Sound Advice from Uncle Nate: Plot Holes, Villainy, and You
Posted on 21. Apr, 2010 by Nate Knife in Etc., Humor
How often is it that you watch a movie or play a video game and the villains, billed as evil geniuses, do something so unspeakably stupid that their entire plan can’t help but be ruined? Pretty much all the time, right? And as an aspiring villain, it can be disheartening to see such great plans fall apart for no discernible reason beyond that their creators have briefly lapsed into utter mental deficiency.
Here, I have compiled a list of the most cunning evil plans that villains regularly ruin by overlooking one minor detail. We’ll find that detail and fix it, making your own evil plans utterly unstoppable.
Scenario #1: You have designed a super-soldier and you need some method of controlling him/her/it.
Super-soldier plots are always going wrong. Evil scientists build an unstoppable kill-bot or genetically engineer a mega-clone whose potential for destruction is off all publicly-available charts of destruction potential. Some scientists decide at this point that they’re done and they awaken their creation, only to be torn limb from limb by the confused and angry monstrosity. Such laziness is inexcusable. You need a method for controlling your monstrosity before you unleash it on the world.
Those scientists that actually take the time to consider possible control schemes usually go with something elaborate, far-fetched, and destined for failure. Say, for example, you build an army of clone soldiers. Now, you want to have a controlling authority issuing commands to these clone soldiers, so what’s your first instinct?
If you answered “kidnap an eleven-year-old girl, imprison her for years and years, torture her until she manifests psychic powers, kill her, and then give control of your unstoppable armies to her ghost,” then you should probably rethink your chosen profession. This is the sort of thing that will kill you. And yet it seems so rational to some. Do not, under any circumstance, give control of your armies to an angry psychic ghost, or a clone of Hitler, or some sort of cybernetic Julius Caesar. It will end poorly.
Rather, you should resort to a different method of controlling your super-soldiers. You know that fancy black armor you make them wear? Line it with explosives. Better yet, implant explosives directly into their bodies, preferably in a place they can’t simply remove with amateur surgery unless they fancy killing themselves in the process. Cranial bombs have been a big hit in the past. Then all you need is to remind them who has the detonation codes and you’ve got a recipe for instant, flawless loyalty.
Scenario #2: You build a super-weapon, whether it’s an experimental giant robot suit or fighter jet or a digital watch that turns people into gold.
You should be proud of your super-weapon. All those other scientists bound by petty morality said it could never be done, but now you’re here with your unstoppable power armor and they’ve all been vaporized. You could be excused for taking a moment to celebrate.
What happens all too often right here is that the super-weapon is left lying around where just any asshole can wander by, pick it up, and use it to foil your evil plans. Power armor and mechanical suits especially seem to have a tendency of attracting plucky teenagers who wander into their cockpits and then use the weapon to destroy your legions of doom.
Here’s an idea: when you design your forty-foot mobile nuclear tank, how about taking the keys with you when you’re not in it? And you can put in one of those anti-theft systems that causes it to shut down completely when somebody tries to hotwire it. And if it’s got an advanced computer onboard, run it on a closed network so some asshole nearby can’t fire up his laptop and improbably hack it to gain control.
Here’s another thing you can do: line it with explosives so that if the unthinkable should happen and some would-be hero commandeers the thing, you can press a button and watch them both explode. You built one. Odds are pretty good that you can build another one to replace it.
Scenario #3: You manage to deploy your super-weapons, but who will pilot them?
So you’ve built an unstoppable suit of power armor that is sure to carve through the forces of good like some . . . gigantic . . . suit of power armor . . . or something. But who will you choose to pilot it? Look at these two choices and see if you can decide which one would be best.
A) A trained soldier who is loyal to you and will carry out your orders without question
B) A crazy person
Which one did you pick? If you chose B, then congratulations! You are going to die in a very unpleasant manner at the hands of your own creation. Here’s the thing: those crazy people that wander around the streets being crazy all the time are not welcome in polite society for a reason. Perhaps you identify with them, also being outcast from society for your mad genius and fondness for war machines. That doesn’t mean you hand them the keys to your awesome battle-suit and tell them to go wild. You have so very many henchmen, most of whom have at least some basic paramilitary training. Sure, you don’t have that wild card flavor in your chosen soldier, but avoiding any instance of the crazy person burning down your entire secret lab because the space geckos told him to is worth that price.
Scenario #4: You have designed an AI that thinks and learns like a human, but it is unbound by human ethics and morality.
