The Terra Courier once again shows it has no inhibitions!
When you hear the name Perry Rhodan who doesn't also think of ATLAN?
The Arkonide has distinguished himself many times as a friend and aide to humanity. That he has a few "gaps" or "small deviations" in his otherwise photographic memory may be forgiven this ancient Arkonide.
Nevertheless, it astonishes this reporter how often -consciously or unconsciously?- historical facts have been changed or hushed up in his favor.
This hard hitting story is about his early life on Arkon.
It turns out that the Ark Summia (the activation of the extra brain) was only granted to him because of his descent from an old aristocratic family. This happened despite admonitions from his brother Orbanaschol, who warned that with the extra brain Atlan could now go about doing "mischief with a method." For instance, Atlan could (and did) crack the secret code of a fleet depot on Arkon IV and ran off with an Arkon bomb, thanks to his extra brain, which he otherwise only listened to when he needed a cheap pocket calculator. He played "arming and defusing" with the bomb at the tender age of 15 years.
As a result of his boundless overestimation of his own abilities he once could not defuse it...
Arkon IV was completely destroyed. In the course of this catastrophe his honorable father Emperor Gonozal VII lost his life. Atlan's mother went into exile in the hinterlands of M13, in shame. Atlan, however, succeeded in laying the blame at his brother Orbanaschol's door. For it was he who initiated rescue operations for the Arkonides on Arkon IV immediately, and Atlan was able to convince the councilors of Arkon that he had "the terrible suspicion that he himself could scarcely believe", his brother had something to do with that bomb - the rescue had followed suspiciously fast. Orbanaschol was banished to a prison planet for life. Atlan's fatherly friend Fartuloon, who looked after the orphaned Crystal Prince, provided him with command of a unit of the Arkon fleet a few years later.
To Atlan's horror it was just at this time when the Methane Breathers appeared, forcing Arkon into the largest war since the founding of the Great Empire. Atlan was horrified - because all Arkonides expected that the Crystal Prince would lead the fleet in battle against the Maahks. He decided to leave this chore to more experienced admirals and instead founded a special unit. This was held in high esteem - whereever Atlan appeared with his troops, the Arkonides won. Or rather: he only appeared when the Arkonides were sure to win...
The undoubtable pinnacle of his career: On the planet Dolphart Atlan gave a bracelet of Luurs metal to Grand Admiral Grek-1108 as a gift, as a sign of mutual respect. He and Grek-1108 were forced to protect the civilians by Halutans. In the Arkonidian media this episode was presented as a prime example of the c'lemn'tia Atlanis, Atlan's leniency. In addition, it never was revealed that Atlan had prepared Grek's bracelet with a strong itching powder, which as we now know failed to work on the Maahk metabolism.
Atlan's unit was also an example of modesty regarding ammunition, Atlan did not need to open fire too often. As is proper for such an elite unit they always had full store rooms filled with most exquisite foods and beverages to make up for their hardships. Through Atlan's brilliant tactics not one of the cruisers of his squadron was lost. Young Arkonides positively begged to serve in Atlan's squadron...
Then came a fateful day for Atlan: In the Mist Sector Arkon had taken serious losses, and there were few units left ready for action. Atlan's orders were, together with Space Admiral Sakal, who was not too popular as he never had won a battle in Atlan's absence, to stop the Methanes with forces far inferior to them. It was at this point that Atlan got his silver gray, nearly white hair, as a result of being scared for his life.
Instead he used an alpha-order and went with some colonists on a special mission which would supposedly turn the tide of battle in the Methane war.
He approached the solar system of Larsaf - far enough away from Arkon and the hordes of Methane Breathers. There he forced the settlers to land on the second planet and to build a Robot brain which could take over the administration of the colony, which would become the nucleus of a new empire led by Atlan. To Atlan's pleasure it was discovered that on the third planet there were primitive intelligences similar to Arkonides, who were excellently suited to be laborers. Some of Atlan's commanders naturally got carried away, as did Inkar. He was the commander of the battle cruiser PAITO, which did not have any substantial offensive and defensive powers left, but was nevertheless laden with Larsaf's riches that he, as an alleged god, had got by dishonest means from the Inka he had named after him. On the richest continent, which was named Atlantis to clarify the claims of ownership, Atlan also ordered the construction of an underwater depot of gigantic size for his meager belongings.
