Diplomacy was also especially tasking when you're someone like me, who cheerfully admits to being evil. Now, granted, everyone in Diplomacy is out to get everyone else, but they're generally better about keeping it under wraps. Actually coming out and commenting "Yes, I'm a shameless bastard. Your point?" has about the same effect as strapping bottles of nitroglycerine to your body and dancing a jig in a mine-field. Your life may be very entertaining, but it will also be very, very short.
Which is not to say Diplomacy didn't have its moments. One mighty game on the 'Net found everyone doing the usual cheerful manipulations in the first few rounds, only to find me, playing the perfidious Turks, busted for letting slip a bit of diplomatic communication between myself and the treacherous French. But lo'! Through a bit of devious, yet inspired falsehood (which, hopefully, didn't get scragged in my most recent hard drive failure, so I may get to eventually share it with you, my loyal readers), and a non-stop flurry of shameless lies, I was able to convince him that the person who'd alerted him to my perfidy was, in fact, the perfidious one. It was the accursed Austrians who were to blame - and shame on them for trying to inspire war between such good allies! France and Turkey laid waste to Europe as mighty allies, until France eventually betrayed me anyway (although, admittedly, only because Austria was really pissed that I'd danced diplomatic circles around him and arranged to hold me back for most of the game). He didn't suspect my earlier perfidy, he just thought, hey, why not? And, admittedly, I would have done it to him if I'd been able...
But eventually, even the most shameless bastard like myself longs for a game of truly epic nature, where you can keep your allies from taking nibbles out of you when your attention wanders away from them, where it's actually possible for a harried nation, battling on all fronts, to make a valiant defensive stand... and win. And, most importantly, where you can bribe, bribe , bribe like a maniac.
Next installment: How to win friends, influence people, and ask not what you can do for Conan, but what Conan can do for you.
Meanwhile, up in space...
A bunch of OZ space Leos and a space mobile suit transport investigate the disappearance of a previous transport out in the middle of nowhere, when, suddenly and without warning, Duo's new Gundam de-cloaks in front of them. That's a handy trick. The new Gundam - the DeathScythe Hell - promptly lays waste to the OZ forces, as Duo cheerfully exclaims that the Great Destroyer is back in action again. He even fails to completely destroy the OZ forces, leaving bits of them scattered about which he gathers up. Hey, gotta make those last adjustments to his Gundam, after all.
Loot the bodies! Loot the bodies, yay!
On the moon, production continues on the mobile dolls, but the Gundam pilots raiding has begun to impact production. Tubarov is highly annoyed, and isn't buying the "they might have had an accident" idea, either. One of his minions, Trant, has already headed out to look for the Gundams, but Tubarov checks up on Trant, and discovers that he's the only soldier in the unit he's taking... the rest are all automated Taurus mobile dolls. What's Trant up to? Tubarov orders the moon base personnel to track him down...
Meanwhile, Trant is out in space with the Wing Zero, having apparently been the one who recovered it after the little oopsie on the moon. He hopes to refine the thought control system, knowing that its power would render the Mobile Dolls irrelevant... this is, perhaps, why Tubarov gets so surly when he suspects what Trant is up to. But when he tests it in a simulation, he can't get past a certain point... the thought control system tends to induce hallucinations of his own destruction, causing him to freeze up. Ignoring the insistent hails from the moon base, he decides that the only thing to do is track down a Gundam pilot to run the thing...
Duo, meanwhile, is in a nearby colony, pawning off salvaged OZ mobile suit parts and such to one of the colonists in exchange for fuel and other useful kipple. The colonist, of course, is perfectly well aware that Duo is a Gundam pilot, and doesn't even ask for payment... well, beyond the parts, anyway. Hilde shows up shortly thereafter, having apparently survived the assorted moon base oopses, and is apparently on Duo's support team now. He sends her off on an errand and muses a bit.
Back at the moon base, an increasingly surly Tubarov orders troops to go search for Trant, and destroy him, too. Trant, meanwhile, heads for Duo's colony...
Duo is hanging out, poking around for spare parts in the colony's junkyard, when Hilde returns to pester him. She's now just as enthusiastic about working with Duo as she was about working with OZ, only he doesn't have a lot of stuff for her to do. He does tease her a bit ("...well, what I'd really like is a nice steak dinner...") in a good-natured sort of way. But then they notice the Wing Zero flying through the colony ring and landing right in front of them. Hey, wait a minute. How'd Trant find Duo so easily? Oh, right, we're more than half-way through the episode. Expediency, and all that.
Trant points the beam cannon at Duo, insisting that the Gundam pilot come with him. Duo points out that actually firing the beam cannon at the colony would completely destroy it, but Trant could care less, and Duo finally accepts the demand to surrender. But, of course, Trant just tucks him in the Wing Zero and sends him out to fight the Taurus suits. He's rigged the Wing Zero to go pif if he presses the right button, and besides, if Duo tries to run, he'll just have his Taurus suits attack the colony. Duo can't use the beam cannon at close range, though, so he pulls out the beam saber and starts hacking away. Everything's fine at first...
But soon Duo starts with the hallucinations. First he sees the DeathScythe, but he quickly snaps out of that one, Trant all the while yelling at him to explain what he's seeing. Then he sees a bazillion little DeathScythes flying around, which freaks him out. Then he starts to REALLY lose it. He hallucinates about weilding the beam cannon to kick some righteous ass, and hallucinates about accidentally destroying the colony while doing it (hallucination complete with Hilde getting explosively decompressed). And then he snaps out of it again to discover that he's already defeated all the mobile dolls with just the beam saber.
About this time, the OZ forces show up and Trant chucks Duo out of the Wing Zero. Hilde shows up, too, with a shuttle, and retrieves the drifting Duo while Trant begins to whup some OZ butt. Trant, by this point, is COMPLETELY stark raving nuts, gibbering about how he can feel his consiousness expanding and how he's almost at the point of realization, even as he happily lays waste to his own side. Duo heads out in the DeathScythe Hell to challenge him, over Hilde's objections, because, hey, the girls are always objecting in this show, but does this ever stop the Gundam pilots from going out and whupping ass? Nope.
Duo wrassles with Trant, discovering that the Wing Zero, even with a scrub like Trant piloting it, is far superior to the DeathScythe in terms of maneuverability. but Trant starts to lose it again before Duo can even take him out - hallucinating about the very real possibility that Duo would just trigger the self-destruct on his Gundam to take them both out in a blaze of glory. Finally overwhelmed by all these images of his own death, Trant loses it completely and goes spiralling off into space.
Duo, meanwhile, muses that the thought control system is too much for the human mind to take... anyone who could control that thing would be superior to the entire human race.
Somewhere, Heero sneezes - they must be talking about him again...
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
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