It was late in the afternoon and its finally time to head to the dining hall, Leela, Tom, Bender, Amy and I were all invited to sit at the captain's table, along with the countess Del La Roca and the Inez and Leo Wong.
As I arrived with Amy on my arm, I see bender making small talk with the countess telling her stories of all of our misadventures in the stars.
I see Inez and Leo and they look completely bored listening to captain zap brannigan telling them the story of how he pacified the elderly people of the retiree nebula.
Walking up to the table Amy and I take our spots. We were mostly ignored by everyone in favor of talking to their partners except for the wongs who took our arrival as an excuse to get out of listening to the idiot brannigan's old war stories.
An interesting thing I didn't notice was brannigan actually had some cyberware now that I could see up close. Most of the real skin seems were hidden by his uniform but his arms and legs were definitely conversions. This actually makes sense considering that while brannigan was doop's golden boy he also held a position of authority in earths military as well. Still, he is far more famous for his work with doop than he is for his work with earths military.
The democratic order of planet is like earth on steroids always getting into wars with other spacefaring nations, and using the power from having the backing of several spacefaring nations top crush all descent. Its one of the reasons I don't like them. They are a bastardization of what was once the greatest dream of all the people who dreamed for a future like star trek.
They pretend to be a peace keeping organization founded on the principals of cooperation and diplomacy, but in reality? they're just a power-hungry conglomerate that is out to keep the status quo that they profit from.
I roll my eyes, and then focus on Amy who has been talking to Inez about how different she looks now. Thanks to the nanite injections Inez looks like she could be Amy's sister. Leo looks to be about 24 of 25 he still has a few laugh lines but he looks far younger from when he was just a wrinkled old prune.
My virus has already taken control of the systems so I'm just going to enjoy my time on the cruise
Bender was having a wonderful time. He's always dreamed of being someone important. Doing something great. It's why he fell in with a group of extremist robots when he was young, taking on the dream of killing all humans. He didn't hate humans, hell most of his best friends were humans, but the more he talked about it the more his friends at the time saw him as someone great.
It wasn't long until those robots were killed during their extremist activities, benders cowardice, or morals, either or, being what saved him because he couldn't go through with mass murder. After that he drifted alone through life, working at a suicide booth construction company, not that he knew that at the time.
when he found out what it was, he couldn't stomach working there anymore, even tried to end his own life in a suicide booth. A bit of poetic irony he found fitting. That lead to the greatest meeting he had ever had running into some 20th century idiot name Philip j fry, the man who became his best friend and saved his ass on multiple occasions.
Working next to his best friend every day was a boon he had never really noticed, until recently. When he finally realized that despite not noticing it, he had already become someone great. Someone important.
He didn't notice this until just now talking with a Literal countess born with a literal silver spoon in her mouth fawning all over him. The way she listened wide eyed to his stories, the way she ooed and awed at his fantastical retellings of all the different shenanigans they got up to. the way she was impressed by the titles and power he held at the fast-rising mega Corp that is planet express.
It reminded him of the kid he used to be. The one that wanted to be someone great, the one that always wanted someone to believe in him. The one who didn't even believe in himself.
Robot God he owed fry so much. He truly made him someone worth remembering.
As the countess invited bender back to her room bender couldn't help but think that despite all the crazy things that had happened to him this year, he was looking forward to what came next.
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Decapodia had a strict caste system the rest of the time, the leader cast cast born with genetic advantages such as more potent stench glands, larger claws, more pronounced shell color, and stronger vocal cords. They held the most important jobs. Judges, scribes, ambassadors, military leaders.
Then there was the servant caste they were only slightly inferior to the upper cast, they handled the jobs such as police, military, farmers, scientist, doctors, and other such jobs.
Finally, there was the peasant caste. Born genetically inferior to all others, they only could do the Scutt work, cleaning the cities, building sand castles, maids, butlers, tutors, janitors, and any other work that was too "demeaning" for the other castes.
It was not possible on decapodia to rise above your station, and it was almost impossible to change anything, as the caste system was genetically ingrained into each and every member of the race. It had to be. For society to be born in a race that dies out every time it produces offspring, the caste system was incredibly necessary and nothing could really change it. Most don't mind the system after all, its what's natural. But some, like zoidburg and his mother, were born different. They were known as the disparate.
