Taking a cue from Philosophical Satirical writing I've decided to make this small parody of Douglas Adams' much celebrated work, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy." This story is basically a prequel to "Teen Titans: Political Movie Parodies from Hell!" where Blackfire is cast out of Tamaran and forced to make her way to Earth if she wishes to survive. Along the way she meets all sorts of stupid civilizations and starts questioning her place in the universe as well as the point of it all. You would too if you started going through the bullcrap she's about to encounter.
Edit: Paragraphs!
The Exiled Ruler's Guide to the Galaxy
Starring Blackfire
Chapter 1: Refus 12
In the course of human history there has existed the irrefutable fact that everyone comes to realise sooner or later. The whole world is completely pissed off at each other. Because of this everyone is trying to find away to get rid of the people who piss them off or pay them back for whatever it is that has gotten them angry at them. Whether its religious persecution, ethnic cleansing or people just suing one another, people will express how pissed off they are all the time. The only way people can escape the persecution of the people who are pissed off with them is to evidently leave. This is inevidently makes the pissed at party refugees. Whether they be leaving a country because of political persecution or a fatherdecides to leave the town with his family because the plant boss is a greedy asshole who likes to make his life a living hell, these people can be considered refugees. The former unfortunately just doesn't have another home to go to and latter has already quit and found a new job anyway. This concept is not only true for our planet but for other planets as well.
The universe is beset by other lifeforms who just plain don't like each other and the only way to end the squabble is to either kill the offending person or just leave the planet and never return. Some are leaving cause they want to and other are being deported because the government of their home planet is full of hateful jerks who just don't like them and have pretty much blamed them for all their planet's problems just so they don't get thrown out of office.
Political and ethic refugees of course, whether forced or unforced to leave their planets, are therefore all in same boat. Becoming a refugee is the ultimate equalizer because now that you have no home there's no reason to be pissed off at anyone except the peoplewho threw you out. Of course the concept of becoming an exile/refugee doesn't just amount for ethnic groups and dissadents, it can also account for the people in power.
You see if a leader of a government is so incredibly inept or evil or just a right plain bastard someone is eventually going to get so pissed of at them that they will openly start criticsing them. Eventually there is a revolt and one of three things happens. The ruler is killed, or captured, found guilty in a trial and then killed, or they are exiled and told never to return. Whether the action is just or unjust is up to history to decide, but for now the ruler is now homeless and powerless and this makes him/her a refugee. In space the same concept applies, but like with all refugees in space there are some problems that the exiled rulers must now face.
Refugees who get tossed out of their planet or leave by their own descision will encounter the problem of 'where the hell do we go to now?' Most of them will wind up wandering the galaxy alone and wind up at a dingy fuel station or diner orbiting an asteroid or moon to take up a crappy job as a janitor cleaning out the restrooms. The lucky ones of course end up on a dwarf planetoid known as Refus 12. A ugly little mud hole in the middle of no where. Refugees and exiles who find there way here or are dropped off here will find the planetiod is over crowded, smelly and dingy.
Here they wait to be given thge proper clearance by the Intersteller Bureaucracy to immigrate to a more suitable planet. Until then they stay in makeshift huts and tents while eating passed out gruel and becoming more depressed with each passing day. It doesn't help that the panet gets new arrivals almost everyday. In fact thispoint in time a new arrival is being dropped off at Refus 12.
Blackfire of Tameran was the former ruler of her planet Tameran, hence her title. Ruling it with an iron fist after she broke out of Galactic Prison, she fake an invasion of the drenthax army in order to consolidate power through fear and convince her sister Starfire, whom she hated, to marry one of them inorder to make the fake invasion go away. Also she had a made a deal with the Drenthax to get a special jewel that would make far more powerful then any Tamaranian ever. Her scheme was found out however, she lost a battle for the the crown to her sister and was hence forth banished from Tameran.
