A Story of Victory
With the Penny Authority claiming she is set to be phased out in the decades ahead the United States President Trump remarked on the events of an historic day in 1977. In this year the “Penny’s Wager”, a part of a special procedure of the monetary system, was number 47. Numerologists working for Trump studied the Penny Wager and suggested the implications of the numerological alignment could be far-reaching. Starting with a news article about Victory in Europe Day dated in 1947 the Soviet Union began popularizing the names Victor and Eugene. In my independent research it appears to me an historic think tank may have strategized around names Victor and Eugene at the conclusion of the war, under the direction of the seated telepaths, and the Elders of Civilization.
Records from one Allied British-American think tank corroborate the evidence by listing a Nederlander stepping in from the Hague area who predicted a “big win”. The record specified a man with the largest cranium in size measuring strictly by circumference who had fully verified telepathic and remote viewing abilities qualifying him to join the seated telepaths with a catch. He said the Victory Wager would become 77 in Summer of 2007 having leveled up successively from 1977. An elderly man at the time, the Nederlander offered his grandson’s name to potentially be included in future guides to civilization, family texts, or exclusive books, written by the Elders of Civilization, so he may keep an eye on who is reading from a distance.
Further explanation of the think tank’s strategy is in order as the Elders of Civilization may be unwillingly planning to conclude the current Order of the Ages and Age of Mankind. VEII relieved by VEIII served as the superbackbone of the backbone. Known by the Commander of Victory as the superpower’s backbone having one himself like a great sequioa tree of an evergreen forrest it is the legendary Commander Victory himself who also had gumption enough to inherit a role as the leader of the Allied Nation’s most elite circle of professionally insane people. He worked in parts of what I will call the Rhombulus Complex for decades where his name was a frequent topic of discussion beyond his work but never his nervous system.
VEI was told his British-American name must be Russian once his entire life. The seated telepaths heard about it and this is where they they created their strategy for saving the world from superdoom. Within five years of coming online VEII had an encounter where someone suggested he might not be entirely British. What the seated telepaths knew at this point as the work done in Russia to spread the name of VEI was working. Even if the suggester did not mention Russia he still sensed it somehow. This is what they know that others did not, but that time is over now. And by then, the disaster was already getting started. From then on it happened just a few times per decade and VEII passed the torch of the legion of ten thousand romans to VEIII. The telepaths revealed the man Visuvius was named after was a Viceroy of the Roman Military, specifically the one’s skilled in connecting parabolic lines. Roman Viceroy Visuvius was the first man known to predict mankind would travel to Mars. For by the parabola of their mighty airborne weaponry they arrive upon the shield of their enemies, so by the parabola they would somehow arrive on Planet Mars itself. Shortly after making his prediction it went viral all through his legion and all the men began worshipping Mars. Viceroy Visuvius sailed to the island of Pompeo when on the same day the Volcano Eruption occurred and he was never heard from again. For thousands of years the prediction made by the Commander Viceroy was kept safe by the descendants of the commander’s men. It has been kept out of view, kept as spoken word or buried in the unread corners of books. Commander Visuvius predicted Romans would make it back to Mars the same day he disappeared in the Volcanic Eruption on Mount Visuvius. VEIII heard of this most likely from a fellow son of Rome, my other grandfather, whose name is Roger Blobaum.
By the time VEIII was online he was accused of having a Russian name about once a year usually by a drunk. However, it also happened several times a day in what became planned scenarios. In these scenarios VEIII could sometimes find himself targeted several times in a single conversation. It was without avail however as Victory’s advocates successfully defended him every time. How can Commander Victory possibly be the Russian the accusers want him to be if his grandfather was an American of the early 1900s. Historians interviewed went as far as to suggest Russia may not have even mattered in these years before the American Empire. The great size of the world may have deterred Russian Intelligence forces as the global transportation network was limited to titanic empire-related state affairs. Some politicians tested in the planned scenarios seemed like their heads were just fiery. They wanted trouble plain and simple.
