Introducing...Polynihilia!

[Polynilhooters]

Greetings, world! Or, as we say in the native Polynihilic tongue, “you are nothing but dust that shall soon return to the fold!” We are the diplomats of the great nation of Polynihilia, known commonly as Hooters because the word that means “diplomat” in our language translates literally to “the owl that hoots at the sun” in all the world's other languages. It is better understood figuratively, as “one who wastes his time.” Let us all waste our time together now and go over some of the basics.

Polynihilia is a small archipelago of craggy, unpleasant islands located in the midst of a sea of despair in which floats the bloated corpses of the ambitious. Its bitter population of twenty-something thousand is perpetually caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is one of our many inhospitable islands, and the hard place is another of our many inhospitable islands! Nobody wants to live in, visit, or even look at Polynihilia, so we have no money.

Faced with a complete lack of natural resources or even the barest shred of brightness in our days, we Polynihilians must rely on exportation of our ideology for our inevitable conquest of all the world! In this way we are a bit like Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, except without any leverage whatsoever. Our chief exports are Sartrean nausea and pokes in the eye. These gifts that we bring to the world are indicative of our wholesale rejection of false gods, including hope and happiness, and our demand that you do the same! Instead the only authentic sensation is pain, preferably a sharp but short-lived agony that overwhelms all our illusory senses and reveals the world for what it really is; a hot, seething ball of pain that extends through time to encompass all the pain that has ever happened and all the pain that ever will happen, coalesced into the agony that we experience in this single moment of the present. Pokes in the eye are perfect for experiencing the authentic world, as their pain fades quickly and can be repeated in a few minutes' time.

As Hooters, much of our time is spent transcribing telegrams from foreign countries into our unintelligible insult-language, Derp, and returning them to the sender. We do however take time out of our busy days to have sensible discourse with like-minded foreigners and perhaps trade some pokes in the eye with them. Our military and economic officials are separately represented and will be arriving shortly to expound on how they fulfill our soul-crushing lack of destiny. We hear tell that the military is working on some excellent weapons of mass eye-poking, but we probably shouldn't be telling anyone that. So! In the meantime let us have meaningful intercourse.

[Polynilhooters]

Hey again everybody! We could no longer contain our excitement about abruptly popping onto the international stage and were getting so antsy waiting for the brass to get here that we decided to head to the top secret underground research and development lab to see what was holding them up. We made a quick sketch on a napkin to give you all a better idea of where we're talking about. The lab is on the island that looks like a zombie dinosaur!



There were no brass down there! They must be making the troops run naked laps around one of the islands with viciously sharp rocks again. So we talked at the military eggheads for a while. They had to keep reminding us that if we were ever going to show the people of the world that absolute dejection was the only acceptable response to the misery of existence, we had better stop being so excitable. But we can afford a little jubilation every once in a while, right? We're just that faithful to our militant faithlessness. Anyway, these guys were being real downers even for Polynihilians, so when they weren't looking, we nabbed the blueprint they were working on! We Hooters can be such tricksters sometimes; those poor scientists are probably still down there, morosely accepting the disappearance of their valuable blueprints as a symbol of the futility of their existences! They are chained to their desks after all so they can't exactly mope anywhere else. Anyway, look!



Just think about how many eyes that could poke at once, especially if the enemy was arranged in a Three Stooges-like formation. A squad of well-train Polynihilians equipped with these could be bringing the enlightenment of overwhelming, intensely irritating pain to whole armies at a time, even if they didn't always get them in the eyes. There are of course still a few design flaws, like the particularly nasty pointy part pointing the wrong way, and the smaller pointy parts on the handle. But perhaps these should be included not as flaws but as features, intended to keep the wielder in the same glorious amount of pain as his foe at all times!

We should probably get this back to the secret lab before the scientists hang themselves, but on the other hand we would totally swap this for some favorable trade terms or a good poke in the eye.

[Bakfeldt]

From the desk of Supreme Ground Commander Klaut von Schadenkrieg

It has come to my attention that our diplomatic arm has been prying into the military state of affairs which has led to glorious confusion. As much as this fills me with a sense of emptiness, I feel that I must clarify some matters.

First and foremost, we must ask that the diplomats cease all attempts to understand our operations. If you attempt to decipher our codes, it will lead down a track of pure entropy of the mind. As evidenced by the so called "Experimental Weapon of Mass Eye-Poking" - In fact, the 'blueprints' that you 'nabbed' were the lunch plans. The fact that nobody was to be found when you came for your unscheduled visit was a direct result of your own failure to plan. As it turns out, we had scheduled our first test of a new Naval vessel. That we took it to the Econihilist sector for the purpose of appropriating lunch was an unforseen complication. Very tasty, though. Very tasty.

