L. Ron Hubbard is one of my heroes. The man opened my eyes... your eyes...

...our eyes...

...to the possibilities of a modern religion built from scratch for a new world. To the limitless imagination, the humanity, the strength, the power, and the profitability of spirituality, Hubbard devoted his life to making ours better.

When, in 1985, Hubbard made the decision to separate his sprit body from his meat body and move on to help the galactic ancients on another astral plane recover from The Gamatron Wars of Forbidden Soulstation Omega 9, it was like somebody had canceled my spiritual credit card.

He inspired me so much that I began the process of creating my own religion. I've already given you peek into the world of A Neopoleon Religion in the form a pamphlet describing some of the gods of my pantheon.

On that day, I took phone calls from 159 world leaders, all asking me to withdraw A Neopoleon Religion because, and I quote the Prime Minister of the North Pole, "We are afraid of your power."

 Soon the world - and that includes you, Mr Prime Minister of the North Pole - will see that there is nothing to be afraid of.

For me.

Every religion must have a beginning. A story of how it came to be.

This is mine. Told over seven days, I deliver unto you the history of how all came to be (my take on it, anyway).

For the few of you out there who haven't already been converted by my jellyfish armies (that gets explained a few books after creation), A Neopoleon Creation Story is written from my point of view. That's because, in A Neopoleon Religion, I, Rory Blyth, am The God of Gods.

Get ready to take notes.

This is how I did it...

In the beginning, there was Me.

I looked down upon what I created, and I could only see my tummy and my legs and my feetsies, so I created a mirror, and I looked in the mirror, and I saw Me staring back, and I said, "We're off to a good start."

I wanted a biased second opinion, so I said, "Let there be Jerry the Sycophant," and, lo, Jerry came into being.

"How do I look, Jerry?"

Jerry winced.

"Are you gay? Why are you asking me how you look? Why don't you create something else to look at you that wouldn't make people think you were a poofter."

I hadn't had a lot of experience creating things yet, and I had obviously been distracted when I created Jerry, as he didn't turn out right.

To handle the problem, I created Death. I went to Jerry, and I said, "Hey, Jerry... come over here for a minute. I want to show you something."

I think he thought I was going to ask him how I looked again, because he had that I-don't-think-so-face-on, but I was God, and that was that, and he would do as I told him (I had a rudimentary version of Free Will in place, but because things were so new, I wanted to keep a handle on everything so my creations wouldn't go wandering out to the Void and get lost).

"Right over this way, Jerry..."

I waved him over, and he stood at My side.

"See that? Right down there..."

"What am I looking at?"

"Can't see it? You have to kind of crouch and squint and sort of tilt your head sideways..."

"I still don't see anything."

"Really? Because there's definitely something out there. Lean forward a little."

Jerry leaned forward.

"Look, God. I think it's great that You want to include me in various activities and whatever, but I have things to do, You know?"

I wondered what in the name of Me there was for Jerry to do. All that existed was Me, him, Death, and a whole lot of Nothing (yeah, you can't have any quantity of Nothing, but you find a better way to explain all that there wasn't).

I ignored the thought. It wouldn't matter much longer.

"I'm telling, you Jerry... you gotta get closer... you gotta-... oh, to hell with it."

I kicked Jerry right through the goal posts of Death, and watched as My first creation was undone. I saw that Death would make a good wastebasket for My first few tries at creating living things, and I thought it was good.

Before trying to create another living thing, I thought I could do with a little practice. Creating a few trifles; little knick-knacks of existence.

So I created Time. And it was ghastly.

With Time going, I was able to see how, down the years and eons and millennia, I was alone. Without Time, I hadn't had so constant an understanding of how little socializing I was doing. It was lonely. Life with Time and loneliness made me long for Jerry. Despite his flaws, he was the only other entity I'd ever known.

Loneliness had to go.

I said, "Let there be another Jerry the Sycophant, but make him better this time, and also actually make him sycophantish because he wasn't that at all in the first version."

Jerry popped out of the nothingness. I know I hadn't been exacting in My specifications for Jerry 2.0, but I thought, hey, I can only get better at this.

I was wrong.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing.

"What's what?" said Jerry.

"That. That thing right there. In your torso; what's that thing in your torso? What's it doing there?"

I pointed and kinda circled My finger while I was doing it to indicate the general area of his torso.

"What is that thing? Did I order that? Where did it come from? What is it?"

"Oh, this?" said Jerry, pointing to his torso.

"Yes. That."

"It's a rocket launcher."

"What do you have a rocket launcher for?"

"To go with my button-activated Karate Chop Action Arm with Lifelike Karate Chopping Motion."

If you think about it, I deserved this. When I ordered Jerry 2.0, I wasn't specific about the details.

I looked at Jerry and said, "Is this going to happen each time I create something? I don't want to have to specify every last feature of the thing I'm bringing into existence. Why can't I do it this way? Why can't It's way easier to be vague. Like, if I wanted a sandwich, why couldn't I just say, 'I want a sandwich'?"

A sandwich appeared.

Jerry chortled. Apparently the universe doesn't know whether you truly want to create something, or, as I was doing, speaking to your new Jerry about a hypothetical situation in which you might say something about wanting a sandwich. 

I had already lost control. I didn't really know what I was doing. Creationism doesn't come with a manual. I had screwed up on My second Jerry, so I was going to have to kill him, and I suddenly had a sandwich to look after. It was demoralizing, like I couldn't do anything right.

Not only did the new Jerry seem just like Jerry 1.0, but this time he had the capability to launch a guided nuclear weapon whenever he felt like it, or when his button-activated Karate Chop Action Arm went off accidentally and triggered his torso-torpedo whatever-it-was.

At least Death was coming in handy.

"Hey, Jerry... come over here for a minute. I want to show you something."

A few minutes later (there's that new Time thing!), Jerry 2.0 had gone the way of his predecessor, and I was alone again.

Except for the sandwich.

I picked it up. I looked between the bread, and shuffled things around, but, no matter what I did, I couldn't figure out what was in the thing. In a way, it was my first success. I had ambiguously, and unintentionally, ordered a sandwich into existence, and an unintentional, ambiguous sandwich is what I got. It was the unknown between two slices of bread, and, in that, it was wholly inoffensive.

That was enough for the first day. It was rough, but I learned a lot, and it wasn't a total failure.

I wasn't alone anymore.

In the beginning, it was Me.

And My sandwich.