THE POSTING WHICH STARTED IT ALL WAS FROM FOOLETERNAL:-
FE> AmyCat said (of "The Incendiary Cat Plot"):-
AC> It's a deep, dark secret so far... though the thought provokes a
AC> reaction from me! Anyone who would use
AC> cats as incendiaries deserves to be made closely acquainted with
AC> a few incendiary devices (NOT cats!) themselves...
FE> I altogether agree:
FE> It's a waste of perfectly good stir-fry meat.
FE> Mitch Hagmaier
FE> Quest Labs Department of Chinese Take-Out
-----------------------------------------------------
I, HAVING TOO MUCH FREE TIME, AND A COMPUTER, ON MY HANDS IN
SHANNON AIRPORT WITH A CONTINUALLY RESCHEDULED FLIGHT (WHICH
EVENTUALLY LEFT SIX HOURS LATE) RESPONDED WITH:-
From the internal evidence for a considerable number of ailurophiles
in this group I do feel that the comment re Incendiary Cats:-
FE> It's a waste of perfectly good stir-fry meat.
is likely to produce a flame-war of sufficient intensity to cause
the appearence of Stir-Fry Hagmeir or maybe Cajun Fooleternal at
the Quest Labs Department of Chinese Take-Out.
I shall attempt to stir the troubled waters or pour oil on the
flames by asserting that the whole issue is the result of
a gargantuan misunderstanding and misspelling. Future postings
will reveal the truth and, I hope, divert the cat crazed mobs
converging on Quest Labs.
Just to start the diversion by talking about a different sort
of small domestic quadruped, did you hear about the dyslexic
agnostic insomniac?
He lies awake all night wondering if there is a dog.
AND THEN CONTINUED WITH:-
THE INCENDIARY BAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint, and in fact refers to events in WWII,
not early Barrayaran history. Guided missiles being (virtually)
unknown during most of WWII (V1 & V2 came very late in the war,
and were not, in fact, terminally guided) one idea that was
suggested was that if BATS were fitted with small incendiary
packages and released over German towns they would roost in the
roof spaces of buildings and start fires long after the air-raid
was over. The idea was never used in the field - one of the
experimental bats escaped and burnt down the quarters of the
Officer Commanding the Research Establishment concerned and,
despite this compelling evidence of the effectiveness of the
idea, the project was squashed.
AND THE INCENDIARY FAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Emperor Caspian III was
extremely fond of a traditional Irish breakfast of fried
eggs, fried bacon, fried sausages, fried black pudding
(if you don't know, don't ask - you don't WANT to know),
fried white pudding (ditto) and fried potato cakes all
served on fried bread. Sometimes (usually on Sundays) he
had baked beans with it. This was a taste inherited from
his mother, who came from the small, but at times influential,
group of Barrayaran settlers of Irish origin. He insisted
that this breakfast be cooked at the table so that it was
served piping hot (and so that he could supervise the eggs -
he liked the whites hard, but not crisp, and the yolks
runny, but just beginning to thicken).
When Caspian upset the Council of Counts in the matter of
his Black Pudding Legislation (which controlled the size
AND QUANTITY of pieces of chopped pig fat in Barrayaran
black pudding and was deeply resented by pork-producing
counts as it limited their opportunities to reduce the
proportion of more expensive ingredients in their black
puddings) one Count Vorrabadash decided that, instead of
waiting quietly for the Emperor to die of cholesterol
poisoning, as indeed, and inevitably, happened a few years
later, he would eliminate the Emperor and the loss of profits.
One day, when Count Vorrabadash was filling some hand grenades, he
noticed that TNT looked remarkably like the beef dripping in
which the Emperor's breakfast was habitually fried. This gave
him the idea of replacing the dripping with a block of high
explosive (not, in fact, TNT, which is not easily detonated by
heat alone) which would explode as the breakfast cook attempted
to melt it to fry the Emperor's eggs (he usually had three).
The plot would have been a resounding success had not the Emperor
chosen to breakfast on the battlements on the morning of the plot.
While carrying the breakfast ingredients onto the terrace the cook
tripped over the cat (note for ailurophiles - the cat was not hurt,
and was, in fact, made a [non-hereditary] count for its part in
defeating the plot) and dropped the incendiary fat into the moat
where it exploded, releasing the water to flood the adjoining
highway where Count Vorrabadash was in his ground-car awaiting the
explosion of the Emperor's breakfast-room. He was the only fatality.