She would have gone to the Drenthax homeworld, but those people were disgusting. So she ended up on Refus 12, which is slightly better then the Drenthrax home planet but sucked just as badly for her. In order to survive in this new harsh universe with no possible knowledge of how to manage without any money or resources of her own, she will need help. Lucky for her, that help is about to come in the form of guide specifically designed for people like her. As the Tamaranian ship lets her off however that is the last thing she is worried about.
"I demand an inquiry to the results of that challenge!" Blackfire demanded from the guard standing on the open door of the ship. "Starfire was most obviously using drugs or steroids or something."
The guard only looked at her with uncaring eyes.
"You lost she won." He said "Live with it okay."
But Blackfire was unmoved. She most certainly did not want to be thrown out of her own planet only to be forced to consort with lowlifes and other scum.
"You just can't leave me here with these poor people!" Blackfire argued "They have dieseases! And they smell!"
The guard only shrugged
"You'll get use to it." He said, reaching into his pocket."By the way you'll need this."
The guard passed Blackfire a dark sickly green shawl which she caught. Deducing that she was being told to where you can imagine her dissaproval.
"I am so not wearing this!" Blackfire protested "I'll be far more happy wearing my ordinary battle armour thank you very much."
However the guard soon explained she didn't have a choice.
"Unfortunately if you don't wear the shawl, these refugees will see you as an outcast from them and repeatedly spit on you while you pass. By the way, you're right about them having desieases, those lot have leprosy."
Blackfire looked over to where the guard was pointing. She saw a large group of coughing, ugly looking aliens, one of whom had just lost his arm and was bending down to pick it up when his foot came off and he fell. Blackfire shuddered and quickly put the shall over her head.
"This is such a horrible fashion statement." She commented
"Enjoy your crappy life former grand ruler." The guard waved as the ship's doors closed.
The ship then took off into the sky and rocketed its way into space, leaving Blackfire behind with over 200 billion poor, washed up, and depressed people. To say the least, it was the worst day of her life.
"This is the worst day of my life!" She screamed.
Everyone pretty much ignored her ranting for the next several minutes as she paraded through the unwashed masses and tents, complaining how much she hated her sister, her people, her sister's friends, and spoted off several threats about what she was going to do to them when she got out here. Naturally this gave all inhabitants of the Refus 12 a good picture of why she had been exiled.
Blackfire eventually got hungry after all her shouting and found her way to the nearest soup kitchen, one of several thousand and all of which served the same soup...Bruel.
The intersteller cousin of Gruel, served on earth, Bruel tastes far worse then gruel could ever hope to be. The only way to make actually taste good is to eat with a special kind of food called craptack which is the equivilant of Earth's hardtack, a horrible tasting bread that only tastes good in soup. Craptack is made from the same ingredients as bread with a few slight ingredients in it that differ, including crap. Strangely, Craptack is considered tasty by many alien societies and can dull the taste of Bruel slightly so one can actually eat it without throwing up...that doesn't mean however Bruel will now taste better. It only took a taste for Blackfire to immedietly spit out her Bruel covered Craptack in disgust.
"I'm suppose to eat gormet food made by the finest chefs of tamaran." she said "They expect us to eat this swill? What makes them think they can do this?"
"Well," a nearby Refugee said to her "we usually get special airdrops from the Galactic Red Cross a couple days. Unfortunately there funding has been cut and they only send one box of actually good food every week."
Blackfire threw her soup to the ground.
"They can't treat us like this." she said "We have rights you know! Especially me! I have the most rights of anyone! I'm royalty for X'hal's sake!"
"Well get use to it." The refugee told her "You don't got any riches, servants or peaseants to boss around anymore. You're one of us now."
"One of us! One of us!" The group of surrounding Refugees chanted
Blackfire only slapped her forehead.
"Well I may be one of you, but I'm not going to stay with you." She said defiantly standing up "I'm getting off this planet if its the last thing I do."