Two years went by, during which the Arkonides enjoyed themselves bloody well.
The unwilling Arkon-colonists and the primitives did not feel quite as fine, but Atlan made sure that his countless private secretaries from Larsaf III did not lack for anything. This went on until the day on which they heard the voice of a powerful, unknown being: "Arkonides, you are not here by chance. I, the Immortal, have appointed you as guardians of the still primitive folk of Larsaf III. But you have become lazy and sluggish, and now you have to defend your paradise. Beings from another universe will penetrate this system and, if nobody stops them, will destroy these worlds. For that reason I will give you a weapon with which you can win the battle: this transformer-cannon."
Atlan had pricked up his ears at two words: Immortal and transformer-cannon. He dug deeper: "Immortal, why should I command my men to die for these worlds? We could simply leave and settle elsewhere. Without any service in return I'm not willing to do anything." The superintelligence later known to us as IT was impressed by the fresh words of the crystal prince, and as it saw in him some kind of court jester IT granted him relative immortality. Atlan was skeptical at first, and thought the pulsing metal-egg might be some kind of costume jewelry, and it did not seem likely to grant immortality. But he believed IT, because he did not want to spoil his chances with the powerful being. His followers let him keep the trinket and laughed that he had been duped so easily. But they were also angry, as Atlan started behaving strangely. For instance, it was decreed that one could only keep 3 slaves, 97 less than before the encounter with IT. When the attack of the beings known as Druufs descended upon them and Atlan retreated to his underwater dome and commanded his unit to the first serious battle of its life, the crew mutinied. Tarts, the commander of the TOSOMA, took to his heels with the whole fleet and left behind a raging Atlan. The batteries of the continent Atlantis kept the Druufs off the planet, but the continent sank because of the forces unleashed. Atlan was alone and had no hyper-transmitter to call for help. Tarts meanwhile let himself be celebrated as savior of the Empire, and gave Atlan credit for the discovery of the transformer-cannon, which at last won the Methane War. Unfortunately the glorious commander had been lost without a trace to a strange universe in the course of this and had gotten killed, which made Arkon's population mourn greatly - and made Atlan Time's Lonely One.
IT gave the frustrated Arkonide a new task: He was to guard humanity as mentor of the planet and offer the knowledge of the Arkonides. He set to his task with enormous enthusiasm at once and tried raising the birthrate to replace the Atlantians killed in the attack of the Druufs. His "personal involvement" went so far that IT sentenced him to several thousand years of deep sleep. He offered Atlan two choices: abstinence the next thousand years or castration. The Arkonide chose to bridge that hard time with deep sleep. But the traces of his work are still visible, especially in the population of the Scandinavian countries. If it weren't for ITs intervention, Terra would have become a colony of the Arkonides, an outcome that modern historians and scholars agree on. From the past of the Arkonide here we will give some highlights, sticking to the most remarkable:
-that Atlan founded the first shared flat with stone-age people
-that he won the Olympic Games' long jump, though his gravopak was running on half-power
-that he wanted to show Columbus the fastest way to India
-that he taught the Chinese Dagor basics
-but forgot to explain about eating with knife and fork
-that he made a bet with Hannibal that he'd get at least one elephant across the Alps alive. In this he succeeded, as the elephant bull "Revenge of Tanith" was a robot.
-that he encouraged the Etruscans to the rape of the Sabines
-that Atlan is the same as Abraham
-that Demeter retired to the Cheops pyramid for deep sleep to escape the pesterings of the rude advisor of the pharaoh, Ata-lan
-that he pinched King Arthur's wife as Sir Lancelot
-that he appeared as Dolph Lundgren in several action movies
-that he programmed OS/2 and Softram
Read the second part of our report soon:
Copyright 1996 by Michael Birke
Webmasters John Foyt (rhodanenglish@netscape.net)
and Steve Taylor (steve-taylor@fsmail.net)