AND THE INCENDIARY GAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. Count Voranradin was an afficionado
of the works of Leslie Charteris, a thriller writer of the
early and mid-twentieth century (Earth) whose most famous character
was "The Saint", who attempted to redress the balance of justice in
cases where the law was powerless - he robbed from the rich and
gave to the poor (like Robin Hood before him). One of the Saint's
associates in several of the novels was a character called Hoppy
Uniatz who invariably referred to a firearm as a "gat", so when
Count Voranradin undertook to assassinate the Emperor Rilian with
a flamethrower he invariably referred to the weapon as "the
incendiary gat" to reduce the chances of revealing the plot,
which involved accompanying the Emperor on a hunting party and
leading him past a cave where several of Count Voranradin's
henchmen waited with the weapon.
During the Time of Isolation Barrayaran technology was insufficient
to extract petroleum from Barrayar's few oil fields, which were
almost all submarine ones, and ethanol was the normal liquid fuel.
Count Voranradin's henchmen were all of Russian extraction and regarded
the fuel for the "incendiary gat" as a supply of free vodka laid on
for their benefit. They were, of course, careful to replace anything
that they drank with water so that the quantity was unaltered, and so,
by the time the Emperor was finally lured to the cave, the gat's output
was minimal and did little more than singe his whiskers, although it
was restored to its full output before being turned on Count Voranradin
and his henchmen.
Emperor Rillian, who had always considered Count Voranradin as a friend,
was known for the rest of his life as Rilian the Disenchanted.
AND THE INCENDIARY GNAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Emperor Miraz, who was incomparably
stupid and believed that fireflies were actually incendiary insects,
caused his geneticists to cross an earth firefly with a very small
native Barrayaran gnat in an endeavour to assassinate the entire
Council of Counts by getting the gnats ensnared in their beards at
a moonlight picnic and then burning them to death as they slept.
(Miraz himself was clean-shaven and as bald as an egg.)
Since neither the geneticists, the counts, or, probably, even the
gnats themselves believed it would work the project was allowed to
go ahead with the knowledge of all parties. Miraz's disappointment,
when all the counts appeared for an early breakfast without even
the faintest evidence of scorching, severed his last tenuous hold on
reality and for the rest of his interminable reign he was merely a
powerless (and witless) tool of the increasingly powerful Council
of Counts.
AND THE INCENDIARY HAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Emperor Tirian, who was a heavy
smoker, narrowly escaped death when Count Vortash replaced his
fur hat with one made out of nitrocellulose (guncotton) in the
hope that he would accidently ignite it with his cigar. The
hope was well-placed since the Emperor's old hat's ear flaps
were grossly disfigured by cigar burns.
The plot misfired, literally, when the Count, bringing the hat
to the Emperor on a very cold, dry, Winter day, stroked the
Emperor's cat, Skimbleshanks, and became charged with static
electricity. When he picked up the hat it was ignited by a spark
and burned his hand off. The loss of his hand did not inconvenience
him greatly since he lost his head shortly afterwards when Tirian
had him fitted with another nitrocellulose hat and detonated it
before the Council of Counts as an object lesson.
AND THE INCENDIARY JAT PLOT
There was no-one from the Indian sub-continent among
the original immigrants to Barrayar and therefore no
possibility of an Incendiary Jat Plot.
AND THE INCENDIARY MAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Countess Vorjadis was married
to Andrew, the brother of the Emperor Drinian, and wishing to
become Empress, replaced the doormat of the Emperor's apartment
with one made of asterzine. The catalyst was placed in a puddle
between the stables and the apartment so that the Emperor would
carry it to the mat on his boots when he returned from his daily
ride.
The plot misfired when Andrew, who was not a party to it, offered
to fetch his brother's forgotten communicator and was destroyed
in the ensuing explosion. The instigator of the plot went
undetected, despite intensive detective work by Drinian's Police
Chief, Maugrim, until a confession was found in the Countess
Vorjadis' papers after her death.
AND THE INCENDIARY NAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Emperor Glenstorm acceded
to the throne in his teens and spent far more time playing
the few pieces of pre-isolation Earth jazz which had
survived on Barrayar than governing the planet.
