Part 9: Scottie Peele-Graham

Scottie Peele-Graham 

Leader of the great pilgrimage away from Earth

First Contact: 24 November, 2021

Once the Earth finally began the reincorporation process of those made into a part of the spectral fog, the Mad Baron’s greatest fears became a reality. The increase in population put strains on supply lines no longer equipped to handle such a large population. Mass reincorporation would be impossible without the help of the bunnies and chicks that escaped the Earth. And for their help, they had countless demands, some conflicting, and most threatening the sovereignty of Earth and humans. Many of the reincorporated were traumatized by their experience and distraught by their new bodies, which were not the same as the ones they had before they became a part of the fog. On top of all that, the reincorporated were looked at with suspicion and distrust by those that were never specters.

Even those reunited with loved ones had suspicions. Their first experience of seeing someone reincorporated was the Mad Baron, who was a reincorporated entity of the scientist Jacks K Ellington and Baron Sam Edi, two individuals that became one. This knew person was an entirely new and unique individual, one that people were willing to follow, though undeniably mercurial. People feared that the reincorporated would not be the people they were before, and that they would be prone to madness if they were really multiple people trapped in a single body. The Mad Baron was confident that they were able to successfully separate individual specters in the fog. However, many people united with loved ones still saw different people. In many ways they were. Their bodies were clones of randomized appearance, making them visibly different. Their experiences as a melded entity within the fog also impacted their psyche to the point that their personalities were permanently altered. 

Among the earliest individuals reincorporated was Scotty Peele-Graham, once a renowned engineer among humans. With his regained flesh he soon realized he and others like him would be faced with nothing but adversity on Earth. Scottie was vehemently rejected by his family, who were frightened by what they saw as a different person. This brought him to the difficult conclusion: the reincorporated had to leave. He worked together with the Mad Baron, the bunnies, and the chicks to develop a way to mass capture the spectral fog and leave on a pilgrimage to find a new home. With their help Scottie was able to develop a mass-capture device for the fog and secure a ship to load it. With the fog captured traveling through space the Earth was finally free from its nightmare. 

Now began the pilgrimage of Scott. Traveling through space, the relatively small crew of reincorporated bunnies, chicks, and humans searched for a new home. Once there, they could begin to reincorporate the specters in the chamber. Until then, transportation was easier with fewer physical bodies. The corporeal crew was only a few thousand strong for a ship that could easily house over one-hundred-thousand. 

Scottie Peele-Graham captained the bunny carrot cruiser. The chamber containing the fog was built by chicks. Human farmers managed the bio-decks to provide food for all species. After three years of travel, it finally appeared they found a new home on the planet Cornucopia V. Scottie quickly gathered a small away team and took a corn carrier down to the surface. 

When they landed, Scottie and the away team quickly found themselves surrounded. Here they met their first person from the interstellar turkey race, Tommy K, Saltmaster Supreme of the Sodium Chloride Conglomerate, an interplanetary corporation holding a near monopoly on salt mines in the Mayflower Star System. Tommy K came to alert the crew of their trespass, but thought of a better use. He could tell at first glance this beleaguered group needed a new home. This reminded him of his own past, when he was forced from his home. It also presented an opportunity. Rather than paying for a colony ship to establish the salt mines on the planet, he could simply ask this group. The hulking ship they had outside of orbit could certainly house enough for a starting colony. 

Tommy K agreed to allow Scottie and the others to colonize as long as they worked the mines and met the delivery quotas. He would even loan them aid for the first ten years to help the colony get started. Desperate for a new home, and ultimately deciding the terms were reasonable, they agreed. From there, Scottie and the rest of the corporeal crew began to reincorporate the specters while simultaneously organizing and prospecting the mines. In the years that followed Tommy K and Scottie Peele-Graham established an amicable business relationship. 

After only four years on the planet, everyone had been successfully reincorporated into clones. Scottie had used his engineering expertise to increase efficiency in the mining equipment. Finally feeling as if they found a home, they began to repurpose parts from the carrot cruiser into the colony. Respecting the colony’s great efficiency, many in the Mayflower Star System wanted to hire people from it for their own enterprises. At this point Tommy K helped Scottie to form the corporation RE Incorporated, or Rebuilt Entities Incorporated.  

However, their forms were ultimately denied. The mega-corporation Fowler Industries led by Godfried Gobblepot filed a complaint which brought the process to a halt. Whatever Fowler Industries decided, the entire Mayflower Star System followed. With the complaint, there was a total blockage of trade with the colony. Not even black markets would dare to defy the order from Fowler Industries. 

The only person willing to help them at all was Tommy K. But his aid was not entirely selfless. He saw yet another opportunity to get his own vengeance against Godfried Gobblepot, who he blamed for the collapse of his home planet of Brine. There was one secret that Tommy closely guarded: the true population of the colony. 

At first Tommy K felt cheated, learning that there were only a few hundred people on the massive ship, but as the reincorporation process began he soon learned that the opposite was true. The true size of the colony was in actuality billions. If the other corporations knew they would be in even greater awe in Scottie’s ability to scale the colony to populate an entire planet. 

Though not his objective, Scottie was able to conceal the population of the planet through the construction of massive underground cities. The bunnies naturally lived in underground communities, and Scottie worked with them to adapt their city designs for those being reincorporated. These cities proved to be extremely energy efficient, and worked well with the work as miners when they first arrived on the planet. The existence of underground cities was no secret, but no one realized the real scope of the cities. 

Still, Scottie and the new residents of Cornucopia V relied heavily on trade partners in the Mayflower Star System to support such a large and sudden population. When the trade freeze started it was a disaster for Cornucopia V. The only partner they still had was Tommy K, who was only able to help indirectly, which greatly increased the cost of trade. This type of trade could only slow their demise. 

As Scottie grew more and more desperate, Tommy K started floating more extreme ideas, including war against Fowler Industries. Scottie hated the idea of war, but saw fewer options with each passing day. His people could not even leave since their ship had been dismantled to help construct the city. The prospect of war also terrified him. How could he fight an enemy with countless casserole cruisers* when all his people had were a handful of shabby potato traders. 

Eventually, Tommy K won the argument. His people needed to face war or annihilation. With Tommy K’s help Scottie was able to get control of a small fleet of ten battleships to begin raids against planets controlled by Fowler Industries. Thus began the Great Corporate War of the Mayflower Star System. 

* Battleships in this system had boring designs. To many humans they looked like casserole dishes, which gave them the name of casserole cruisers. 

** Trade vessels were brown and oblong shaped. They looked a lot like russet potatoes.