[Spoon-business] The Infinite Improbability Drive

["Baron von Skippy" <baronvonskippy@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I propose:

{{
__The Weirdest Speeder Upgrade You'll Ever See__

The following is an excerpt from _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ by 
Douglas Adams, specifically the entirety of Chapter 9 of that book. Although 
the sections in comment brackets should be removed as though this were a 
Literary Proposal, that text is not original and Baron von Skippy will not 
be given Prose Form points for the passing of this proposal.

Create a rule:

{{
__The Infinite Improbibility Drive__

A player may merge a Ford Prefect Gnome with a Speeder to get a speeder with 
an Infinite Improbibility Drive. A speeder with an Infinite Improbibility 
Drive can travel to any location on the Grid from any other location on the 
Grid by using the IID, although doing so counts as the entire nweekly 
movement allowance of the player in the speeder. When a speeder moves via 
IID, 1d100 is rolled. On any roll from 1 to 42, nothing happens.
[[A computer chattered to itself in alarm as it noticed an airlock open and 
close itself for no apparant reason.
     This was because reason was in fact out to lunch.
     A hole had just appeared in in the Galaxy. It was a nothingth of a 
second long, a nothingth of an inch long, and quite a lot of millions of 
light-years from end to end.
     As it closed up, lots of paper hats and party ballons fell out of it 
and drifeted off through the Universe. A team of seven three-foot-high 
market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of axphyxiation, partly of 
surprise.
     Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it 
too, materializing in a large wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of 
Poghril in the Pansel system.
     The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famime except for one last 
man who dies of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.
     The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated 
backward and forward through time in a most improbable fashion. Somewhere in 
the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of 
atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling 
together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns. These patterns 
quickly learned to copy themselves (this was part of what was so 
extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on 
every planet they drifted on to. That was how life began in the Universe.]]

On any roll from 43 to 51, 4 random Gnomes are placed on the Grid at random 
locations.

[[Five wild Event Maelstroms swirled in vicious storms of unreason...]]

On any roll from 52 to 56, five random Grid Squares become of type Void.

[[...and spewed up a pavement.
     On the pavement lay Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent gulping like 
half-spent fish.
     "There you are," gasped Ford, scrabbling for a finger hold on the 
pavement as it raced through the Third Reach of the Unknown, "I told you I'd 
think of something."
     "Oh sure," said Arthur, "sure."
     "Bright idea of mine," said Ford, "to find a passing spaceship and get 
rescued by it."
     The real Universe arched sickeningly away beneath them. Various 
pretend ones flitted silently by, like mountain goats. Primal light 
exploded, splattering space-time as with gobbets of Jell-O. Time blossomed, 
matter shrank away. The highest prime number coalesced quietly in a corner 
and hid itself away for ever.
     "Oh, come off it," said Arthur, "the chances against it were 
astronomical."
     "Don't knock it, it worked," said Ford.
     "What sort of ship are we in?" asked Arthur as the pit of eternity 
yawned beneath them.
     "I don't know," said Ford, "I haven't opened my eyes yet."
     "No, nor have I," said Arthur.
     The Universe jumped, froze, quivered and splayed out in several 
unexpected directions.
     Arthur and Ford opened their eyes and looked about in considerable 
surprise.
     "Good god," said Arthur, "it looks just like  the  sea  front  at
Southend."
     "Hell, I'm relieved to hear you say that," said Ford.
     "Why?"
     "Because I thought I must be going mad."
     "Perhaps you are. Perhaps you only thought I said it."
     Ford thought about this.
     "Well, did you say it or didn't you?" he asked.
     "I think so," said Arthur.
     "Well, perhaps we're both going mad."
     "Yes," said Arthur, "we'd be mad, all things considered, to think
this was Southend."
     "Well, do you think this is Southend?"
     "Oh yes."
     "So do I."
     "Therefore we must be mad."
     "Nice day for it."
     "Yes," said a passing maniac.
     "Who was that?" asked Arthur
     "Who - the man with the five heads and the elderberry bush full
of kippers?"
     "Yes."
     "I don't know. Just someone."
     "Ah."
     They both sat on the pavement and watched with a certain unease
as huge children bounced heavily along the sand and wild horses thundered 
through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the 
Uncertain Areas.
     "You know,"  said  Arthur  with  a  slight  cough,  "if  this  is
Southend, there's something very odd about it ..."
     "You mean the way the sea stays steady and the buildings keep washing 
up and down?" said Ford. "Yes I thought that was odd too.]]

On any roll from 56 to 64, if the destination square or any square adjacent 
to it is Wet, it loses the attribute Wet, and if any of those squares are 
not Wet, they become Wet.

