The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids (short story)
From Jenny Everywhere Wiki
Cupid Fact File #001: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids was a Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids short story written by Aristide Twain.
Although it was not among the earliest Cupids stories created, it was first in the official reading order of the series, after a “0” slot taken by COMIC: The Beginner's Guide to Multiversal Theory, serving as an introduction to the titular Crew and making some of its backstory more explicit than before.
Contents
Subjects
The piece describes the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, its aims, its history, its technology. As a Cupid Fact File, its intended readership is members of the Crew itself, so just in case, a few key pieces of information that any Clockwork Cherub should already know, and which outsiders finding the File should not be permitted to access, are redacted.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- The Creator originated in the Prime Universe.
- She created the Cupid Homeworld, a “parallel pocket dimension”, as “the perfect habitat for an ever-expanding civilisation of Clockwork Cherubs”, taking the form of a “a vast expanse of pure blue skies, filled with solid celfoam clouds upon which creatures weighing up to 100 kilograms can step without fear”.
- The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids has a colony called Morningstar 1 on the planet Venus in the 97th Cosmos.
Other
- The Cupid Fact File was created to fill the “long-vacant ‘Number One’ slot in the Cupid Archives”.
- The Clockwork Cherubs were designed by the Creator “in the year 196[REDACTED]” in the Prime Universe.
- The Cupids were programmed by their Creator with the purpose of “spreading peace and joy through all of Creation and stamp out strife and hatred wherever [they] encountered it”. Making the practical call that “the Power of Love was the most efficient way to achieve maximum happiness”, she placed them under the “aegis” of Aphrodite and “fashioned them in the likeness of winged Cupid”.
- The Clockwork Cherubs are made mostly out of “copper alloy”. The original Clockwork Cherubs were two feet tall.
- The Creator retired from public life to live in the Forbidden Manor.
- The Cupid Parliament is headed by the Copper-Colored Council of Elders, itself headed by the Cupid Prime himself. The Parliament also comprises the Prefects of the “many specialised Departments” of the Cupid Intelligence Institute.
- These Departments include the Department of Documentation, the Department of Applied Contrafibulation, the Department of Redundancy Department and, “of course,” the Department of Departments.
- New Cupids are created in batches of one hundred, every one to seven years, by the automated Great Foundries based on new designs transmitted by the Creator.
- When the Fact File was last updated, the latest Mark was the Mark XVII, while the Mark I constitute the earliest Cupids.
- The Creator designed the dematerialisation circuits and conceptual drives which became the basis of the Fog Ships, which are “widely acknowledged in the community of interdimensional travellers as some of the best, most comfortable Void Ships in existence”.
- After the Creator left, the secret formula for the biochemical Cupid Love Potion was left to the Department of Chemistry, but the Prefect, #257, lost it, leading to him losing his post and being transferred to the Department of Alchemy. Aphrodite herself stepped in to provide the Crew with a purely supernatural replacement, much to the puzzlement of the Department of Theology, the Department of Wizardry and the Department of Philosophy.
- The Crew uses Celestial Telescopes to remotely detect new worlds, then sends out a scouting party ahead (“usually the Scarlet Wings elite taskforce”) before finally sending out regular romanticising missions once the world's terrain and dangers are known.
- The Blue Feather are cited as an example of incompetence within the Crew, and Conquest-932 as an example of malice.
- It is mentioned that “multiversal authorities, from the Council of Frogs to the [REDACTED] Lords of [REDACTED], “frown upon such practices” as conquering other dimensions altogether.
- The Crew has a colony called Morningstar 1 on the planet Venus in the 97th Cosmos.
Continuity
- The Creator originally housed her first few Clockwork Cherubs in her garage in the Prime Universe before it grew too small and she created the Cupid Homeworld instead. This fact was also mentioned in PROSE: Lord Thymon and the Department of Problem-Solving.
- #257 of the Department of Alchemy, and the Crew's 97th Cosmos base of Morningstar 1, would go on to be central to PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians.
- The Department of Wizardry was also mentioned in PROSE: The Winter Quests.
- The Department of Redundancy Department appeared in the metallic flesh in PROSE: Magic Trick, which also revealed the fate of the Department of Philosophy.
- The Council of Frogs was later referenced in PROSE: A World of Pure Unimagination.
- The Cupids' anti-grav engines were next mentioned in PROSE: A Copper-Colored Christmas Carol as “anti-gravity circuits”.
- The Fog Ships' conceptual engines were next mentioned in PROSE: Father Christmas, which elaborated on their functions and capitalised the name as Conceptual Engines for the first time. A nonspecific “engine” had first been mentioned as a Fog Ship component in PROSE: The Labors of Juliet.
- The Department of Applied Contrafibulation would again be mentioned in PROSE: The Metafictional Meddler.
Behind the scenes
Read online
The story can be read on the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids website. It is also reproduced on this Wiki with permission.
