"Try and take over the world"
\


So, I've been thinking a lot about world domination recently. Well, hey. Spring rolls around, and a young man's thoughts naturally turn to crushing his enemies beneath his booted heel. Or women. I forget which. For the purposes of this thread we'll say it's the first one, as there's enough on the internet about womens' booted heels, thanks very much.

Ahem.

Anyway.

I've been thinking a lot about world domination recently. Some mates and I at university used to lie around on the grass playing a thought game whereby we each tried to defeat each other's plans for taking over the world. But that was just a game. Now? Well. Now I really want to take over the world, and teenaged plans based around creating an army of clones of Paddy Ashdown in a secret Antarctic lair don't really make the grade in the modern cut and thrust of global domination.

So I'm interested in your thoughts, people. You, the intelligent, devious, cunning genii that make up this board's populace. If you were to decide to take over the world, or a small part of it, or just a country or, hey, let's not exclude those with more modest ambitions, even just your local parish, how would you go about it?

I can see three basic methods of getting one's sticky mitts on power:

(1) The legitimate route. Our old pal Hitler had this one down cold. You use the mechanisms of state to get you where you want to go - and the populace will thank you for subjugating them! Genius! The downside to this is that in the early stages it involves a bit too much of the door to door "Helloooo, have you considered voting for the Mr Chris Evil Overlord party? We're in favour of keeping bin collections at once per week" stuff, and I'm chronically shy with strangers (unless I'm having them dipped into vats of boiling oil, in which case I'm much more chatty). So maybe that's not a goer.

(2) By force. Now we're talking. Gather your armies and steamroller over the opposition. Install yourself as the leader and wear a big uniform with lots of shiny medals on it for things like "Services to My Self", "Being the Greatest" and "The Who Da Man Medal Of Honour". However, one needs to aquire an army for this. I'm thinking that can either be done as part of route (1) (if you're using the army for a wider take-over of power than just the country), or, on a country level, by either (i) paying for an army or (ii) rabble-rousing and creating an armed insurrection. Once you've got your country, you step up military production and then move onto the bigger world stage.

(3) By being the power behind the throne - what I like to call the "Grand Vizier" route (mainly because I like the word "Vizier"). On this route one hitches one's cart to another man's donkey, as it were, so the other chap does all the leg work of getting into power. You can just subtly (or not so subtly, depending on what hold you have over your Manchurian Candidate) steer him or her in the route you want to go. What's more - no kissing babies for you! Just the harem and the money, and the satisfaction of being able to put your feet up at the end of a hard day's Viziering and have some hippies burnt alive in your mammoth fireplace. The downside to this route is that one needs to find the suitable donkey in the first place, and as the Labour Party has found, they're not exactly ten a penny. Maybe Hillary will be looking for a job?

So, give me you thoughts people. What's your route to power?*


*Please note that by sharing your route to power on this thread you agree that your idea may be mercilessly stolen by Mr Chris and used against you. Furthermore by reading this thread you hereby acknowledge and agree that Mr Chris will have no liability to you when his tanks roll through your place of residence, whether for personal inury or damage to your azaleas. Your evil empire may be at risk if you do not keep up payments to your henchmen.