Classroom and Auditorium Tour
Classroom and Auditorium Tour |
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Cyberpyro leads you down a long hallway into a small section of the base that actually seems somewhat organized. He leads you through various sections that are clearly concentric squares, with doors on either side of the hallway, all numbered.
"This is the section of the Headquarters where those staying here take classes in verious subjects ranging from technology development to the philosopical aspects of the fight against B'harnii," explains Cyberpyro. "Each member of the Empire is allowed time off each week for studies of their choice, but various classes are highly encouraged due to their effectiveness in building psychological defenses and barriers against B'harni's influence."
"Sages often visit to speak. Also, several members of the Church of Grimace enjoy taking time off from their own studies to help those newer to the fight."
"If you look around, you'll notice various classes are in session even now; though the non-scientific ones aren't really classes... they're more like discussion groups, where each person is free to present their own viewpoint. Everyone learns something from everyone else here--even Sages can walk away from such sessions with new perspectives and thoughts."
As you listen to Cyberpyro explain why this is all done, your mind drifts somewhat, and you look around the hallway. It's quite different here from everywhere else you've been. The carpet is the kind used in restaurants for its durability, yet it's still wearing thin in some places due to the sheer amount of traffic in the area. A few bulletin boards decorate the area, sporting flyers about ongoing research projects, lectures,and various other topics. Paintings and murals cover some areas. Overall, it's a very comfortable atmosphere, very stimulating.
As your eyes scan the area, a bright yellow flyer catches your eye, and you pause to read it a bit more closely.
TODAY In the auditorium!
In a fit of curiousity, you suddenly find the courage to interrupt Cyberpyro, who clearly seems as thrilled with this part of the tour as you are--there's just not much action here unless you're in a class. He's too surprised to be angry, so your question gets out easily.
"Hey, what's this?" you ask.
He wanders over and looks at the sheet. "Oh, there's a presentation in the auditorium... hey, that's in about 5 minutes. Want to go?"
"Sure, what the heck," you answer, hoping only to escape the diatribe on how classes work.
The two of you quickly cut across the hallways, head for the Auditorium, and barely make it there in time. You take your seats in the plush rust and blue auditorium. Oak-Trim handrails and armrests finish off the huge theater. You wonder how everyone can see everything, and then notice several huge screens over the top of the hardwood stage for better viewing.
The lights dim almost immediately, and the crowd of a couple thousand grows silent as a lone figure walks across the stage to the podium. A spotlight comes on, and the overhead screens flicker to life to give a better view of the speaker.
"I didn't know Sam was giving this presentation!" commented Cyberpyro more to himself than to you. "It's his research, yeah, but normally I'd know if he was doing this himself..."
Samhain spoke up at that point, silencing Cyberpyro's commentary.
"Good Afternoon. Your speaker scheduled for the afternoon had a sudden emergency come up--a spongification in the family--so must be away and I agreed to take the presentation for him. May all our thoughts be with him and his niece until we see him next." And with that, his presentation begain in earnest, putting a colorful graphic of Legos on the main projection screen.
"The power and usefulness of Legos in creative and thought-provoking entertainment and education has long been known to many of us, most notably the engineers. However, said Legos have not been applied in despongification techniques until very recently. This paper will document the usefulness and effectiveness of Legos in a despongification program."
"We locked a sponge minion in a large, white room, with nothing in it but a 5 gallon bucket of Legos. Food and drink would be provided only when requested by the patient, and in that event specially selected items would be used so as to advance the stages of despongification and enhance the functioning of their cerebrum without arousing any suspicion as to what was being done. For example, when the sponge said he was thirsty, we provided a can of Diet Mountain Dew. The word "Diet" of course fooling the sponge into thinking it was fine, while it still contained mass amounts of caffiene. [Studies have shown that the word "Diet" on anything bypasses any qusestion of the food's healthiness in the mind of a sponge-minion. The word "mind" used loosely, of course.] Gradually these were replaced with more powerful items such as swiss chocolate, Oreos, Mountain Dew, Jolt, and McDonald's shakes. Our results were amazing, I'm sure you'll agree. Here's a film of some of the more interesting events, with the time counter superimposed on the bottom."
