.

“Sir, there are Earthling humans approaching the pyramid.” The servant bowed, retreating in fear as she said it.

Yoltlaz rose from his desk, inserted the breathing apparatus over his beak, and flew out over the sprawling jungle of Mexico. He hovered around the spaceship docked atop a vine-covered pyramid of no great importance. Voices rose up from beneath the thick canopy.

“…the pyramid is right up here, Cam.”

“It doesn’t feel right. I’m tellin’ ya, Bronny, it’s the wrong pyramid.”

Yoltlaz  swooped down until he could see the strange humans. The modern ones were so repulsive with their form-fitting clothes showing off those skinny, featherless bodies and oddly long appendages. So sad that they would never know flight.

With a swift motion, Yoltlaz activated the tractor beam on his belt with a wing. He watched with satisfaction as the couple disintegrated, presumably to the ship’s holding cell. Yoltlaz delighted himself with flips and swoops the whole flight back to the pyramid.

When he entered the security station on the ship, Yoltlaz was pleased to see that a video monitor showed the confused couple stuck in the oxygenated cell. Human blood would afford him much power on Earth. He could almost taste it. But first, he would see if he could extract any useful information from them.

He turned on the communication link into the cell, startling the humans as an entire white wall turned into a screen showing his huge bird/serpent form colored in purples and reds.

“Holy shit,” the female exclaimed. “What is that?”

“Let us out of here,” the male demanded. “You have no right to do this. It’s against the Geneva Convention. I want to talk to my lawyer.”

Yoltlaz laughed, thinking these silly humans sounded like the Greys with their laws and rights.

“Did you see a large jungle cat down there? A jaguar?” Yoltlaz spoke into the translating microphone.

“No. Let us go.”

“Have we been drugged?” The female asked.

Yoltlaz grew frustrated. “Why were you in the jungle? I know your kind doesn’t belong here.”

Silence.

He was reading the scans now because alarms were beeping. Both of the humans were showing nanocytes in their brains. There seemed to be a signal broadcasting to the south, connecting to these tiny machines.

“Have you two been to the portal pyramid already?

“No. We must get to that pyramid and start the geo-computer.”

Hmm. Now there was some information worth something. It had been ages since Yoltlaz and Tezcatlipoca had had a planet, and even then it took tremendous power to reap benefits from a planetary computer. Surely Earth was too primitive to have such a device? But if it did…Yoltlaz just might be able to rule a few galaxies.