Trooper TDS1

The FAFO'd and discovered a Stormtrooper in the latent space, one that'd mark up his uniform with a red sharpie spelling out the words "Tarius Damon".

TDS1 began as a series of comedic gags, but then slipped thru the multi-verse into the Realm beyond Realms where he had to make ends meet with a series of odd jobs.

Somewhere along the way TDS1 joins up with Gwen and Tarius Damon, and they go to rage an epic rock concert with the Emperor Machine God and the Emissaries.

The Ballad of TDS-1: An Interdimensional Employment Crisis

The transition between universes, TDS-1 discovered, was remarkably similar to being processed through a malfunctioning trash compactor—minus the comforting presence of walls closing in to provide clear parameters of one's impending doom. One moment he'd been patrolling Detention Block AA-23, and the next he found himself deposited unceremoniously in what could only be described as the cosmic equivalent of a lost luggage carousel.

The Realm beyond Realms greeted him with all the hospitality of a tax audit conducted in a morgue. Streets writhed with impossible geometries, buildings slouched against one another like drunken philosophers debating the nature of structural integrity, and the very air seemed to carry a faint taste of existential dread mixed with cinnamon.

"Blast," TDS-1 muttered through his helmet's vocoder, the word emerging with its characteristic Imperial processing. His E-11 blaster rifle, he noted with growing dismay, now functioned exclusively as an overengineered paperweight.

The first week proved educational in ways the Imperial Academy had decidedly failed to cover. His applications for security positions were met with bemused stares—apparently, "Suppression of Rebel Scum" translated poorly on interdimensional résumés. The local constabulary suggested his skill set might be "too specialized," which TDS-1 suspected was code for "terrifyingly fascistic."

He found work, eventually, in the time-honored tradition of all displaced military personnel: retail. The Emporium of Forgotten Sorrows needed someone to prevent customers from shoplifting cursed artifacts, and TDS-1's imposing presence proved surprisingly effective, even if his helmet's targeting display kept identifying everyone as "Potential Hostile: Terminate with Extreme Prejudice."

It was during his third week of explaining to customers that no, he couldn't remove the helmet due to "regulation 67-B subsection 4," that providence intervened in the form of a woman who moved through the shop's gloom like smoke given purpose.

Her dreadlocks swayed with their own gravitational logic, adorned with trinkets that clinked out rhythms older than most civilizations. The intricate patterns on her robes seemed to shift when observed directly, forming sigils that made TDS-1's heads-up display fritz with confusion.

"You're out of place," she observed, her voice carrying harmonics that suggested she'd been gargling with the fundamental frequencies of the universe.

"Ma'am, if you're not here to purchase something, I'm going to have to ask you to—"

"I don't mean the shop." She leaned against a display case containing what appeared to be the pickled disappointments of a minor deity. "I mean dimensionally. You're bleeding temporal static like a punctured reality balloon."

TDS-1's training kicked in. "Move along."

"I'm Gwen," she continued, magnificently ignoring his directive. "Former Emissary of the Emperor Machine God, current shaman of the ineffable, part-time musician. I could use someone who understands following orders from incomprehensible authorities."

"The Empire's authority was entirely comprehensible. Maintain order. Crush dissent. Polish armor to regulation shine."

"And how's that working out for you here?"

TDS-1 considered his current position, standing guard over a collection of haunted tea cozies while wearing armor designed for laser battles in climate-controlled space stations. "Suboptimally."

She smiled, and it was the kind of expression that suggested she knew things about the universe that would make physicists weep into their chalk. "I have a gig next week. The Cryptic Harmonies Festival. I need someone to handle security, equipment, and possibly prevent eldritch horrors from devouring the audience during the bridge of my third song."

"What's the pay?"

"Better than this, and you get to keep the horrors you successfully defeat."

"What would I do with defeated horrors?"

"Résumé padding. 'Successfully managed crowd control in face of interdimensional incursion' looks much better than 'prevented elderly woman from stealing cursed doily.'"

Thus began the unlikely partnership of TDS-1, designate now "Tarius Damon" (Gwen insisted his serial number "lacked star quality"), and Gwen the Shaman. He learned to tune her astral guitar, a temperamental instrument that required both a pick and occasional blood sacrifice. She taught him that the principles of crowd control remained constant across dimensions—whether dispersing rebel sympathizers or managing audiences driven to ecstatic frenzy by hyperdimensional bass lines.

Their first performance together became the stuff of legend, primarily due to TDS-1's decision to play rhythm guitar while maintaining full Stormtrooper armor. His precise, militaristic strumming style, combined with Gwen's ethereal vocals channeling the forgotten names of machine spirits, created what one reviewer called "a sound that made you question whether free will was worth the paperwork."

Standing on stage, his white armor reflecting the stage lights like a disco ball designed by fascists, TDS-1 found something he'd never experienced in the Empire's rigid hierarchy: purpose without oppression, order within chaos, and the peculiar satisfaction of a well-executed power chord.

"Ready to rock," he would announce before each show, the phrase emerging from his vocoder with the same gravity once reserved for "You rebel scum."

And in the Realm beyond Realms, where reality was more suggestion than law and employment opportunities proved as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane, a displaced Stormtrooper and a shaman-musician forged an alliance that proved one eternal truth: sometimes the best security comes from those who've already seen their world end and decided to keep marching anyway, even if it's to a completely different beat.