The Sludge Vohaul Story
As told to Troels Pleimert, Freelance Space Quest Historian
 

    So, you've found your way to my hallowed chamber! Well, do stick around and maybe I'll choose to spare your home planet the next time I unleash my wrath upon the universe. And believe me--that will happen soon! Oh yes... soon! Muhahaha!

     Oh well, as I was saying, welcome to my hallowed chamber. My name is Vohaul; Sludge Vohaul. Here I will tell you my life story, and the story of my humiliating defeat... only to be once again reborn inside the computer circuits of--HEY! YOU! WAKE UP! I will NOT tolerate snoring in my sacred domain! You can go home to your own pesky den and do that! Hey, where do you think YOU'RE going?!?! SIT DOWN!!!

Project Star Crusher

     Now, that's better! Now, if I remember this well, my life started out innocently enough. I was a main research attendant, and a well recognized one of the galaxy Earnon. While being temporarily stationed on Xenon in what was known back then as the Xenonian Research Installation, I developed an awesome technological weapon of destruction, which I named the Star Crusher. However, the sun of Earnon was slowly dying away, and those sissypants head scientists on Xenon decided to nick my invention, re-label it Star Generator and use it to ignite a lifeless planet into a ball of fire, creating a new sun! Hrmph! What a waste of technology! Why save lives when you can destroy them!? When I confronted them, demanding that they leave their greasy hands off my invention, they mocked me and cast me out, keeping my contraption! Grrrrrr!!!

The Star Crusher, er...Generator      Anyway, they put my contraption on a spacelab called Arcada, where they set out to test it! Those morons! If they were so eager to test it, why not just on Xenon's neighbour planet, Rengina? Sure, it's populated, but those Renginanians are such a pain in the dipper! Why, one time they had the nerve to--uh, well, where was I?

     Oh yes, well, my visits around previous research installations in the galaxy led me to an encounter with the outlaws of Earnon, the Sariens, who captured me during a short visit at Algeria on Kiz Urazgubi. They had a few engineering problems, and being a man of genius, I fixed it for them in a jiffy. In return, they promised me a favor or two. When I learned of what those morons back on Xenon had done to my invention, I contacted the Sariens and requested an immediate raid on the Arcada. They were going to know my wrath in a big way! In stead of saving their home planet, the bozos on the Arcada would in stead be responsible for destroying their own home planet with the Generator and then "accidentally" fly into the resulting ball of flame! Hahaha--pure genius, don't you think? Well, don't you!?...

     I arranged for a immediate "disappearance" from my current station, and getting a secret transfer to the massive battlecruiser Deltaur. They moved the Deltaur in range and boarded the Arcada, killing every single one of the crew...well, almost every single one of the crew! One measly, little no-good janitor named Roger Wilco managed to escape unnoticed. At first, I thought, "Hmph, what the hey!", but when I learned he was carrying the plans for the Star Crush--I mean, Generator, and had crash landed on the desert planet of Kerona, I immediately ordered a SpiderDroid to be sent after him!

     Apparently, the damn thing was malfunctioning, as it obviously didn't get the job done! Whatever caused it to malfunction is still a mystery--where ever the bloody thing went is also a mystery, since further investigations (a quick surface scan of the planet) revealed no trace of it! Traces of an explosion, yes, but obviously it got the wrong guy!

     What I really can't comprehend is how that lowlife waste of human life managed to infiltrate the Deltaur shortly after, set the Star Generator to self destruct and even managing to escape! The Deltaur was blown to bits and my Sarien operation had failed miserably! I barely managed to flee the Deltaur--I left almost totally crippled and unable to draw my own breath without means of third party intervention!

Door-to-Door Doom

Vohaul's Asteroid      However, I was far from beaten! Hatred built up inside me, as I managed to arise again, changing my name from Slash Vohaul to Sludge Vohaul and building up a vast empire! My business was going particularly well! I bought mining companies, slave colonies, I was living really well--well, as well as any half-dead demented scientist could live. I became a rich man--I owned entire armies of intelligent monkey-men, originally the only race on the forest planet Onya VII. Capturing them all and forming my own breeding facility, I boosted their IQ's and re-programmed their brainwave patterns, so that they were compelled to obey me at all times! They became my army of slaves!

      Then, after years of building my empire, I decided that it was finally time to unleash my terrible vengeance on Xenon! The almost total disintegration of my body had not affected my brain--I was as smart as ever, and my intelligence continued to grow as I constantly was pushing technology further, secretly from my asteroid base, until I reached the peak of my evolution: genetic engineering! I was able to genetically engineer thousands upon thousands of life insurance salesmen, who were created to terrorise the inhabitants of Xenon and consequently giving Xenon the status of the universes first planetary nut-house! The entire population would be reduced to quivering wrecks of brainless humanoids, awaiting my every command! And with that army--just imagine what terror I could wreak with an entire planet under my command!!!

     And to insure that that pesky janitor Wilco, who was honored with his "bravery" (hrrmmph!!) on Xenon, wouldn't interfere with my plans again, I had him kidnapped from his post on Xenon Orbital Station IV and brought before me to recieve his sentence personally...a lifetime of horror and hard, manual labor at my orium mines on Labion--a forest planet in the Rutheminon galaxy, which my asteroid fortress was currently orbiting. The mining facility was one of my largest and most profitable, and with the pitiful "Hero of Xenon" under my command, the profit and bidding would no doubt be doubled...nay, tripled!

