h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ant can inject eggs with formic acid. It will take lots of ants... but there are lots of ants. Leave it to me.

*organises batallions of ants:

• yellow pharaoh ants to search out eggs and lay trails
• leaf-cutter ants to carry eggs to the extermination crews
• red ants to inject acid into eggs
• soldier ants to guard the and deal with any ratants that survive the drowning.

There are no daleks on h2g2 island as far as I know.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/alien/daleks.shtml

Daleks are silly, heh heh heh, very primitive!

*approving ant armies*
Timing now. Not fair to do everything to ratants in one post. Rats divert water into tunnels in one post. Then we wait, how long? for lizard to notice. I keep rats away from ratants, but I go to nest and freeze entrance with snowzar gun when water comes. If Lizard or chief ratant come out to fight then your ants go to work. If Lizard doesn't notice, still go ahead. We gave ratants a chance.

Main entrance wide. *pulls on whiskers thoughtfully* I have to go to narrow point to use snowzar. *thinks about how to stay away from ice*

*waits to hear what Amy thinks*

Daleks are only a danger in single story buildings with wide doorways.

How will KL or whasisname get out if the entrance is frozen over? And how will ants get in?

KL may not be there due to Other Events elsewhere. Or are we permitting him to take Enormous Liberties with Continuity?

*surprised* Ants not champion tunnelers? Ants do tunnel almost into nursery then wait. Tunnel from above, don't get frozen. Ratants too big to use you tunnels. Rats make earthwork, then wait for signal before changling water flow.

Lizard will find a way out. Bound to be other exits. But killing eggs is main thing. *stops and thinks, then jumps in the air* Ratant Queen! We must capture queen! Then all ratants must ... they must...

*glowing red eyes look hard at Amy Ant* They must obey new Queen.

*antennae twitch*

They're not going to accept me as a queen. I don't look like a queen, I can't fly, my butt's not big enough.

I'll see if I can borrow a couple of pharaoh ant queens. They usually have a few hundred spares lazing around doing nothing.

And I'll bring in a million brown ants with mechanical earth movers.

*extracts WAP phone from pocket*

Phones are more reliable than the old pheromones

heh heh heh
*skips about excited*
Where will we find ratant queen? Hard to get there through tunnels. Easier to fall through ceiling heh heh heh

Excuse the change of name - I'm on an undercover operation at the Space Center right now.

I will go in with some specially chosen leaf-cutter ants and a few ropes. We will enter through the roof directly into the queen's chamber and hoist her majesty vertically out of there. Can we take her to Rathome?

http://www.h2g2.com/F26140?thread=75849&post=675770 We have begun. Ants call you when Queen is kidnapped. Then you call this number *scratches numbers in dirt* Grigor will give signal to let water loose and will send squad to escort your ants with queen to Rathome *erases numbers* Right now we tease ratants and make diversion, yes?

OK. It will have to wait though -- connection problems.

OK. The excavation has begun. I'll give you a call when we have the queen. Will you be down the caves looking for your owner buddy?

*nods* You do good work.
This is h2g2. I will be everywhere.

Mission accomplished. It seemed to go quite well. KL got hit on the head by a heavy coil of rope but it's not as if there is anything there to hurt.

*grinning so dogteeth all showing*

We flush out ratants! But watch out for reprisal. Yowzupman will be angry about machine. Rats will stay on duty, can soldier ants too?

heh heh time for Lizard to say curses foiled again

You trying those teeth out for a friend?

KL is going for the sympathy vote. Aaww, poor villain.

Jenner has ratant queen now. He will teach her Rat ways. Why did bluebottle attack rats? What did rats ever do to bluebottle?

You don't know where Rathome is. Lizard still mad at you but can't get information from you.

Soldier ants have gas masks?

So the Lizard is still mad is he?

Yes, the soldier ants are fully equipped.

*antennae twitch*

*GL bursts into the room, grinning from ear to ear *

You guys were great! I just reviewed the tapes and saw everything. What an operation! And how appropriate for Rats and Ants to take out the Rat-ants. They had been worrying me ever since I saw that KL and BBW had allied them to themselves. I knew something had to be done about them, but I was busy trying to keep up with his latest scheme. Amy - you saw what happened at the space station - how he brought an army to h2g2 from the Bond movie. I don't know if you saw that I modified his machine and brought an opposing army from the same movie. That almost evens the numbers, but he still has his 20 rat-ants and his killer rabbits. At least he won't have any more rat-ants, thank to you two.

Um, I had an idea that could help to even the numbers even more. Do you think it would be possible for you two to keep the queen rat-ant and to hatch any eggs she lays and raise those Rat-ants to be Good Rat-ants? They would then counterbalance KL's Evil Rat-ants. It would probably take both of you to raise them, since they have some properties of ants and other properties of rats. So, what do you think?

Hmmm. We have the queen but producing fertile eggs now presents us with a slight biological challenge.

Oh dear. Yes, I hadn't thought of that. I guess we need a male Rat-Ant, don't we.

Hmmmmm. Maybe I can do something about that.

If Styx or Jenner don't mind doing the honours we could breed a race of RatRatAnts.