Rule No. 7. The Only Power Is Used Power. Potential energy was okay for physics class, but kinetic energy caused things to happen. It made levers move, wheels spin. It crushed objects below and inflicted pain where it hit. Any resource not expended was a resource wasted.
Clint remembered a class from college about strategic nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction. His classmates marveled at the madness of building more weapons than were needed to destroy the earth completely. He wondered at the waste of trillions and trillions of dollars and rubles and the coopting of the best and brightest of the world’s scientists to create what ended up being enormously sophisticated storage sheds for radioactive material. At some point, at some time, one nation or the other had the edge and could have obliterated its enemy forever, had it only the will to use the weapons on which it had expended a notable portion of the nation’s gross national product.
Oh, a threat can be a use of power, but only if it accomplishes getting someone to do something you want them to. A threat that maintains the status quo is an empty suit.
Truth be told, Gafnar liked to kill. He relished it. But he didn’t really like to fight. And if he could not get his temporary allies or his meaningless minions to do his fighting for him, he killed as quickly and as devastatingly as possible. He liked to blow things up. Explosions were fun. And if he didn’t have a handy bomb, there was always magic or poison.
Any weapon not used was a weapon that could be used against him.
Rule No. 8. Evil Is Smart, Never Silly. Clint never hid his light under a bushel. He didn’t understand the point of self-deprecating humor. He would never wear a Star Trek uniform to an annual meeting or strike a wacky pose for a newsmagazine cover. If you didn’t appreciate his genius, then you were even more stupid than the average peasant. But he also never understood the point of telling others how smart he was. Let them figure it out too late. Let them think they had the upper hand.
At first, he had watched the chat boards for the game and their endless debates as to what an evil, all-powerful overlord would do. He would build a lair with ventilation shafts too narrow for the hero to crawl through or he would line the ventilation shaft with crushed glass or lasers or bubble wrap and on and on and on. As for Clint, he wouldn’t have ventilations shafts; let the minions slowly suffocate in hot, carbon-dioxide laced air. But he didn’t bother to say so on the chat boards. A real overlord would never tip his hand.
He stopped perusing the chat boards. He turned off his IM and let the e-mails gather unanswered. He had more important things to do.
Gafnar roamed an increasingly deserted landscape. His minions scattered far and wide, but reported few powerful beings. Those that were found, though, he directed subtly toward each other, goading them to battle, watching one fall, then lobbing in missiles from a distance until the other fell. He built no castle, planted no crops, designed no heraldry. Instead, he roamed the land, gathering power and expending it to eliminate his rivals.
Rule No. 9. The Ultimate Overlord Destroys All Enemies. Every petty tyrant the world has ever seen has enemies. He rails against other nations and peoples and leaders in an effort to unite his own people and wage war. But, in doing so, he increases the power of his people and the risk to himself. An Ultimate Overlord is ultimate because all his enemies have been vanquished. Anything else is an Ultimate Overlord in training, a wannabe, a pretender.
No peace is negotiated except to gain a later strategic advantage. No coexistence is tolerated except while one marshals his own forces and sends spies to poison the enemy and sow discontent among his populace. No mercy is granted, for mercy shows weakness and caring, neither of which has any place in absolute power.
What cannot be destroyed must be bought. What cannot be bought must be destroyed. If an enemy sues for peace, agree immediately to meet, then slaughter the envoys and march on the capital at once.
What is the point of a halfhearted war? What is the logic of seeking only partial destruction? What is the mercy of prolonging the battle before the victory is achieved? Either you are willing to kill for what you want or you are not. Evil is not tentative.
Gafnar monitored closely those who, like him, gathered power and knowledge, men and materiel, magic and munitions unto themselves. He bribed with poisoned gifts, attacked without mercy, using his fiercest and most dangerous troops, and demanded tribute from all he conquered. He agreed to civilized rules of engagement, then ignored them at every opportunity. He waged total war; no respite, no surrender, no civilians. What he could not take for himself, he turned to ash.
He assumed that all his adversaries were as evil as he and punished them for their treachery, whether it existed or not. He did not hesitate to use his more powerful weapons and magics. He held nothing in reserve. He showed no honor. Victory or death were the only options. All else was for wimps.
Rule No. 10. Only an Ultimate Overlord Can End War. He always, always rolled his eyes when he heard the feminists say, “If women ruled the world, there would be no more war.” For as long as there is envy and jealousy and good things to be had, there will be war. Someone always wants, even if they have enough. Someone always is willing to take. Someone is always willing to try to stop them.
Whenever he heard the idealists talk of peace, he would recite to himself the poem he had once heard, many years before:
If all men were chickens,
there would still be war,
because chickens are mean
and fight for food.
If all men were cowards,
there would still be war,
for those in fear lash out most quickly,
lobbing rocks from cover.
If all men were women,
there would still be war,
for a woman scorned
deals destruction without mercy.
But he knew now that an Ultimate Overlord could end war. By gathering all goods to himself, by eliminating all family members who would seek to share in his goods, by destroying all enemies, and by destroying all friends who might become enemies (and minions who might become friends), he would eliminate war, for there would be no one left. All power, all goods, all places, all things would be his, forever.
The game would be won.
And when the last enemy had been destroyed and the chaos of battle still reigned on the field, Gafnar set his troops upon one another in the darkness, each targeting the other from a distance with magics and explosives. Then he poisoned the water and let loose an agent of death upon the winds to take any that might linger still. And he sat in the high tower of a captured castle and knew that he had become the Ultimate Overlord, for nothing moved upon the land.
That was when Gafnar realized that there was an endgame, that he now had a choice.
Having conquered the world, he could now become a god and create a new world in his own image. He rejected that immediately. Doing so would put at risk everything he had accomplished. Even worshipers were dangerous. Hadn’t the devil once been an angel who had gotten bored?
He could commit suicide, guaranteeing that his gains would never be eroded. But what was the point of there being only one, if you just gave that away?