MadScientist Magazine Article on World Domination


The train journey to my friend's place is pretty boring so I decided to stop in at the newsagents and buy a magazine to read. I was hoping to pick up the latest issue of Gusset,
which is a tasteful publication about men wearing female underwear, but instead a copy of Mad Scientist magazine caught my eye.
Now, I've shown you one of these before so you're hopefully already familiar with the kinds of articles they do and the cover story for this issue was on world domination.
Upon flicking through the pages I was delighted to find that the article was written by none other than Doctor Steve, who seems to be on the screaming edge of fringe science.
So for your enjoyment please find a few pages from the article retyped here.
Don't worry - I've expressly gained the permission of the publisher. I've scanned the first page, but after that I've just supplied the images and typed out the text by hand.
Once again, if you like it please consider buying the magazine the next time you see it.
Location, Location, Location
First thing to consider is your secret hideout. You'll need plenty of real estate to house your infernal projects, as well as offering decent accomodation for your troops and a healthy return on your investment should you need a quick sale. Here are some favourites:
Extinct Volcano. Nice for the first-timer. You get plenty of internal space plus the added bonus of some nice lava deeper down for energy and torture.
Don't let early James Bond movies turn you off the idea. Just because SPECTRE had their base in one, don't think that it's the first place the authorities will look (where "look" means "fire on the place with rockets and then send in the marines.")
People just don't suspect things that have been on TV. Did you suspect OJ Simpson? No, because he was on TV. Did you suspect that the George Foreman grill was just a Chinese knock-off made from sub-standard materials likely to explode and hammer white-hot shards of near-molten steel into your face? No, because it was on TV.
As an example of the types of things you can do with a nice crater, check out this beauty sent in by Albert Braithwaite from Stoke-on-Trent. He's been working on it during nights and most weekends. Hope the wife doesn't mind, Albert!
European Castle. I'll also include stately mansions and other ornate buildings. It's even better if you can buy yourself into a title and thereby live a double-life as a friendly Lord or Count.
A good thing about these is that they are often close to large civilian population centres. Not only do you have a handy selection of test subjects, but you also gain a significant defence against non-conventional weapon attacks.
Subaquatic Lair. One for the more experienced dominator. There are a lot of extra difficulties during construction but you shouldn't ignore the exceptional benefits to be had from a submarine operation. You have good old thermal and tidal power (both clean and green - no point in sullying the planet you soon hope to own!) as well as plenty of opportunities to seal your enemies in water-tight rooms and flood them.
Just remember to watch out for depth charges, tremors, and mutant Sea Monkeys. Do NOT build off the coast of Japan - too many weird things crawl up from the deeps around there.
Guards! Seize Him!
After you have your base of operations, you are going to need a security force of some sort. Check out the classifieds sections in Guns and Ammo, Mercenary, and Angry Housewife magazines. This is also a good time to finally use that university degree of yours. All those bioengineering courses you did like 'Abominations 301' and 'Cyborg Combat Units' can be very useful for constructing an elite force of security guardians. There's nothing like seeing a couple of giant mantis with vulcan cannons for arms to send the local militia running.
Another nice thing about building your own personnel is that you don't have to pay them. Food can be acquired by running tours around your complex from the local special school - no-one's going to miss a few spoony kids here and there. Their parents would be happy if they knew young Tarquin's brain was being used to run a Battle Tank rather than just being a badly-bruised saliva factory. The rest of the body is used to feed the Hedgehog Limpet Mines, of course.
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that a lot of constructed personnel tend to be a little on the dopey side. That's not to say you can't get effective combat troops out of genetic tinkering, it's just that you might want to consider keeping purebred humans in the upper ranks. For example, Sergeant Rocky here is an excellent leader of his unit, and nothing commands respect like a gorilla-based gene-splice. But go beyond his training and things start to run aground. Something as odd as a SAM launcher painted to look like a bunch of bananas can send him into a murderous silverback rage.
It's always a good idea to have a human around to keep everyone on track.
Insect-based troops are a bit of a mixed bag. You get a few excellent features: they look freaky, they make that horrible chittering noise, they eat any old rubbish and have no real concern about their own lives.
However, you need to combine that with unusual insect intelligence and a propensity towards eating their comrades. Spend as much time as you can on breeding up a leader-caste with decent humanlike intelligence. This creature should keep them under control and stop them from all hiding under the APC when someone turns on the lights. [375k GIF animation]

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