The Council of Counts, in an effort to attract his attention,
caused to be forged a collection which they alleged to be
the complete works of Nat King Cole and promised it to him
when he had completed certain necessary legislative action.
This in fact compelled his attention to how badly he was
neglecting Barrayar's affairs and he renounced distractions
from his duties as Emperor and himself burnt the collection,
unplayed, before the Council of Counts in expiation of his past
derelictions.
AND THE INCENDIARY PAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. Patrick Vorhooligan, a count
of Irish extraction, resident on Erin, a mild damp island
on the west coast of one of the Barrayaran continents, had
a flaming red hair and beard and a flaming hot temper and
was generally known as "Incendiary Pat".
He plotted a rebellion against the Emperor Corin IV because
of his rejection of his father's habit of eating enormous
Irish breakfasts (Corin's father was Caspian III) which
Vorhooligan felt was a slight to the Irish settlers of
Barrayar.
He renounced the plot before it had come to fruition when
Corin's geneticists developed a virus which exterminated the
venomous snakes which had hitherto infested Erin, seeing in
this accomplishment a reflection of the life of an earlier
Irish saint. He confessed to, and was forgiven by, Corin and
thereafter was a staunch supporter of the Emperor's right to
eat whatever breakfast he pleased.
AND THE INCENDIARY RAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. In an effort to discipline the
Council of Counts the Emperor Lune had his geneticists
develop a breed of rat with a craving for copper and
particularly conductive saliva. He intended that the
Council Chamber be burned down, apparently by accident,
when the released rats chewed the copper wiring and their
saliva caused short circuits and fires.
The plot was defeated by the greed of Count Vorgumpas, who
was addicted to limburger cheese and carried sandwiches to
all the counts' meetings in a small copper box, which was
an heirloom of his house. The combination of smelly cheese
and copper was far more attractive than mere wiring and
Count Vorgumpas, to his embarassment, found himself surrounded
by ravenous rats during a meeting of the Council of Counts,
thus revealing the plot and enabling the counts to force
Lune to acquiesce in the notorious tightrope, trampoline and
trapeze legislation which poisoned relationships between the
Vor and the Commoners for the next two generations.
AND THE INCENDIARY TAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. The Empress Lasaraleen spent
most of the Emperor Shasta's privy purse on the kitschest
of kitsch ornaments which occupied every last square
millimetre of every surface of the imperial apartments.
She had banished the Emperor's cats because they might
knock things down and she had started an affair with one
of the Vor.
It was at this point that Shasta decided to get rid of her.
He could not simply divorce her, since he needed the support
of her father in the Council of Counts. Through intermediaries
be bought a knick-knack shop not far from the Imperial Palace
and had it stocked with just the sort of garbage the Empress
liked. Soon she was spending much of her time there (and, to
his relief, the Emperor was actually recovering some of the
privy purse, since she spent it there rather than elsewhere).
In due time a consignment of particularly obnoxious tat arrived
at the shop. The Empress was enchanted and bought a mountain of
it. That night, while the Emperor was attending a dinner of the
Imperial Guard, a timer went off in one of the pieces and within
seconds the whole Imperial Apartment, and the Empress, were in
flames.
The Emperor bore up well under his sad loss and married a go-go
dancer the following year (to the scandal of many Vor matrons,
who had had hopes for their daughters).
AND THE INCENDIARY VAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. VAT 69 is not, as is widely believed,
the Pope's telephone number, but is a brand of Scotch whisky.
During the time of isolation there were a few dozen bottles of
VAT 69 in existence on Barrayar and they were conserved as an
Imperial asset and used as a standard when local whisky was
distilled and blended.
It was customary for the Emperor to be present when it became
necessary to open another bottle from the dwindling supply, and
to taste it to ensure that it was up to standard. The heir would
also taste to endeavour to ensure continuity of standards.
In his early teens Prince Rhince, son of the Emperor Peridan,
was an obnoxious practical joker. His father was a famous
chilli afficionado whose ability to tolerate the hottest food
was legendary, and Rhince was determined to find something
that even the Emperor couldn't stomach.