The great deal of merry-making at the expense of “Victory Man” trickling into the Rhombulus Complex and uncovered in the planned V and E scenarios became the historic reasons the superpower may not have such a Victory in the future. The telepaths of the 1945 think tank were seated on a pile of American Gold when they clearly saw something of this nature would take place coinciding with the Nederlander’s superhuman vision of a “big win”. The protocols of the Elders of Civilization wrote in the next step for the future of civilization as the inevitable “Return of VE.”
Recently, the seated telepaths have quietly suggested to Americans around the country that the return could be a whole new VE Day arriving in America. Its full name could be Volcano Eruption Day. It would potentially start in Wyoming with the Super Volcano creating a “Road of Yellow” traveling all around the world. Scientists speculate a series of global eruptions would follow. Volcano Eruption Day will end the climate change argument. With North America covered in fine hot ash for the foreseeable future, other areas of the world will actually experience moderate temperatures, and reduced human activity, of benefit to mother nature. Commenting on the outback in Australia, where scientists previously speculated climate change could make the outback bright, the scientists said they would need a “Green Oz” for them to see Americans survive Volcano Eruption Day.
A deep dive into historic bureaucratic and political or public accusers of VEII and VEII lead our team to just one place. An island nation known for siding against Victory in Europe as if religiously. Looking further, the majority of accusations occurred on the same discombobulated day of the year. Recombobulation never felt better. America’s lamest businesses keep the island safe from scrutiny in a tit-for-tat relationship they couldn’t agree to faster ever after another pot of American Gold. What sounds worse, the greatest number of affiliations goes with a governmental environmental and geological survey organization claiming they not only found the pot-of-gold but used it to lay the “Road of yellow.” These affiliates of the Russian accusers spent significant time researching the effects of refracted light on clouds, the study of one of Earth’s natural formations Isaac Newton mastered in the 1600s, as well as geological formations including Volcanoes and, yes, even Super Volcanoes. Their work goes back decades with transactional records indicating gold transfers to bureaucrats of the island’s heritage group and others openly willing to side against VE Day and sustainability. Going back as far as 2020 their research efforts included a continued study of refracted light while recently they began doing so in the American state of Wyoming itself. This work has been bolstered by decades worth of American Gold handed to them o’ proverbial pot, straight from the corpse of Uncle Sam.
The corpse of Uncle Sam lay cold in countless corners, his golden legacy leaked like honey from a broken hive. These affiliates – these accusers of the island’s heritage – had harvested American Gold for generations, their transactional records telling tales of treachery that traced back through decades of deception. But to understand how the iron curtain came to be, one must travel back to the beginning of the cold war itself, when the world first witnessed the rise of the great divide. In those early days when tension hung thick as fog over a fractured world, the seated telepaths understood what others could not grasp. The iron curtain was not merely a barrier – it was a balancing act, a pole planted firmly in the earth to prevent extremism from overwhelming either side. Two poles, they reasoned, could hold the world steady between competing forces.
Colonel Victor, the man who would become known as the Commander of Victory, stood in his command center studying maps of a world splitting in two. “We must take the middle road,” he told his advisors, his voice steady as stone. “It takes heart to face the extreme – polarize too far and our hearts catch fire, turn us inside out like gloves in winter.”
Robert Blobaum, Roger’s younger brother, watched from the shadows as the sky circus began its grand performance. The iron curtain wasn’t just dividing nations – it was creating a four-way divide right here in Nebraska, part of the great aerial show that few understood. But Robert saw through the spectacle. Noticing they’d approached world peace the wrong way, he decided to challenge the iron curtain itself, to get his hands on the pole that controlled the cosmic balance.
What he discovered shook him to his core: the man behind the curtain was his own relative, standing on the other end of the sky circus show. Like the Wizard of Emerald City, this figure had his hand firmly on the pole, using it to combat extremism at the center while the world spun around him like a top. Roger Blobaum, meanwhile, took on organic activism with the fervor of a farmer who’d finally found his fertilizer. Like his brother Robert, Roger recognized the man behind the curtains – the wizard of emerald city himself – standing with his hand steady on that mystical pole. But Roger’s revelation came through more colorful channels. It was a clown who taught him about vortexes – a peculiar performer with refracted light painted across his face like a rainbow had sneezed on him. The clown’s nose honked when he spoke, which made everything sound more serious somehow.