"Ya can't just leave!" The refugee beside her said "You got nowhere to go! You don't even have a ship!"
"I can breathe in space." She told him "I don't need one."
"Well you just can't leave Refus 12!" He told her "You have to go through the proper channels like the rest of us here. That means applying for a passport and immigration papers from the Intergalactic Bureaucracy. Then you have to sign out those forms and send them back to the Bureaucracy and wait for them to approve your passport and then they must decide on what planet to send you to and sign the proper form to allow you to go to that planet and then sign the form to send a ship to Refus 12 to pick you up and then you have to sign the forms to allow your person to get on the ship but before that you must sign the form to cancel your citizenship on Refus 12 or you can't leave."
Blackfire perched an eyebrow at this.
"Tell me," she asked "wehn is the last time any of you has gotten off this damn rock?"
"Hmm," The refugee pondered "about...60 years ago a ship arrived for one guy! But he plopped dead before he got on the ship. They're still signing the form to allow his body to be buried on his home planet."
Blackfire soon realised she was not going to get off this damn rock by waiting and she would need to escape to the nearest planet from this dismall place. However this was the middle of nowhere and she had no idea where to go or how to survive anyway.
"Listen you can rot here all you want," she told the refugees "but I'm not made for this stuff. Is there any guide you have here that can tell me how to get off this rock and to the nearest planet available?"
The refugee scratched his head a little before reaching under the table.
"Well there was this one guy who dropped a book here saying that if we ver found an exiled member of a royal family like yourself we should give this to you."
The refugee handed Blackfire a stachel and inside was a black labtop looking device with the words, 'Don't Spazz Out' printed on the back in big yellow letters. Blackfire opened it up and it revealed on the dual screen its title. 'The Exiled Ruler's Gudie to the Galaxy' with all sorts of stubs and buttons pointing out different subject it contained. Blackfire realized that this was what she was looking for but she didn't quite understand what it was all about.
"The instruction said you had to ask it something before it tells you anything." The refugee explained
"Hmm," Blackfire nodded turning to the book "okay. What are you?"
Suddenly a screen on the book popped up listening all sorts of information, a soothing voice appeared and recited it all to her.
'The Exiled Ruler's Guide to the Galaxy' is the most popular choice of travel guide for a political leader who has just lost everything to a coup, rebellion or losing a match for the crown to a younger sibling. It is designed so it can only be read by members of royal blood, or people who have been kicked out of politics in general.
It has rocketed far up the bestseller's list past other popular travel guide contenders like 'The Official Galactic Guide to Everything' for a few reasons. First, its slightly cheaper, its far more encompassing and easy to use, theres been a recent increase in deposed despots and planetary leaders over the past several years and it has the words 'Don't Spazz Out' printed on the back in large yellow letters. Which is somewhat of a calming and generally soothing factor many people seem to be comforted by for some dubious reason.
"Wow." Blackfire said when the book was done "Impressive gadget. And since I'm Royalty I'm the only one here who can use it?"
The refugee nodded
"Not that its gonna help you escape this place." He told her "The Bureaucracy would be on your tail in an instant...well as soon as they get the proper form to allow them to get on your tail of course."
"Who the hell are these Intergalactic Bureaucracy losers anyway?" Before the refugee could answer, the Guide explained it better.
The Intergalactic Bureaucracy is the major galactic entity that pretty much controls every aspect of political life that they can get their hands on. Their main idea is to spread order through the universe and keep everyone from trying to kill each other, at least without filling the proper forms of course.
So far they've been largely unsuccessful in their goals, due to the fact they are way overly complicated and are so incredibly dull and boring they are out of touch with reality. They are not evil persee, but without emotions or understanding for others problems.
If given the chance to save a planet from a destructive super nova wave of their nearby dying sun they would first need to file forms of to aquire the pre-forms of the forms they can use to send a mass evacuation of the planet and then those forms must spent several days under review, lost, refound, buried, then found again, and lost one more time before being found and approved so they can get the forms for them to approve the approved forms and send over the evacuation ship that first must have the entire population sign several forms proving their citizenship before they can get on the evac crafts.