[[In fact," he continued as with a huge bang Southend split itself into six 
equal segments which danced and span giddily round each other in lewd and 
licentious formation, "there is something altogether very strange going on."
     Wild yowling noises of pipes and strings seared through the wind, hot 
doughnuts popped out of the road for ten pence each, horrid fish stormed out 
of the sky and Arthur and Ford decided to make a run for it.
     They plunged through heavy walls of sound, mountains of archaic 
thought, valleys of mood music, bad shoe sessions and footling bats and 
suddenly heard a girl's voice.
     It sounded quite a sensible voice, but it just said, "Two to the power 
of one hundred thousand to one against and falling," and that was all.
     Ford skidded down a beam of light and span round trying to find a
source for the voice but could see nothing he could seriously
believe in.
     "What was that voice?" shouted Arthur.
     "I don't know," yelled Ford, "I don't know. It sounded like a 
measurement of probability."
     "Probability? What do you mean?"
     "Probability. You know, like two to one, three to one, five to four 
against. It said two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against. 
That's pretty improbable you know."
     A million-gallon vat of custard upended itself over them without 
warning.
     "But what does it mean?" cried Arthur.
     "What, the custard?"
     "No, the measurement of probability!"
     "I don't know. I don't know at all. I think we're on some kind of
spaceship."
     "I can only assume," said Arthur, "that this is not the first-class 
compartment."
     Bulges appeared in the fabric of space-time. Great ugly bulges.]]

On any roll from 65 to 74, 10 random Grid squares' elevations are increased 
by 5.

[["Haaaauuurrgghhh ..." said Arthur as he felt his  body softening and  
bending in unusual directions. "Southend seems to be melting away ... the 
stars are swirling ... a dustbowl ... my legs are drifting  off  into the 
sunset ... my left arm's come off too." A frightening thought struck him: 
"Hell," he said, "how am I going to operate my digital watch now?" He wound 
his eyes desperately around in Ford's direction.]]

On any roll from 75 to 82, a random player is selected. If that player has 
no broken limbs, Luigi breaks one of eir limbs. If that player has at least 
one broken limbs, that player gets one fewer broken limbs.

[["Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."]]

On any roll from 83 to 90, a random player becomes a Penguin, which is 
identical to becoming a Toad except in name.

[[Again came the voice.
     "Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and 
falling."
     Ford waddled around his pond in a furious circle.
     "Hey, who are you," he quacked. "Where are you? What's going on and is 
there any way of stopping it?"
     "Please relax," said the voice pleasantly, like a stewardess in
an airliner with only one wing and two engines, one of which is on
fire, "you are perfectly safe."
     "But that's not the point!" raged Ford. "The point is that I am
now a perfectly safe penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out 
of limbs!"
     "It's alright, I've got them back now," said Arthur.
     "Two to the power of fifty thousand to one against and falling,"
said the voice.
     "Admittedly," said Arthur, "they're longer than I usually like them, 
but ..."
     "Isn't there anything," squawked Ford in avian fury, "you feel you 
ought to be telling us?"
     The voice cleared its throat. A giant petit four lolloped off into the 
distance.
     "Welcome," the voice said, "to the Starship Heart of Gold."

The voice continued.
     "Please do not be alarmed," it said, "by anything you see or hear 
around you. You are bound to feel some initial ill effects as you have been 
rescued from certain death at an improbability level of two to the power of 
two hundred and seventy-six thousand to one against - possibly much higher. 
We are now cruising at a level of two to the power of twenty-five thousand 
to one against and falling, and we will be restoring normality just as soon 
as we are sure what is normal anyway. Thank you. Two to the power of twenty 
thousand to one against and falling."
     The voice cut out.
     Ford and Arthur were in a small luminous pink cubicle.
     Ford was wildly excited.
     "Arthur!" he said, "this is fantastic! We've been picked up by a ship 
powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive! This is incredible! I heard 
rumors about it before! They were all officially denied, but they must have 
done it! They've built the Improbability Drive! Arthur, this is ... Arthur? 
What's happening?"
     Arthur had jammed himself against the door to the cubicle, trying
to hold it closed, but it was ill fitting. Tiny furry little hands were 
squeezing themselves through the cracks, their fingers were inkstained; tiny 
voices chattered insanely.
     Arthur looked up.
     "Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who 
want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."]]

On any roll from 91 to 100, all proposals made by a randomly selected player 
in the nweek the IID is used are scored as though they were Prose Forms.
}}
}}

You know, that seemed like a good idea an hour ago... damn, I'm tired.

                                                  [[BvS]]


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