With that, a video clip begins to play on the screen.
00:00:00 Sponge Minion locked in room with 5 gallon bucket of
Legos.
00:00:30 SM starts singing "I Luv You..."
00:04:25 SM suddenly stops singing, notices the bucket, and eyes
it like it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "A gift from
Barney!" he proclaims and scampers over to look it over.
00:05:03 SM dumps bucket out on floor and starts playing hide and
seek with himself, hiding his head in the bucket.
01:02:02 SM tires of playing hide-and-seek and takes a nap.
02:57:07 SM wakes, and notices the pile of Legos on the floor.
"Another Gift from Barney!" he proclaims and scampers
over.
03:02:29 SM separates out the bricks into separeate colors,
slowly and carefully, announcing the color of each piece
as he sets it out.
05:34:05 SM finishes sorting. Exhausted, he goes to take a nap.
06:49:29 SM wakes, stretches, and whines, "I'm thiiiiiirstyyyy!"
Can of Diet Dew is slid through an opening in the door.
06:50:45 SM screams "Thank you lord Barney!" and slams the diet
Dew and sings "I luv You" again.
06:51:03 SM stops singing abruptly mid refrain and goes back to
the Legos. "I'm going to build Morphin' Rangers!" he
proclaims, and starts building with the blue pieces.
08:02:59 SM realizes he doesn't have enough Legos, and whines.
08:35:42 SM stops whining, and smashes what he's built so far,
then re-mixes all the colors. Starts building randomly.
08:54:02 SM mutters, "gosh I'm hungry..." Frosted Flakes are
slid through the door. SM eats hurriedly, then resumes
building.
09:12:05 SM runs out of bricks. Sits, pouts, looks at what's
built so far. Tries to figure out how to finish
whatever it is he's building.
09:17:03 SM knocks on door and asks if he can have more Legos,
please. We agree, and give another 5 gallon bucket.
09:35:02 SM asks for some Moutain Dew, a large spring, and a
Barney plush toy. Curious, we agree and supply all
three.
09:40:42 SM finishes construction, with the spring built inside
of it... fascinating. He slams the Dew, and sets the
Barney toy in a corner.
09:41:59 SM dumps a bunch of small lego pieces into a box on the
contraption he's built.
09:42:39 SM picks up the contraption (really large and bulky)
and swings around to point it at Barney.
09:42:50 SM releases a primal scream, and pulls some kind of
trigger mechanism on the device.
09:42:53 Small lego pieces fly at the Barney toy in a kind of
shotgun blast pattern. They pierce the toy and stuffing
flys everywhere.
09:42:55 SM drops Lego contraption and charges the Barney doll.
09:42:58 SM rips the doll the rest of the way apart with his
teeth. Pieces get strwn across the room.
09:43:05 SM begins repairing damage from dropping his "toy"
09:44:45 SM reloads his toy, and sits smugly fondling it.
09:45:00 SM proclaimed clean and released.
By the end of the clip, most everyone in the auditorium is laughing madly, including yourself and Cyberpyro.
"Pretty funny," comments Cyberpyro as the lights come back on on Samhain and the crowd begins to quiet back down again.
"In Conclusion, Legos work amazingly well. We still aren't quite sure how he came up with that design so fast. Even more surprisingly, this happens about 9 times in 10--the SM builds some way of destroying Barney. 10 hours is about average for despongification time, though it varies. Success ratio: 19 in 20 SMs are desponged as noted without anything further. Playing Good Music (tm) in the room raises sucess ratios to 89/90, and lowers the average time to about 6 hours. Providing a continuously available supply of Mountain Dew in the room raises the success rate to 92/100. Combining all of the above results in about a 99.5% success rate, with an average time of about 3 hours."
"That's all I have for right now. I'll answer any questions if you have them, otherwise you can leave at any time."
"So that's what this is all about," you grin as you both head out the doors.
Fleet Commander Samhain