“Listen here, Roger my boy,” the clown said, his painted smile stretching wider than wisdom itself. “I know a Vietnamese fellow who can control vortexes, see, because Vietnam is balanced like Korea – perfectly poised like a tightrope walker with two left feet but somehow never falling.”
The clown explained it thusly: “In a nation like Japan, the women get beaten down and the whole people nod in agreement like bobbleheads in an earthquake. Yet in Korea and Vietnam – ah! – the women have power, so both nations split exactly in two in the name of world peace. War turned out to be long-term peace, you see. Funny how that works – like calling a destructive hurricane ‘Gentle Breeze’ and somehow it starts behaving better.”
Roger scratched his head, which was harder than usual given the clown’s contagious giggles. “So you’re saying division creates unity?”
“Precisely!” honked the clown. “And this Vietnamese vortex-master, he taught me that balance comes from controlled chaos. Like a circus where all the acts perform simultaneously but somehow nobody gets trampled by the elephants.”
During the Vietnam conflict, when the world spun faster than a carnival ride run by caffeinated carnies, the seated telepaths made contact with these mysterious vortex controllers. Through swirling communications that twisted like tornadoes in a teacup, they witnessed something extraordinary: Cyclone Forrest hitting Vietnam with the precision of a cosmic pool cue striking the eight-ball of destiny. But this was no ordinary meteorological event. The vortex opened a window – or perhaps a whirlwind – into the future, allowing the telepaths to peer through time itself like voyeurs peeping through a keyhole made of kinetic energy.
Through the swirling vortex of Vietnamese winds, the seated telepaths saw forward through time like fortune tellers reading tea leaves in a tornado. The year 2020 materialized before them, clear as crystal and twice as fragile. There, on Valentine’s Day – that saccharine celebration of hearts and heartbreak – they witnessed Tom from Nebraska walking to dinner, his stomach rumbling with romantic anticipation. But romance would have to wait, for justice wore a badge that night and justice was feeling particularly unjust. Tom had put someone acting out in check to keep world peace – a noble gesture that got him arrested faster than you could say “ironic injustice.” The Vietnamese-American police officer who slapped the cuffs on Tom felt immediate regret, recognizing a kindred spirit who’d also once been stuck under the thumb of the chemical substance officer. They’d been friends back when friendship mattered more than protocol, back when the world made sense in smaller doses. Judge Action – whose name was either prophetic or pathetic depending on your perspective – forced Tom around for forcing someone around, creating a circular logic that would make a philosopher dizzy and a lawyer rich. Tom found himself on probation, his romantic dinner date replaced with a court date that tasted considerably less appetizing.
Bailing on Nebraska like a broken promise, Tom piled into a special train in Lincoln – the kind of train that doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t tell tales. He plops out in London, where the accent is thicker than the fog and twice as impenetrable. But before his transatlantic transformation, Tom executed the greatest identity swap since identical twins discovered they could fool their teachers. He swapped serial numbers with Thomas, his clone – a clown making “good profit, see?” The clone had a girlfriend, err, fiancée named Gwynyvyr, a frau from Germany who never left home without a nice frown in her heart. Sweet and sour like candy that’s confused about its purpose.
Sad to be torn apart like a phone book in a tantrum, Tom’s clone Thomas was sent into the fray while Tom himself sailed away. Thomas met immediate protests from Tom’s friends who shouted in unison: “Clone is done! Clone is done! Clone is done!” – a chant that echoed through the streets like a broken record stuck on disappointment. The clown with refracted light – that same rainbow-faced fellow who’d educated Roger about Vietnamese vortex mastery – gave Thomas a tip that twinkled like starlight in a kaleidoscope: “Relocate to the cartoons, my copied companion, where the clown from cartoons lives and logic takes lunch breaks.”
