Bog Scene 3: Amo, Tanks, and Planes - Oh my
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Another month had passed along with seven copy cycles. The General, seated within the top of the spacecraft pyramid, smiled down at the Bog’s impressive growth. Eighty plus acres of the corn field had been eaten to the dirt. His dumb brother errored on that one as well. The Bogs hadn’t landed in a potato field in Iowa; they’d landed in a corn field in Idaho.
It’d been Og-B’s new assistant, Riggly, a chip-wearing hooligan, who corrected the intel at the last invasion council. He’d somehow hacked into the planet’s main database and stolen confidential military records. According to the latest reports, the nearest ruling families consisted of Chief McDonald, Czar Arby, and Despot Wendy. These families would be annihilated first. Despite his brother’s stupidity and missteps, the Bogs, captained by the genius Og-A himself, had built out an impressive encampment. In the last few cycles, hundreds of buildings materialized forming the beautiful skyline of the Bog’s new capital city - Ogapolis.
Perfectly cube and stylishly green, each building rose about four feet into the warm atmosphere. In total, nearly one thousand buildings had been built. The infrastructure demanded the sacrifice of the Bog community. Literally, to build the structures, Bogs permanently morphed together to support the greater good. Each building demanded 13,824 Bogs.
Not an opinion The General would air publicly, choosing a career path as a building was incredibly shameful. Lazy Bogs who hadn’t narrowed in on a career path usually selected the option as a last resort before being unbirthed. While the community didn’t keep written laws around the timeframe of choosing a job, the strictly enforced, unwritten law was three copy cycles. After such a time, an unemployed Bog would be sucked back into its parent Bog or its nearest relative. Productivity made up one of the core genes of Bog DNA; the species wouldn’t stand for any drags on society. Some of the other core genes included multiplicity, parasitism, and symmetry.
Apart from the thousand buildings, the Bog civilization had built out one hundred ground tanks and ten fighter planes. Floating an inch or so above the ground, milky-green tanks materialized as rectangular prisms, about one foot long and three inches wide. The swift moving artillery could fire Bog amo at 100 times the exploding power of a Bog by itself. A Bog could climb into a tank then be fired at the enemy at violent speed. A tank consumed 1,024 Bogs in construction cost; whereas a plane consumed 5,120 Bogs.
The fighter planes, about the same size as a tank and also in the away team’s color, were materialized in two offset, isosceles triangles that came to a point. They looked similar to smashed cones. The agile planes could sprint through the air, making sharp turns on command, or ominously hover, preparing for the next bomb raid or dogfight. In contrast to the tanks, which fired entire Bogs as amo, the fighter planes fired melted Bogs in machine gun bursts. A single Bog equated to 100 blasts.
While most jobs didn’t require an application, the coveted aviator job had an acceptance rate close to 1:100,000, decided by the Bog’s lottery system. The career choice to become a tank or a plane ranked similarly to that of becoming a building, albeit with a slightly higher prestige. Perhaps the worst military job was that of becoming amo. Granted it carried some honor - with respected service and sacrifice to your country - but those that survived usually returned with severe PTSD. Most Bogs, recruited as amo, never returned. One of the few highlights, because of the low survival rates, Amo Bogs ranked as one of the top pension programs.
Currently, the military force of tanks, planes, soldiers, and amo paraded around the mothership along with the celebrating Bog population. The skies rained cheers and the streets overflowed with candy. In only two months, the population had ballooned to 10 million. Before the recent infrastructure projects, the population reached 20 million. The sprawling Bogs had eaten nearly the entire field.
On the edge of their growth, stood a small, presently undisturbed farmhouse. This would be their first target before continuing the marching path to McDonalds. They had the troops, the infantry, and the morale. World domination would begin in one cycle.
