A Questionable Lifestyle

Hello teary-eyed ladies, Cave Johnson here.

I know many of you were worried when I didn’t write in over the last fortnight — Caroline is still sorting through all the letters stained with your tears. No need to apologise — I know you missed me. I would miss me too. Who wouldn’t?

Continuing with the series of answering any and all of your questions, Jimmy writes: “I’ve had the ambition to start an institute of questionable (evil) science. Research would be focused on chemical weapons, zombie plagues, mutations, tentacle grafts, hegemonic nano-swarms, 20,000-ton tanks with laser cannons, and giant stompy robots. As an experienced science practitioner, how would you go about setting up such an institution?”

“Unless you’ve got a PhD people won’t fear you. Mr Doom sounds like a kindergarten teacher. A foreign one”

There’s no point in beating around the bush Jimmy — you want to be an evil scientist. We all do at some point, but it takes guts and determination to admit it and get the ball rolling — we could do with an ambitious boy like you in the lab. Actually, scratch that, I could do with a hundred of you — lately, the boys in the lab haven’t been working as hard as usual. I think they’re planning a mutiny. Well, that or they’re getting more stupid. We’ve got a new cloning process in the works, so if you don’t mind, we’ll take some of your blood, fiddle with your DNA and stick it in some bacteria. With any luck, we’ll get a duplicate version of your fine self. We’ve found that upon creation of your twin, one of you is undoubtedly evil, but we’ve yet to work out which one. The legal suits say I also need to mention that the side effects may include having an arch-nemesis, a clichéd storyline for the rest of your life and being incarcerated for crimes your clones committed. The boys in the lab spent days calculating that if you have a single clone and one of you is evil, then if we make 99 clones, 50 of you are going to be evil. At the moment we’re not exactly sure what it is that makes people evil, but we think it might be something to do with facial hair. A surprising number of our clones come grown with a variety of goatees and long, thin moustaches. Anyway, if we find a way to separate the good ones from the evil ones, then we’ll ship your evil clones to you, free of charge.

I could start with mentioning that those of you who are studying at Imperial but intend to join the plague of bankers that impede scientific progress, are the real evil scientists, but I won’t. I’m above that. Unlike them. I could also mention those people over at Black Mesa who steal ideas and government funding, but then they’re not even scientists. They’re more akin to fish. Plus, I’ve a court order that says I must stop slandering those treacherous thug-fish. Like hell I will!

Anyway, on your quest towards international domination, there’s nothing more important than location, location, location. You can’t have a proper base of operations living in your parent’s basement. Before rushing out to your local real estate agents however, there are a few things I would bear in mind when looking for an inner sanctum. You want a site where you can test in peace and quiet, have very few witnesses, and yet still be able to ‘invite’ test subjects to your facilities. In addition to this, it sounds like a lot of your projects will take up a lot of space. I would look to invest in a large space, adjoining your initial domain, which you can move into when needed.

Once you’ve started your testing and have some working prototypes, I would suggest that you go and make a name for yourself. Go and cause a few disappearances around your local towns, start rumours, or test some of your projects on the unsuspecting public. The suits over in legal are now telling me to point out that I am in no way speaking from experience. Potential buyers, and those you hold to ransom won’t take you seriously until you have proven yourself. If the label of evil scientist ruffles your feathers, then another well-trodden route is that of the good old-fashioned American super-villain. You’ll have to come up with a name, and maybe even a catchphrase to get those gals swooning over you. And remember, unless you’ve got a PhD, in your line of work, people won’t fear you. Mr Doom sounds like a kindergarten teacher. A foreign one.

There’s not much point having a nice place with enough room for an army of whooping terriers when you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere. Like Canada. Without adequate transport links or abundant natural resources, your plans will grind to a halt. Late colleagues of mine, who had the same aspirations as you do, ended up moving to Siberia to conduct research into using bears as cavalry. They ended up running out of toothpaste, which led to widespread rioting and the release of grizzly bears with IQs over 150 into the wild. Obviously.

Something most young people don’t seem to think about either are the operating costs of running an empire, as it were. Having a lair that’s able to exploit natural resources is key to keeping your giant stompy robots stomping, be it geothermal or hamster-wheel energy, large amounts of precious metals or even a city of mole-men. Whatever you don’t have to pay for makes your life easier. Finally, there’s the motivation to see your vision come true. There’s no such thing as aiming too high when it comes to science, only being afraid of missing your target. We normally have to keep on playing pre-recorded messages for our test subjects to keep them motivated to reach the end. It looks like you want to see this through till the end, so at least I don’t have to mail you the pre-recorded tapes of me shouting at you to get on with it.

Any problems with those projects of yours, and I’ll be glad to help. As always, if you have any questions for me, then Caroline is waiting to take your telegrams. Cave out.