His opportunity came with the discovery of wild habanero peppers
growing in an unexplored equatorial region of Barrayar. He dried
a large number of these and extracted the capsicain with alcohol
and bottled the result in an old VAT 69 bottle which he carefully
infiltrated into the tasting chamber when the next opening ceremony
was due. The new bottle was opened and Prince Rhince was offered
the first glass. While tasting he managed to exchange bottles so
that the Emperor received concentrated extract of habanero instead
of VAT 69. It WAS too strong even for the Emperor. The story that
the top of the Imperial head actually lifted to release a smoke
ring is probably untrue, but it is certain that he was speechless
for some minutes. He then urbanely congratulated the Prince on
his success as a practical joker and adjourned the tasting ceremony
until his taste buds had recovered from their stunning.
He then took his son, and a riding crop, behind the Imperial stables
and made Prince Rhince wince.
AND THE INCENDIARY WAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. During the Time of Isolation very
little Earth history was remembered on Barrayar and what there
was was garbled. Thus when a commoner, Fred Tyler, formed a
plot to foment rebellion he took the name Wat Tyler, after the
leader of the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 A.D., but due
to series of misunderstandings of the meaning of "peasant"
he dressed his followers in brown feathers, with irridescent
red and green ones about the head, which made them rather
conspicuous to ImpSec.
When his followers were arrested he decided to follow the example
of Guy Fawkes and blow up the Emperor and the Council of Counts
in the Council Chamber. Finding gunpowder unobtainable he tried
to burn down the council chamber and was discovered weeping in
the Council Chamber cellar with a pile of oil-soaked rags and an
empty match box.
The Emperor Trumpkin, who was in dispute with the Council of
Counts at the time, declared that Tyler was more competent than
any of them and made him Vor on the spot.
This forced the Council to be more co-operative but did not
benefit Tyler, who was lynched by his own followers a week later
for betraying the revolution.
AND VIRGINIA T. BEMIS ALSO SENT AN INCENDIARY WAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It was the Incendiary Wat Plot. The wat, an Ethiopian stew with enough
pepper and other spices to clear your sinuses and blow the top of your
head off, found its way into cookbooks brought by the early colonists.
Emperor Brian was fond of it, and his distant cousin, Prince Bruce,
decided that adding a little more pepper and some gunpowder would allow
for literally blowing heads off. With the assistance of his henchmen,
the Piranha Brothers, he infiltrated the palace kitchens, but the plot
failed when the wat blew up too early--while still in the serving dish.
After that, he tried a killer rabbit, but was foiled by Lord
Vornotappearinginthisfilm, with the help of a Norwegian Blue Parrot that
sacrificed its life for the good of Barrayar.
This is my theory, which is mine, and belongs to me, and what it is, too.
AND THE INCENDIARY YAT PLOT
>And does anybody know what the Incendiary Cat Plot was?
It is actually a misprint. Symond's Yat is a beauty spot
in the Wye Valley on the English/Welsh border. It is a high
outcrop above a loop in the river.
On Barrayar there is a Yat, known as Coriakin's Yat, which
is formed of hard coal. During Count Vortumnus' Revolt
against the Emperor Octesian it was planned to ignite
Coriakin's Yat as a signal to the conspiritors' armies
to converge on Vorbarr Sultana, a few miles downstream.
The plot was discovered and ImpSec stationed experienced
firefighters near the Yat so that the blaze was extinguished
before it was seen and the revolt fizzled out with the fire.
-------------------------------------------------------
AFTER THIS OUTPOURING THERE WAS, UNSURPRISINGLY, SOME COMMENT.
MY REPONSES TO SOME OF THE POSTINGS APPEAR BELOW:-
Andrew Boulton says:-
AB> Some people have far too much free time...
but I would maintain that time spent on aircraft or in departure
lounges awaiting long delayed flights is not free time but
opportunity time. Would he have me spend it WORKING?
-------------------------------------------
Atham Z says:-
AZ> This man must write a book!
This man has - several - but they're about analog integrated
circuits and only the unkind allege that they're science fiction.
-------------------------------------------
Maureen O'Brien says (of the missing Jat plot and the allegation
of nobody of Indian ancestry on Barrayar):-
MO> So why WAS Ivan's dad's name Padma?
Touché!
She also asks why I have ignored the Incendiary
DAT Plot, Brat Plot, Blat Plot, Flat Plot, Frat Plot,
Lat Plot, Plat Plot, Plait Plot, Platte Plot, Prat Plot
Stat Plot, Slat Plot and er.......
To report them all would have left no opportunities for
later workers in the field. The Emperor over the Sea
would not have approved. (Besides, the damn thing finally
landed and I could go home.)