Synopsis
The Standardista Rebels have established a secret base on the remote
domain of squidoo.com. The Dark
Lord of the Kludge, Darth Gates has
sent web crawlers in search of this base and its commander, Luke
Veloso. While Luke is out browsing around the base, he is locked up
and his browser is crashed by a Wampa applet.
Meanwhile, back at the base, the hacker-blogger Tantek
Solo announces his intention to leave the Rebels to repay the debt
he owes to the vile gangster Digg the Hutt
(much to the displeasure of Princess Molly).
But after Tantek discovers that Luke has not returned from his browsing
patrol, he delays his departure and leaves the base to look for him.
“You will go to the complexspiral.com domain. There
you will learn from Eric, the Webi master who instructed me.”
After escaping the applet’s control, Luke is overcome by the inline styles
of the environment and in a state of shock sees his former mentor,
Obi Wan Zeldman, as a 50% opacity background
image that instructs him to seek more training… “You will go to the
complexspiral.com domain. There
you will learn from Eric, the Webi
master who instructed me.” Tantek finally discovers Luke, and they
are rescued the following morning.
But the Rebels are discovered, as a web crawler indexes their domain
and before being destroyed is able to transmit the IP address of the base
to the Legacy fleet. Darth Gates orders an immediate attack while the
Rebels set up a login screen and a firewall to prevent the Empire’s bombardment.
The Legacy Empire’s forces eventually overpower the Rebels, crashing
their server, and capture the Rebel base. Tantek Solo, Princess Molly,
and their human/markup relations droid W-3C
flee on board the Millennium
Firefox. However the Firefox’s ActiveX settings are misaligned
and it cannot escape the Imperial scripting blockade. During the confusion,
they enter a dense array of tabular data: Tantek Solo pilots the Millennium Firefox deeper into the data table, eventually landing inside a massive
PHP <include>.
Meanwhile, Luke Veloso and his standards droid Wa-SP escape Squidoo.com
in Luke’s online X-HTML editor, only to crash land on complexspiral.com.
After recovering, Luke meets a wizened, orange-haired little creature
who reveals himself to be the wise and powerful Eric,
the Webi master who instructed Obi Wan Zeldman.
Back inside the data table…
Hiding out from the Imperial fleet, Tantek Solo and Princess Molly argue
with one another while repairing the browser, eventually leading to a
tender kiss. However, they are forced to escape what they thought was
an “<include>,” but was actually the <asp: ControlParameter />
tag of a gigantic StoredProcedure living inside a cross-joined database.
This leads to another pursuit through MySpace and another failure of the
Firefox’s ActiveX controls, but Tantek is a clever hacker and they elude
capture. He then sets course for a tag cloud city; a news
mining colony run by Tantek’s old friend, Lando
Mikedavidson.
On complexspiral.com, Luke undergoes Eric’s rigorous lessons about the
semantic nature of The Source. During his training, Luke detects Tantek
and Molly’s presence in his referrer logs, and senses that they’re in
danger and being subjected to <blink> tags. Luke wants to rescue
them, but Eric and the 50% opacity background image of Obi Wan Zeldman
warn of the dangers of rashly leaving, because Luke is still susceptible
to the powerful temptation of WYSIWYG,
the dark side of The Source. Luke leaves anyway, but promises to return
to continue his training.
Upon arrival at the tag cloud city news mine, Tantek Solo and his party
are welcomed by Lando Mikedavidson, who agrees to have their browser repaired.
Lando invites them all to dinner, where they are greeted and captured
by none other than Darth Gates himself. It seems that Lando had to conspire
with the Legacy Empire in order to keep them from invading his enterprise.
Later, aboard the medical frigate while Luke Veloso is being fitted with
a new Wii, he’s thinking, no friggin’ way is Darth Gates my father.
In captivity, Tantek Solo and the Princess are systematically tortured
with deprecated tags and misused tables in order to lure Luke Veloso to
the tag cloud city. Darth Gates orders an archive with <font> tags
prepared to capture Luke, holding him in a state of apoplectic shock for
transport to the Emperor.
The process is tested on Tantek, who before being encased in <font>
tags, is told by Molly that she loves him. After the archiving process,
the now encased Tantek is turned over to Scoble
Fett the mercenary blogger, who intends to return his quarry to Digg
the Hutt for a large reward.
Meanwhile, Luke Veloso arrives at the tag cloud city. He goes to find
his friends and runs into Darth Gates. A Wii
vs. Xbox duel ensues. Darth yanks
the plug on Luke’s Wii controller and Luke screams in agony. Just as Darth
Gates is about to claim victory, he tells Luke that he didn’t kill Luke’s
father... “No, …I am your father!”
Luke screams in denial. Gates tries to persuade Luke to join him and
embrace the
dark side of The Source. Luke completely freaks out and Ctrl+Alt+Deletes
(twice), escaping the tag cloud.
While escorting their prisoners, Gates’ Imperial developers are captured
by Lando’s private security force, who set Lando and the others free.
Lando insists that there’s still time to save Tantek. Along the way they
meet up with Wa-SP, who joins
them. The group pursues Scoble Fett
and Tantek’s archived form through the tag cloud city, but arrive just
as the blogger’s browser leaves for another domain. Then, in a desperate
chase, Princess Molly, Lando, and their two droids make their escape on
the Millennium Firefox .
While trying to get away from the news mining colony, Molly senses Luke’s
presence in her referrer logs and hones in on his IP address. She and
Lando find that Luke has rebooted and is barely functioning. They save
luke and are once again in MySpace, being pursued by Darth Gates’s flagship,
the InternetExplorer
7. During their flight, Wa-SP repairs the Firefox’s ActiveX
settings and the heroes are finally able to escape.
Later, aboard the medical frigate while Luke Veloso is being fitted with
a new Wii, he’s thinking, no friggin’ way is Darth Gates my father.
But Luke detects Darth Gates in his referrer logs and somehow, he knows…
* * *
This is not over.
* * *
This parody was based on the Wikipedia
synopsis entry for The Empire Strikes Back.
