The Milky Way is the galaxy in which we live. It’s about 100,000 lightyears across and is estimated to have 400 billion stars.
To the dismay of several intelligent species the Milky Way has become overrun by a quasi-intelligent bipedal mammalian species, who call themselves Humans. They’re indigenous to a small planet they call Earth.
Dealing in subprime mortgages lead to the collapse of the Minoan economy and the fall of their civilization, with months of rioting in the streets.
While testing a weapon to destroy their neighbor, Osiris, the planet Set destroyed themselves instead.
Months of attacks on Coalition worlds ended when the two Humbaban noble houses governing the planet now known as Calypso betrayed the Humbaban King and sided with the Coalition. In the peace treaty Humbaba were forced to relinquish the entire Illyrian System to the Coalition.
The Executive, Humphrey Boswell, who watched Worley Harper, (or Harley as his name was then,) and Eric Morton perform, went to the CEO of Euterpe Recording Company and pitched putting together a boy band to him. All they needed to do was to find two, or three, more boys.
Within two days they held auditions, for which thousands of boys came to the first round, and then narrowed down the selection. Word of the auditions spread fast, thanks to holographic ads, and also ads in the Dream Program. Many people found it annoying when a random dream character appeared in their shared lucid dream and interrupted their dreamed sex act by telling them about an audition, but almost 90 percent who turned up did so because they saw the dream ad, not the holographic one.
Executives at Euterpe Recording Company talked five boys into forming a boy band, which they named Crushed Velvet. Worley Harper was the first one to be discovered by one executive, Humphrey Boswell. Harley – which was Worley’s original name – introduced Humphrey to Eric Morton and showed the two of them performed well together. Humphrey arranged auditions, through which they found Charlie Nash, Lewis Carter and Elliot Waters and together with Harley and Eric they became Crushed Velvet.
After a short period of mixing the album, Euterpe Recording Company released First Album of Crushed Velvet: Titanomachy at the Summer Solstice Festival that year.
On the same day as the release of the album they crossed the equator to Boulder Island for the annual Winter Solstice Festival concert at the Plaza in the center of the island. Humphrey tried to limit it to the band mouthing along with the recording of the three songs that he bought from an outside songwriter. They got a chilly reception from the audience. Then Harley pulled one of his stunts, revealing an orchestra that played a handful of his songs, which they sung live, and the crowd loved it.
To promote their first album, Titanomachy, Crushed Velvet went on tour throughout The Trident Coalition plus a few sovereign Hellenistic worlds. They performed songs from the album, stayed at hotels, partied and had lots of sex, both with each other and with groupies. Sex between band members often occurred on stage during concerts, especially during one of Harley’s songs, which had sexually explicit lyrics.
Demeter Jones created the Ear Worm Virus in the months following his bet with Humphrey Boswell and infected himself with it. Under the influence of the virus he composed a catchy tune, which would therefore contain the virus. He cured himself, which meant he was then immune to it, and then went to the Euterpe Recording Company and played the tune there. Humphrey didn’t think that the song measured up and declared that Demeter lost the bet. Smiling Demeter gave Humphrey a check and left. While the check bounced, Humphrey found himself unable to get a song out of his head at the bank, and everyone at the Euterpe office kept humming a different tune. The people at the bank, who heard Humphrey, soon began humming their own songs, and so on. Demeter didn’t mind letting Humphrey think he’d won the bet, for the time being, as the visit was all about infecting the first group of people with the virus.
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Having set up so they could watch television broadcasts in the Procrustes cargo hold, one of the things they watched was the moon landing.
The wrap party for the third album of Crushed Velvet soon turned into an orgy between the band members, while consuming alcohol and sniffing poppers. Their manager, Humphrey Boswell, was guilty of putting the Ear Worm Virus on the second and third albums of the band. Hoping to cover his tracks, Humphrey murdered four out of five band members. Worley Harper was supposed to have died too, but survived and was briefly suspected of the murder.
Dave was hanged on the gallows balcony of Aeolus City Court House early in the morning, for the crimes of another man.
Jeremiah Clear's daughter, Crystal, marries Alexander Daffodil, the CEO of Daffodil Armaments, which is a competitor of Jeremiah’s company, the Clear Corporation.
The Clear Corporation stock prizes plummeted the day after the launch of the Clear Negotiator, as a result of the thousands of deaths that happened immediately after. Daffodil Armaments took advantage of this and got a chair holder majority, effectively buying the Clear Corporation.
Worley Harper, formerly Harley Williamson, comes out of hiding in his home on Dionysos with a concert as his new crooner identity, in Semele City. In other words, he didn’t leave the planet, he just went from his luxury villa on the far side of the planet to the capital city and performed in a hotel run by one of his biggest fans, Crystal Daffodil
Comments