Sludge, circa SQ2      All was going well, until my mental midget monkey-men screwed up big time and let Wilco get away! Even worse, he tried to steal a shuttle and launch a surprise infiltration on my asteroid! Well, he wasn't about to get me a second time! I had to take action myself, taking control of his shuttle and directing it to my asteroid myself, where I let him face the horrors, kept within the asteroid, constantly monitoring his progress, naturally.

     I was quite surprised with his tenacity, however, when he finally reached my secret chamber, I'd had enough! I had him miniaturized and placed in a glass jar, where he would continuously provide me with amusement through my conquering of Xenon. However, the little bugger managed to escape and turning off my life support system! Gasping lifeless to the floor, I managed to send the clones away towards Xenon and thusly gaining sweet revenge after all!

     What exactly happend after that, I am still a bit unsure. After all, I was dead! However, my emergency backup plan had worked. During my scientific experimenting, I was able to devise a way to convert my mind and brainwave patterns to electronic data, and practically making it possible to store myself on data disks! Of course, the first thing I did was to create a backup of my own brain and stow it in an old cardboard box, I found lying around.

Future Shock

     My asteroid was no longer in operation, and how that box managed to float around in space for several decades, I still do not know. But it was around "Space Quest XI" when I came to exist again! The population of Xenon had apparently devised a gigantic, super biomech computer, which they plugged into nearly everything--the planets self-defense mechanisms, the atmosphere control, everything! And when a patrol craft stumbled across my brain disk and ran an analysis of it, I was free again! I was electronic data. I was...the Super Computer!

     Finally, Xenon was going to pay! Finally I could gain sweet revenge against the scientific community, that mocked me! Finally, the universe would be mine! At the start of Space Quest XII, being in complete control of all factories and production facilities, I began constructing unbeatable armies for use in waging war against the population of Xenon. Of course, few tried to resist, but my armies either wiped them out, or I captured them and "modified" them. He-he-he...oh, you ask how? Well, I simply crammed a horrible, hypnotic invention of my own onto their head. It was a simple device, which held the eyelids permenantly open, making him effectively in a state of trance, where all mental activity was terminated. Then, by sending electronic commands to him, I effectively had my own zombie to command. Not only that, but I also gained access to their memory, which helped me in rooting out the resistance's secret headquarters and nearly vanquishing them all.

Sludge, circa SQ4      Unfortunately, one small band of resistance were still alive, when everything started to go wrong. Of course, being converted to electronic data and being the master of all I saw (which was effectively the entire planet, since I was also able to control all surveillance cameras on the entire planet) didn't cause me to give up my research. No, my scientific curiosity led me to finally discovering the greatest secret of them all: How to time travel?

     I finally saw a way to gain revenge on that pesky Roger Wilco...the best way possible! I was simply going to make sure, that Roger Wilco never existed! I was going to wipe him from existence! Of course, it was impossible to predict how the future would then end up, but I can't imagine a situation where that would put me in a bad place.

    Using technologies previously used to create my robotic armies, I created android specifically designed for time travel--the Sequel Police--and mass produced time pods for them. Their orders were simple: Search through each Space Quest until they had found Roger Wilco--and then blast his janitorial hiney into the next dimension!!!

     What I didn't know was, that I wasn't the only one who had access to this technology. Those pestering resistance forces stole my technology and created "Time Guns", which they could use to rip a hole in the space/time continuum into another time period!

     Unfortunately, I was too late to discover this. The resistance send their last two best men back into the past of Space Quest IV to get Roger Wilco back in order to conquer me! I immediately send a patrol after them. Sure enough, they managed to get to Wilco before the time rippers, but was apparently too slow on the triggers to deal with him, as they let themselves be overtaken by the time rippers, who opened a time portal and sent Wilco through it! They did, however, manage to kill one of the time rippers and capturing the other one; the one that rescued Wilco. When they brought him before me, I instantly recognized him as Wilco's only son...Roger Wilco, Jr.! Ack, what a disgusting name!

     Another sinister plan formed in my mind...I would use Junior as bait to lure this pestering "Hero of Xenon" into a trap, where I would destroy his janitorial corpus once and for all!

     My Sequel Police droids informed me, that Wilco had apparently been transported to Space Quest XII. No matter--that only made things even better. I knew, that in time, Wilco would find his way to me...but it didn't matter if he got himself killed during his attempts, so I let my Sequel Policebots do their thing and left my security devices on. But amazingly enough, he managed to overcome these challenges--although it took much longer than I had anticipated. Turns out he had been travelling extensively through the entire series, but that's a totally different story.

     Wilco managed to activate the Super Computer formatting sequence, and then find his way to my chamber, just in time to see me carrying out my emergency backup-plan by transferring my conscience into his son's body. The final struggle was, to say the least, disappointing. He managed to trap me in a programming beam and reinstate his son's mind into the body, and with the help from the formatting sequence, effectively terminating my life.

     All was well for him and his son. Xenon was safe and Wilco could go back to Space Quest IV and onto Space Quest V. Everything was back to normal...
 

Or so they thought!
 
Troels Pleimert


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