By then the planet is probably scorched to oblivion however and it doesn't matter. So they decide to approve the forms that will approve the requested speech that should be made to the public to explain why they messed it up so badly.
Also if anyone attempts to do something without their permission they will be hunted down to no ends and be forced to sign papers that they're naughty or be vaporized. The few planets not under their control are solely situated on the outer rim of the Galaxy. They don't go there because they say those places are far to chaotic for them to try and save. There are few other planets that they have not approved to expand their empire to, mostly because of their own ineptitude in filing reports and forms.
Blackfire wasn't at all afriad of the Bureaucracy now that she knew what they were. So that only meant she didn't care for the consequences of her actions in escaping this hell hole.
"Well thanks for the help Refugees." She said as she got up to walk away "If you need me I'll be planning my escape thank you."
The refugees sat while Blackfire walked away, lugging the satchel over her back along with the gudie inside. and pretty much ignored all their advice on trying to escape. In turn they jusut forgot about it and went back to eating their unsatisfying dinner. It was a few hours later though that they heard an explosion on the other side of the planet. anything that loud had to be something big before long they saw a huge plume trail of smoke lauching up into the sky and away from the planet Refus 12.
Everyone was rather confused as to what the hell just happened and to properly explain we need to follow Blackfire. After she left the refugees to sulk Blackfire travelled to the other side of the planet to find that Bureaucracy station that was supposedly where people applied to wait over 60 years just to get off this rock. After pushing her way to the front of the line that was over 50 miles long she foun herself at the booth where a well dressed gentlemen stood.
"Madame please return to the back of the line please." He said "If you want to cut you're going to have fill out the proper cutting forms and then deliver them to the booth on the other side of the planet. The line starts right next to us."
Indeed the line did start right next to them, Blackfire looked over to see the very red velvet rope that formed the line. A lot of trouble just to cut in line. But Blackfire wasn't here for that.
"Listen you guys obviously don't stay twenty four seven right?" She asked
"No we do not." The Bureaucrat responded "We fill out a special form that we transfer to the main database back at the Bureaucracy headquarters. We then have a certain time limit from there on to prepare ourselves to leave through the small rocket pod in back of me."
Blackfire's sinister smile grew wider.
"So you have a little rocket ship behind this booth huh?" Blackfire asked
"I'm sorry miss," The bureaucrat said "but you can only ask me one question per day. You must fill out these forms if you wish to ask another question to me."
The bureaucrat put the forms on the table, a five inch thick stack of papers to be precise. Blackfire however didn't even bother to argue. She blasted the papers with her starbolts and grabbed the bureaucrat by his collar.
"You need to fill out the proper form to institute violence against a member of the Intergalactic Bureaucracy!" He shouted as he flew through the air.
Blackfire blast the booth open and entered the now revealed rocket ship. Pressing the convienently marked go button she suddenly blasted off straight into the sky and away from Refus 12. the refugees and the fallen bureaucrat were stunned. Immedietly the bureaucrat, seeing the fuss blackfire had caused called the Bureaucracy HQ.
"We have a situation!" The bureaucrat said into the futuristic looking statelite phone he held. "Someone has decided to escape Refus 12 qithout filling the proper escapeing forms before the escaping booth! Quick! Get the forms to file and approve the request form to ask permission for us to go after her!"
Will Blackfire manage to find a planet close enough for her to land at and escape the Bureaucracy? Will the Bureaucracy even be a problem to bother escaping? How come none of the refugees tried to revoly and take these rocket ships in the booths for themselves? And why exactly would someone drop a random electronic book at a dingy mud ball and give it to some poor refugees who can't even use it? These questions will probably be answered in the next chapter of The Exiled Ruler's Guide to the Galaxy.