They were born with a higher emotional range, no ingrained genetic controls that force them to be happy with their lives, they still have access to their baser instincts like the rest of the populace but for all intents and purposes they were different, and on decapodia different meant hated. They were a few of the only peasant caste disparate. All told only 3 others were disparate and 2 of them took their own lives.
The only true advantage being a disparate offers on decapodia is the fact that you don't die after the mating frenzy you just continue to get older. The average life expectancy for a disparate is 120 years. A long time for a life of scorn and ridicule.
While decapodia may appear to be no different than earth during the mating frenzy. That's only because the upper caste eschews their control of most everything other than the most essential of duties.
Theres a reason zoidburg is thinking about this right now.
Zoidburg was alone. Sure, he was used to that by this point, but ever since coming to mars university to study to become an actual doctor he had been feeling that loneliness more and more.
Zoidburg had never been a good doctor.
He was a xenobiologist and that was only self-trained, the only thing he had ever gone to school for was a doctorate in art history, when he had given up on his dream of becoming a doctor after his mother had spewed her own brand of vitriol killing whatever enthusiasm he had for the short time he had it. He decided he needed a way to make money. Still his heart wasn't in it. Sure, he learned a lot about art, but he was so depressed at the time his grades slipped leaving him to not be qualified for a new career chip.
And that was the thing, there were plenty of planets where his degree would count, every doop aligned planet accepted mars u diplomas and only earth required career chips, but zoidburg loved earth.
he had ever since he was a boy on decapodia watching earth sitcoms that came on the tv, something his mom made sure was always on, they couldn't afford heat, they couldn't afford food, but by God they had tv. It was the only thing that distracted them from their miserable lives.
So zoidburg went to earth, he used his carreer chip as a shop clerk to make some money and lived out of a dumpster. It only took 12 days before zoidburg lost his job for showing up smelling to high hell.
That was painful time in his life, so he did what he did best, he started learning, no matter what others may think zoidburg wasn't an idiot he was actually able to learn things very quickly. His plan? To become a back-alley surgeon. It was illegal sure but he was finally chasing his dream again. He would be a doctor. He would make a living and he would prove his mother wrong.
He bought as many books about xenobiology as he could. He studied day and night, and practiced taking apart multiple animals and started getting better and better with his surgery skills.
Then one day a woman walked by his dumpster, she saw him taking apart a racoon swiftly and putting it back together, it wasn't a fresh racoon zoidburg had already taken it apart thirteen times. He had to stop himself from eating it multiple times. It was more valuable as a practice tool then a meal. The woman looked at him but she didn't show disgust she showed interest.
She offered him a position in an expedition to triton to kill and dissect a Tritonian yeti. Zoidburg wasn't really interested but mom said if he continued to work for her and took the yeti apart with the same efficiency as the racoon she would pay his way to medical school. He agreed in a heartbeat.
It was on that fateful trip that he met his best friend, Hubert Farnsworth. They fell into the methane swamp and after zoidburg saved him from his suicide charge at a yeti the professor told zoidburg that he had contracted hyper malaria and was dead anyways.
Zoidburg knew hyper malaria could take years to show, so Farnsworth asked him to stay by his side and kill him when the malaria started showing up. Zoidburg agreed to the request of his first ever friend. This unforunatley meant he couldn't continue working for mom, so he didn't get the money to go to med school. Zoidburg never mentioned this to Hubert he knew his friend wouldn't agree to him throwing his dream away for their agreement so he kept it secret, still the professor offered him a job as the staff doctor, he couldn't be paid as a doctor but he could practice medicine on the crew of planet express. He continued like this for years until one redhead came in and started changing everything. Zoidburg couldn't decide whether he hated or loved fry. Sure he gave him a chance to become a doctor, but zoidburg despite getting top marks in his class hated med school he couldn't operate on patients or practice medicine due to the hypocratic oath he took when he joined the course. Zoidburg is many things but he is not an oath breaker. And so here he was stuck at mars u. only 3 weeks before he can start his rotation. Everyone in his class hates him because he scores higher than them in human medicine as an alien. Nothing will bring out racism more than feeling inadequate compared to someone of a different race.
Still, he would continue to do his best to become a doctor. And maybe tell that prissy bastard fry where to get off.