The Dominator and the Prime Minion

...

The Dominator of course serves within his Domination Guard Engineering Force. So he of course goes on missions.

The current mission is extended. It is on behalf of an old patron, of ten or twenty-five years, depending on how one counts. In this mission, the Dominator is training a new minion. Each such minion has of course declared the Prime Minion of the Domination of Eiler. If there should ever be two such minions, the second would probably be declared Minion Secundus.

The Prime Minion is a young mother. The Dominator feels like Thanos in this situation.

... In comic books, Thanos raised the young girl Gamora to maturity. After he and his space pirates obliterated her home planet, he picked her from the wreckage, to be his minion assassin. But he wished her to be socially functionable in his chosen role. So he did trivial things with her, such as open holiday presents and go to see the space dolphins.

... In real life, the Dominator was once a young engineer and got mentored by someone like Thanos, only a mentor loved Tom Lehrer songs, and came to summer parties at least.

To extend the comparison, the mentor (despite being an old geeky engineer) was an assistant to the overworked team lead, probably including administrivia. Thanos (despite being a young geeky exngineer) has filled this role when he was young; comics know about space pirates. The Dominator (despite being an old geeky engineer) also fills that role now - assistant to an overworked team lead. This bears repeating. And now the Domination of Eiler is involved in two generations past the Dominator.

The Dominator is now mentoring the Prime Minion (who probably shares her office with her entire family). The Dominator tries to act human around her. He meets with her daily. He laughs when she laughs, and sometimes when her daughter does. He talks about trivial things with her, such as adventures with the weather. He understands when she takes off for the pre-school concert - just as she understands when he takes off for medical appointments. (The Domination's medical staff is increasingly involved in the Dominator's health.) And he lets her be a sentient being, to learn her own lessons. He increasingly relies upon that.

That's probably a good thing. The Dominator is ancient but probably not as long-lived as Thanos, so the sponsor company sensibly wishes to groom the new Prime Minion as a replacement.

That's fine. They should have been doing that all along for each one of their minions. And the Dominator would like to re-retire and take four-mile bike rides to and from the beach in mid-day soon. Let's just say, the end of the minion-training contract three months from now would be fine.

...

On a worldwide note, the Domination of Eiler admits to being from tradition of colonists! But that is not necerrily wrong! Let's get into that later.

On a related note, the Dominaton of Eiler's artistic force has been trying to prepare the mighty series Powernaut 1992 Part 2 for publication. (www.eilertech.com/stories/powernaut/1992b.htm) But it's been diverted, because documenting the Dominator's private life (herein in these web pages) is just as interesting!

All Hail the Domination!