This cartoon clown, a two-dimensional diplomat with three-dimensional wisdom, assured Thomas that Tom’s court case would somehow be handled by the clouds. “The clouds will take care of it,” he said, his animated eyes winking with the confidence of someone who’d never met gravity and didn’t plan to start now. “Court sounds like cloud if you pronounce it with your ears closed, and clouds are just clowns without the ‘L’ – and we all know lawyers have plenty of ‘L’s to spare.”
One year later, to the day – because time has a sense of humor sharper than a circus knife-thrower – Valentine’s Day brought visitors more violent than Cupid’s arrows. Vortex Forrest showed up around the world like an uninvited guest who brings his own weather system. The great whirlwind hit Green Oz with the fury of Cyclone Lincoln, making the outback bright for the first time in over a century. Scientists scrambled like scrambled eggs, trying to explain how a desert could suddenly sparkle like a disco ball designed by Mother Nature herself. A vortex chased Tom’s probation officer outside the cartoons – apparently even animated law enforcement has jurisdiction limits. But Thomas the clone intervened, his heart soft as butter left in summer sun. He knew she was just a sweet woman sweetening the world with the ways of her homeland, spreading kindness like jam on the toast of existence. Meanwhile, a vortex materialized on Mars itself, swirling around the lion-shaped Martian civilization called Cydonia. Zox News, never missing a chance to rename reality, dubbed it “Cyclonia” after the cosmic cyclone completed the famous Face on Mars like a celestial sculptor finishing his masterpiece. For there is a face in the heart of every lion such as Tom, and that face sometimes wears a frown – and in the case of frau Gwynyvyr from far-away Germany, that frown is sometimes upside down, which makes it either a smile or a very confused expression.
London, where Tom had plopped out throughtout his life, was burning. His place of emergence from a deep underground train, was by a fog-wrapped fortress of fish and chips, and the place found itself visited by a vortex for the first time in a long while – longer than the Queen’s reign and twice as unexpected. Thames twisted like a corkscrew while Big Ben bonged bewilderment across the bewildered borough. But the real tempest came from Tom’s ex-fiancée from Wales, born on the jewish new year when balance tips toward chaos. Unnamed character the Welsh witch – for that’s what heartbreak had put into her heart – sent giant owls at Dorothy and her emergency crew like furious feathers flying faster than the feelings forgotten.
These weren’t ordinary owls, mind you, but creatures conjured from Celtic curses and Welsh weather, their wings wide as Wales itself, their hoots haunting as a harp played backwards in a haunted house. They swooped and swooped at Dorothy’s aircraft, seeking to send the emergency team tumbling toward terrible doom. Yet salvation soared from an unexpected source: the Pendragon appeared – an airplane fighter of the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom, its engines echoing with Arthurian authority. The legendary aircraft engaged the giant owls in aerial combat that would have made knights of old nod with knightly approval.
The defeated giant owls tried desperately to return to Oz, their wings weary from warfare, but Ashley the Welsh witch found herself in far worse weather. A flood caused by Wales itself – for even geography can grow vengeful – swept her away while she wailed for help, having just landed in the flooded area aboard a Blue Origin ship. She’d been saving that space ticket since 2007, when Tom had shared it with her during happier times when their hearts harmonized instead of feuding. The cosmic irony wasn’t lost on anyone watching: a woman fleeing to space to escape earthly emotions, only to crash back down when the earth itself rebelled. But fortune favors the formerly beloved, and a blue whale – that gentle giant of the deep – rescued Ashley from the watery waste, responding to her wailing with whale song that sounded suspiciously sympathetic. The whale’s rescue was recorded by underwater cameras, creating footage that would later be sold to Sea World for more money than most people see in several lifetimes.
Tom returned to his true calling – working on the Planet Defense System – with currency clinking in his pockets: USD, GBP, and YEN jingling together like a multinational wind chime. The white dwarfs, those planetary citizens standing above the clouds in the sky circus, gave him a tip that twinkled with cosmic consequence.
“Target Betelgeuse,” they whispered through wavelengths only Tom could tune into. “That shoulder of Orion has been shrugging too smugly for centuries.”