Other important matters include the need to reactivate the volcano on the island indicated on the map below in an odd shade of... Is that pink?



Furthermore if any of those who reside in Polynihilia have had any doubts as to whether or not joining the Bakfeldt Forces is the correct decision or not, we have eliminated yet another reason to doubt this. Tomorrow we shall unveil an exciting new piece of military technology, which will provide new opportunity for all to earn just as many Hours per day as every existing Armsman!

[Polynilhooters]

Oh Klaut, you clod-head, our confusion was indeed glorious! It was an exemplary microcosm of the dazed wandering of the soul through the fog of life, drenched with moisture and its own sweat, sure to be aimless for we can have no meaningful aim to our brief tenure as corporeal beings, cursed with consciousness! We sat in revelry for many hours in a thatched hut lit only by the dim fire of our collective indignation at being placed on this archipelago by a randomized and indifferent universe. Meddling in your affairs gives us the faintest silhouette of purpose so that we might be momentarily discernible amongst the chaos before sinking again under the surface of the existential slop—you cannot expect us to stop.

And stop eating the Econihilists! We need them to run our economy. We have an economy, right? And don't steal their bones! We know you've been stealing bones for something; we are constantly having to harangue and lightly discipline squads of militia you send to dig up our sacred burial grounds! We only lightly discipline them because they have guns.

Furthermore, concerning your macho mean-brained plans to reactivate the volcano: how would you even do such a thing, and how could you possibly fathom that this would be a good idea, other than the fact it would be TOTALLY AWESOME?

[Bakfeldt]

From the desk of Supreme Ground Commander Klaut von Schadenkrieg

>> Dictated, Not Read

Re. Eating the Econihilists: Your confusion, it seems, is even more glorious than before. We were not eating the Econihilists, simply exchanging Hours for sustenance. (Have you tried their Poached Beef?)

Re. Stealing your bones: If you do not wish us to dig up your sacred burial grounds, I shall simply be forced to put forth a motion that said grounds no longer be held as sacred.

Re. Reactivation of the Volcano: Yes, it would be totally awesome, as you put it. However our intent is to use it as a training ground. After all, coming under fire from invading troops surely cannot hold a candle to being under the fire spewing forth from the bowels of the earth.

[Polynilhooters]

Hoots from the Hooters!

>>Shaken, not stirred.

First you were eating the Econihilists so you could take their bones, and now you are poaching their beef?! Poaching, just for some bovine flesh! Doesn't anything happen on this island that's not illegal? Even our diplomacy is black market. Speaking of such, we really must do something about the uranium buried under Hooter Isle (Heil for short!). We don't really know what uranium is doing on a Pacific island archipelago, but we do know that the islanders of Polynihilia are stealing it from under our noses and selling it on the black market! Well, what they can pry out of the dirt with their bare hands and sometimes teeth, anyway; in addition to failing to legalize it, we have also failed to develop the capability to mine it in the first place. As Hooters we will do our part to secure a loan from a more powerful nation and use the loan to buy some mining equipment and maybe some party hats. Then we'll turn it over to the Econihilists and hope the shiny machinery will momentarily distract them from printing excess money by carving ever larger numbers into coconut shells.

(A clarification: it is the uranium itself that is illegal. It is illegal for it to be on our island! We don't know why we had this law since we just recently became aware of the existence of uranium on our island—and of the existence of uranium at all—but that doesn't change the fact that there is a seething den of illegality right beneath our very feet and we need to get it out of there right away!)

Re. Re. Stealing our bones! Klaut, now your men are digging up dinosaur fossils and carting them off for whatever nefarious bone-purpose you have conceived! We didn't even know we HAD dinosaurs on this island. But again, you are the men with the guns. P.S. Do you allow women into our island militia? We wouldn't want to be politically incorrect, always referring to the militia as “those men with guns.”

Re. Name confusions. Like: Klaut, why are you German?! And, Econihilists, does the “Eco” in your name refer to economics or ecology? Or both? And us, why is our name PolyNILhooters when the archipelago is named Polynihilia? Did we just forget how to spell “nihilism” when creating ourselves? Answer: yes, we did! But also it has created an interesting duality in our name: “poly,” Greek for “many,” and “nil,” Latin for “none,” juxtaposed! (We believe that anyone can create interesting dualities by jumping in the air, landing in a dramatic pose, and shouting “juxtaposed!”) We are therefore the Manynonehooters! Are there many of us, or none of us? Many nones of us? Answer: yes, we did!

We are off again to have intercourse with the nations of the world and see if they won't give us some expensive mining machinery for cheap. And see about reactivating that volcano.

[Polythinia]

My nation's name sound's like your region's name.