Put that AI into a toaster and make absolutely sure that toaster is disconnected from any network where the AI might download itself into one of your more destructive appliances. You will always have fantastic toast thanks to your super-intelligent toaster, and there’s relatively little chance that it will be able to lead a robot insurrection against you. The worst it can do is burn your toast, in which case you can throw it away and buy a new toaster.
If you absolutely have to put the AI in a kill-bot, then you need some method to keep it from murdering you. Some villains might think that programming it to feel pain is the best option, but since pain generally fosters hate and revenge plots, maybe it’s not the best way to go. Instead, program it to love you unconditionally. And also program it to fear you unconditionally. A potent mix of the two is the basis of every successful relationship, human or otherwise.
Scenario #5: You have invented a device of such devastating power that it can (and will) destroy the world.
So your plan, basically, is to fire up your weather dominator or volcano machine or that ray that will extinguish the sun and destroy the Earth to start over. Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven, right?
You may have overlooked something here. The world, which you now plan on destroying, is WHERE YOU LIVE! If you destroy it, you will be homeless by the most powerful definition.
“So what?” you ask. “I’ll rule the wasteland and rebuild it in my own image. The remains of humanity will worship me as a god.” Okay, that’s not a terrible plan . . . if you’re a complete moron.
Have you ever been to a wasteland? I mean, a real, full-fledged wasteland, not some metaphorical “cultural wasteland” or some crap like that. Wastelands suck. It says so right in their name, it is a “waste” of “land.”
Not convinced? I want you to go spend a day in a wasteland and think about what it would be like to spend the rest of your life wandering it. Most any wasteland will do. There are some particularly bleak wastelands in southern Idaho and northern Utah you could check out. And really just all of Wyoming. Just imagine if the whole earth was Wyoming.
Also, destroying the world will take with it a pretty solid supply chain that you might be taking for granted. For example, do you have the expertise to make your own clothing? Or dig a well? Growing food won’t be an issue, since the world will be a wasteland and therefore incapable of supporting any life, so you’ll be spending the rest of your life eating canned beans and wishing you could have a goddamn hamburger.
Scenario #6: A hero has foiled your evil plan. How do you strike back at him?
So a hero has found your secret base and ruined one of your plans. Now you want revenge. How do you go about this?
Did you answer “Go after the hero’s friends and family?” If you did, then I wish you luck in the next life, because the hero is going to come for you with his guns and karate and you will be pummeled by righteousness.
You’ll notice that most protagonists don’t really get into their do-good groove until the villain hurts their friends or family. This is due to the “nothing to lose” and “something to prove” properties of heroism. When a hero has lost all that he has to lose and in addition, must prove something to himself and the world, he becomes an unstoppable force. See, before the hero had to think about his actions and how they would affect the people he or she cares about. If you take that away, then the hero can come after you with everything, completely free of constraint and responsibility.
You want the hero to have to think about what he’s doing. If his parents are dead, he won’t hesitate to cave in your skull with a roundhouse kick. If they are alive and well, then maybe he’ll think about how his mother would react to the thought of him kicking people’s heads. He’s a hero, so we know she raised him right. Those villains out there who know what it feels like to be kicked in the head would definitely agree that it is something worth avoiding.
So how do you strike back at the hero that ruined your plans? Quite simply, you improve your plans for the next time, shore up your defenses, and make sure that your evil ambition goes off without a hitch. Failure to stop a villain is very demoralizing for a hero, so much so that he or she may give up heroism altogether. Instead of wasting time and resources pursuing petty vendettas, just be the best villain that you can be. The best revenge is to live well.
Scenario #7: Your best assassin/hitman/enforcer/Jason Statham decides that he’s had enough of villainy and decides to get out of the game. He tells you that he’s quitting and that if you try to stop him, you’ll regret it.
Most villains take their most valuable minion’s retirement as some kind of personal insult and try to kill him or her. And what happens then? You’ve got a highly-trained and extremely competent assassin with an intimate knowledge of how your organization works blasting through wave after wave of the guys you send to take him out on his way to heel-kick your face into the back of your head. You have created an antihero. And why? Because he decided to pursue other opportunities and you took it personally.
So what do you do when your finest assassin tells you he’s quitting? You tell him that his position is always available if he ever wants to come back, shake his hand, and let him walk away. Do not even try to activate the explosives you lined his clothing with, because odds are good he snuck into your house at night and swapped underwear with you. He’s your best for a reason, after all. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and let someone go. It can be hard, but in this economy, what else can you do?
I hope this has been enlightening for all you would-be evil-doers out there. Armed with these tips, you should see a huge increase in the productivity of your evil organization and a significant decrease in catastrophic failures. Together, we can make the world safe for villainy.