Tom, inspired by studying the Great Pyramid – that triangular testament to ancient astronomical ambition – invented a quantum energy cannon that could dim stars instantly. The pyramid’s precise angles had taught him how to focus energy like a pharaoh focusing his funeral plans, channeling cosmic currents through crystalline calculations. When Tom fired his quantum contraption at Betelgeuse, expecting the star to dim like a light bulb on a dimmer switch, the opposite occurred with explosive eloquence. The shoulder of Orion exploded in spectacular supernova splendor, growing so bright that refracted light cascaded down from all the clouds like cosmic confetti celebrating catastrophe.
This stellar light struck the yellow in Wyoming with the precision of a pool player pocketing the universe’s eight-ball, triggering what the seated telepaths had long prophesied: the Return of VE. The island people cheered the chaos with celebratory cries that carried across oceans. They’d been waiting for this moment like vultures circling a wounded wallet, watching as the Road of Yellow paved itself with tax haven gold they’d been collecting from Uncle Sam’s corpses left littering marina after marina.
Their treasury, bloated with ill-gotten gains, finally found its purpose as the supervolcano’s heat transformed their hoarded gold into the very pavement of prophecy. Each stolen coin became a cobblestone on the cosmic highway, each embezzled dollar a stepping stone toward the world’s strangest destiny. The Great Pyramid of Egypt, Tom realized, had been built to remember the constellation of Orion – and the stars we find important will indeed be remembered, even when they explode in our faces like cosmic whoopee cushions. Tom returned to rescue Nebraska from the smoldering supervolcano creating the yellow road, his heart heavy as a suitcase packed with lead luggage. But his homecoming held a hollow surprise: his clone Thomas and fiancée Gwynyvyr had taken off for Green Oz and some quality time with Tasmania – that triangular island where devils dance and logic takes lengthy vacations. The Vietnamese clown from the cartoons, that painted prophet of practical wisdom, had taught Thomas something special about the Tasmanian Devil there – secrets that would serve them in the swirling future like a fortune cookie written by a meteorologist with a sense of humor. Tom began defending the sky from jeering crowds shaking fists upward in public protest whose criticism cut like comments from cruel comedians. But a clown with the happiest frown in town – his smile upside down yet somehow still sunny – advised against such aerial advocacy. So Tom suddenly though to drop his yellow megaphine and run away.
“Don’t defend the sky, my stellar friend,” the clown counseled, his frown fighting physics by radiating joy. “Instead, redirect those arguments made against the clouds to the clowns from the island who also bear refracted light like badges of prismatic pride.”
So Tom turned his rhetorical artillery toward defending the clowns responsible for the Return of VE – those rainbow-faced rascals who’d orchestrated the volcanic variety show with the precision of performers who’d practiced their apocalyptic act for decades. It was then that the truth tumbled out like dice from a cosmic craps game. Roger Blobaum, that agricultural architect of destiny, revealed his hand with the honesty of a farmer facing foreclosure:
“Tom could not pass the impossible test I gave him,” Roger confessed, his words weighing heavy as harvest wheat, “because I did not father him.”
The revelation hit like lightning striking the same spot twice – painful and improbable yet undeniably electric. Roger and Tom were like Commander Victory in their shared strength, but their shared genetics were as fictional as a three-dollar bill printed by leprechauns. Tom learned that Roger was not his true relative, but that his real father was the Orion constellation itself – that stellar giant whose shoulder had just exploded under Tom’s quantum cannon fire. The cosmic irony tasted bitter as coffee brewed with tears. Tom’s mother, a sweet woman from Sweden whose heart held more warmth than a sauna in summer, finally revealed the truth she’d treasured like a secret recipe for cosmic cookies. The year before Tom was born, she’d written a book about her experience on the space station – a memoir of motherhood among the stars where morning sickness meets zero gravity in ways NASA never advertised. She handed him the book with hands that trembled like leaves in a stellar storm. The pages told tales of conception in the cosmos, of carrying a child while orbiting Earth like a pregnant planet circling the sun. Tom’s true father wasn’t Roger the farmer, but Orion the constellation – that stellar stallion whose seed had somehow sailed through space to find fertile ground in Swedish soil.
