Advice for Heroes

By John and Linda VanSickle

Also see:
Guidelines for Evil Overlords in Training
How To Be A Cultist
Advice For Heroes

Those of you who read much speculative fiction are familiar with the plot device of having the hero do something consummately stupid, in order to prevent him from ending the book too quickly, which leads to much suffering and strife until the hero finally wises up. To counter this, and as an answer to Peter Anspach's Overlord List, I present the Things I Will Do if I Am Ever the Hero:

1. I will maintain no association with sidekicks who employ prostitutes. They (the prostitutes) are too often spies for the Evil Overlord.

2. I will design my ship's tactical systems so that I do not have to personally direct every single shot fired.

3. I will ignore the Evil Overlord's arguments revolving around honor and/or morality. If he were really all that concerned about either, he would never have become an Evil Overlord in the first place.

4. I will put surge suppressors in the circuitry of my ship, so that a shot striking some distant portion does not cause a control panel on the bridge to explode.

5. When the Evil Overlord takes hostages, I will presume the hostages dead until the Evil Overlord is overthrown and the hostages are rescued, and I will summarily ignore any promises he might make regarding their safe return.

6. I will design my ships so that command and control functions cannot be hot-wired from a wall panel in the recreation bay.

7. I will not walk alone and undisguised into a bar in the Evil Overlord's territory in order to meet with an ex-associate who said a bunch of damaging things about me in one of the Evil Overlord's propaganda pieces.

8. I will design redundancy into all ship systems, so that the loss of one component wll not cripple the vessel.

9. When the Evil Overlord is hanging on the cliff by his fingers, I will not try to help him up. If time and means are available, I'll kill him then and there.

10. When combat is imminent, my ships' computer will be programmed so that enemy troops that beam aboard will be immediately beamed into empty space, or the originating ship's reactor core, if that is accessible.

11. When I am advised to destroy a potent talisman captured from the Evil Overlord, I will do so.

12. When the enemy ship de-cloaks and is arming weapons, I will not wait for it to fire three or four times before instructing my officers to return fire.

13. Anyone inquiring after the secret of my strength will be fed a line of plausible baloney as to how this strength can be lost. If the bogus advice is followed, the leak shall be properly investigated.

14. When a comrade defects to the enemy, I will have all passwords changed, and as soon as it is practical I will have the computer disconnected, its memory flushed, and the approved software reloaded from the original CD-ROMs.

15. Anyone who cannot be entertained by books, music, and a well-stocked bar will not be allowed to crew my ship. Hence there will be no need for holodecks.

16. Should my True Love be revealed as disguised Evil Scum, I will not wait for it to transform into a more powerful incarnation before blasting it to oblivion.

17. After capturing a space station from an enemy, I will have the enemy's computer systems completely removed and melted down into slag, and a new computer installed.

18. I will take no oath of unquestioning obedience, nor any oath of obedience to persons of unproved character.

19. If I have a comrade who is a sanctimonious coward who continually gets us all into trouble through his greed, I shall, after the third or fourth episode of this behavior, act to preserve myself and other comrades only, and let him be destroyed by the mess he made for himself.

20. I will reveal to each comrade a different clue for distinguishing me from an impostor, so that if one of them betrays me and an impostor is sent in my place, the others will still be able to catch on to the charade.

21. Under no circumstance will I agree to not develop or employ any particular technology.

22. I will never assume that an enemy is dead unless the remains are available for examination; if there is some sort of cloning/ resurrection technology or magic, I will continue to reserve judgment.

23. I will employ some manner of surveillance so that when I leave a room and a traitorous comrade gives me the Malicious Scowl or Wicked Leer to my back, I will have ample warning of his impending betrayal.

24. Self-appointed prophets who deliver elliptically-worded warnings will be politely asked to phrase their utterances in plainer terms.

25. If I find myself born or drafted into a universe wherein the laws of nature do not obey consistent principles, I will depart for an alternate universe created by a more reasonable author.

26. I will waste no time trying to get the rich to join in my rebellion. The only way to stay rich in the Evil Overlord's realm is to collaborate with him, and any rich people who truly feel guilty about this will serve the rebellion better by not openly joining.

27. If my Mentor tells me that I am not yet ready to confront the Evil Overlord, I will quietly accept his judgement and remain to complete my training.

28. If the Evil Overlord manages to off my Mentor, I will not go berserk and attack immediately, but retreat and hone my powers. If my Mentor couldn't defeat the Evil Overlord, I surely must wait a while before I can.

29. I shall arrange my personal affairs so that it doesn't matter if someone learns my secret identity.

30. If I am granted a vision of the future, I will not try to prevent anything that I see. It never works.

31. If I am forced to make a choice between saving a friend/lover or fulfilling my mission, I will make my decision and stick with it. I will not waste time waffling between the two goals.

32. If I am captured by the Evil Overlord and escape, I will assume that he is tracking me in some manner. If I am going to the hidden rebel base, I shall first go to an alternate location, change clothing, equipment and means of transportation, and then go to the hidden rebel base.

33. If any of my associates mysteriously reappear after an unexplained absence and start acting strangely, I will immediately subject them to every test I can think of. The likelihood that they have been brainwashed, cloned, bought, or otherwise subverted by the Evil Overlord approaches certainty.

34. Old flames that join the rebellion will be assigned duties that preclude contact with me. This not only protects me from any attempt by the Evil Overlord to use them as agents, but also keeps my True Love from leaving me in a fit of insane, if misplaced, jealousy.

35. I will presume that the Evil Overlord is working to nullify my secret powers. I shall therefore obtain the means to fight that do not rely on these secret powers.

36. If I have a technologically superior foe who is intent on eliminating my whole civilization, and I am offered a means of utterly annihilating this foe for all time, I will use it.

37. If I must ally myself with the Evil Overlord to fight an even more powerful enemy, I will anticipate his inevitable betrayal, at the moment most advantageous to him, and take appropriate measures.

38. I will never travel back into the past in order to prevent the current situation. It never works.

39. No matter how sincere he looks, I will never shake the Evil Overlord's hand.

40. When my powerful wizard friend fails to return at the appointed time, I won't wait until after my birthday to start my Perilous Journey. I will set out immediately.

41. If it seems too easy to break into the Evil Overlord's super-secret fortress, that's because it is.

42. If the Evil Overlord invites me to go on a hunt with him, I will decline the invitation.

43. If I have a copy of the Evil Overlord's plans and my capture is imminent, I will not send the only copy of those plans away with a cute little sidekick. I will make many copies of the plans and send them away with many cute little sidekicks.

44. I will install seatbelts in my space vessels.