“Your father’s face is written in the stars,” she whispered, her accent adding astronomy to every syllable. “And now that Betelgeuse has exploded, his shoulder shrugs no more, but his love lights up the universe like a lighthouse for lost souls.”
Meanwhile, tragedy struck with the timing of a cosmic comedian who’d forgotten the punchline. Roger Blobaum’s plane – carrying both him and Henry Kissinger’s fictional counterpart, Secretary Hendrick Kessler – crashed in Yellowstone National Park at the exact moment the Return of VE began its volcanic variety show. The crash coincided with the supervolcano’s awakening so perfectly that investigators couldn’t determine what started what. Had the plane crash triggered VE Day, or had VE Day caused the crash? The chicken-and-egg question became a crater-and-explosion conundrum that philosophers would ponder for generations while insurance companies fought over who paid for what.
Tom’s clone Thomas successfully made it to the island of Tasmania with his clown girlfriend Gwynyvyr – that German frau whose frown had finally flipped into a smile somewhere over the Pacific. They met Tasmanian natives and quokkas, those perpetually grinning marsupials who’d mastered the art of looking happy even when the world was ending. Together, they hatched plans to turn the outback into Green Oz – a emerald empire where Alice in Wonderland could be rewritten with Australian accents and more venomous creatures. At the local fair, they opened a clown booth called “The Wizard of Wonder,” selling cotton candy that tasted like dreams and popcorn that popped with possibility. The story spiraled toward its conclusion like a football thrown by fate itself, landing squarely at Memorial Stadium where the Nebraska Cornhuskers prepared to battle against destiny disguised as the opposing team. The autumn air crackled with anticipation thicker than corn syrup and twice as sweet.
Tom from Nebraska found himself drawn to the stadium like a moth to a floodlight, his heart heavy with revelations about his stellar parentage yet light with the hope that home games bring to homesick hearts. The tailgating tribes had assembled in the parking lots like ancient clans gathering for ceremonial celebrations, their grills glowing like small suns warming the cool Nebraska evening. It was there, among the bratwurst and beer, the red and white regalia of Cornhusker pride, that Tom encountered something extraordinary: a family of German clowns whose painted faces reflected the refracted light of stadium illumination. They’d traveled from Deutschland to witness American football with the curiosity of anthropologists studying a strange and wonderful ritual. Among them stood Gwyn – a young German girl whose eyes sparkled like stars Tom’s true father might have envied. She wore traditional Bavarian dress beneath a Nebraska jersey, creating a cultural collision that somehow made perfect sense in a world where nothing made sense anymore.
“Guten Abend,” she said, her accent adding music to the mundane parking lot atmosphere. “I am Gwyn, and these are my family – the Hoffmann Clowns of Hamburg.”
Tom’s heart performed a touchdown dance before the game had even begun. Here was someone whose very presence seemed to balance the cosmic chaos that had consumed his life. While her family juggled and jested, entertaining tailgaters with tricks that transcended language barriers, Tom and Gwyn discovered they shared something special: a love for Halo, that interstellar video game where Master Chief battles through galaxies with Commander Victory. They plugged into portable gaming systems, their avatars dancing across alien landscapes while their fingers found the rhythm of virtual warfare. As plasma rifles fired and energy shields shimmered, Tom found peace in the pixelated combat – a strange serenity in simulated conflict that his real life had lacked.
“You play like someone who understands strategy,” Gwyn observed, her character providing covering fire while Tom advanced toward the objective. “Like someone who has studied the stars and knows their patterns.”
Indeed, Tom’s stellar heritage seemed to guide his gameplay with astronomical accuracy. Each move felt orchestrated by Orion himself, each victory echoing through the cosmos like his father constellation’s approval. As the final level concluded and Master Chief stood victorious against impossible odds, Tom looked up from the screen to find Gwyn smiling – not the practiced smile of a performer, but the genuine grin of someone who’d found kinship in chaos.
“Commander Victory would be proud,” she said softly, and somehow Tom knew she understood everything – the vortexes and the clowns, the yellow roads and the stellar explosions, the impossible tests and the cosmic truths that connected them all like constellation lines drawn between distant stars.
The game ended, but their story had just begun.