A Brief Historie of Nihil & Rat
The Secret Life of Mr. Nihil and Mrs. Rat's origins go back to a chance meeting in Japan. Nihil had gone to study Zen and, on his way to a lecture being given by Philip Kapleau, ran into Mrs. Rat, who was trying to explain pizza to a vendor. The two began talking, and it turned out that Mrs. Rat had trained in Zen for a bit under Dogen, after he set up shop in an abandoned building she'd been living in while in Fukakusa- she offered to teach Nihil the basics, and he agreed. For the next several years, Nihil served as her apprentice, not just in Zen, but in the Ways of the World.
During the latter years of the Cold War, Nihil and Mrs. Rat had been recruited into a special ops unit known as Scarecrow, which dealt with Unusual Threats and Activity. In 1986, the duo met with Reagan and Gorbachev, who were locked in a years long argument over which was better: Cyberpunk or Steampunk. Reagan was a staunch supporter of the former, while Gorbachev fully believed in the superiority of the latter.
Nihil sided with Gorbachev, citing pictures of Steampunk-modified laptops he'd seen on the internet as the ultimate proof... but before Gorbachev could finish gloating, Mrs. Rat pointed out that this whole scenario illustrated the superiority of Democracy. This argument had been settled with Democracy, the bane of Russia's existence, and Gorbachev realized that he had been wrong all of these years. He and Reagan decided to finally end the Cold War.
Time passed, however, and the Cold War continued. Reagan and Gorbachev had decided to put the wants of the few over the needs of the many, and pushed the War's end into the early 90's, for a variety of self-serving reasons. No longer interested in working for selfish superpowers, Nihil and Mrs. Rat resigned from Scarecrow and headed West.
Eventually settling near Las Vegas, the duo worked briefly with the magicians Melinda, St. Nick, and Sitarra to stop an ancient demon who had been unleashed by Lance Burton, leaving David Copperfield in a magically induced coma (1993). Together, they saved the city and revived Copperfield, but the ordeal had exhausted Mrs. Rat and put a severe strain on Burton and Melinda's marriage. Almost immediately following this battle, Nihil and Mrs. Rat were approached by their old employers...
Their old unit, Scarecrow, had gone rogue, and taken over a secret R&D base on the island of Lost Galilee. Leaving Mrs. Rat to recover, Nihil infiltrated the island on his own. There, he met and befriended Padre Elephante, who had been his replacement after the Cold War ended. Elephante had resisted the coup and been imprisoned while the others carried out their mission. Nihil dispatched his former teammates, and with Padre Elephante's help, destroyed the Large Hadron Mosquito, which was probably the most destructive weapon ever developed.
Following this mission, Nihil and Mrs. Rat were offered further employment, but chose instead to mock their would-be benefactors and disappear again. Nihil's encounter with Scarecrow had had an effect on him- the world did, in fact, seem to be founded on human error. We seem to be at the whim of willful stupidity and the bastard Elites. This world needed a biblically proportioned rebooting... and since the Demiurge no longer seemed interested in mass destruction from above, Nihil would have to carry it out himself.
How to destroy the world suddenly and in a way that made people feel like they were being punished for their avarice and ignorance? Nukes, although incredibly easy to get, were off the table, as neither Nihil nor Mrs. Rat wanted to be the sole inhabitants of a nuclear wasteland. A great epic fire was very unlikely, since people would just put it out, and even if they didn't, it was unlikely to burn the whole world. After a couple hours of debate, it seemed like there was only one obvious answer: a great flood. But, how do you suddenly flood the whole world?
The answer was obvious: displacement. Of course, the only conventional way to displace all of the world's water would be to crash the Moon into the depths of the ocean. However, getting to the Moon and finding a way to drive it into the ocean kept the plan from being fully realized. It was then that Mrs. Rat confessed something to Nihil that she'd kept secret all these years- that she was from the Moon.
Long ago, the Moon had existed in much closer proximity to the Earth, and was inhabited by a race who had been deified by man. Mrs. Rat would be able to get them to the Moon, and help to pilot it into the ocean. After gaining entry to the secret innards of the Eye of Night, Nihil learned more about the lunar people, and the origins of Earth... in the end, he decided to abort the plan. Destroying the world wasn't the right thing to do. Before returning to Earth, Mrs. Rat grabbed some equipment and supplies, as well as some of the Moon's DNA, then activated an internal self destruct sequence, preventing the lunar technology from ever falling into the wrong hands, while leaving the structure of the Moon itself intact.
Upon returning to Earth, the duo split up for a while. Nihil spent his time studying various arts, while Mrs. Rat travelled to Antarctica to establish a base of operations. Using the lunar DNA, and making a few modifications, she successfully cloned the Moon, creating the Faux-MoonBase as an underground compound. Obviously, the Moon is quite large, and running it would be a full time job, so Mrs. Rat then engineered a race of intelligent rats with opposable thumbs, who diversified and took on various jobs around the "FMB." Finally, she installed a super computer, Vesper, to do all of the necessary super computer jobs.
When Nihil reunited with Mrs. Rat, she implanted his Boxhead, which she had built and modified from existing lunar blueprints. Things had changed greatly since they first met in Japan- they were not quite the same people anymore, and Mrs. Rat rechristened them "Mr. Nihil" and "Mrs. Rat"... so, until this point, they had been known by other names, but I've been referring to them by their current names for narrative ease.
While studying, Nihil had developed an interest in animation, and the two decided to start a website. Being based in Antarctica, it was assumed they would get www.nihil-and-rat.aq. However, in setting up shop in Antarctica, they had apparently violated Articles 1, 3, 4, 7, and 10 of the Antarctic Treaty. Upon traveling to the International Court of Justice to resolve this issue, Nihil further violated Article 11 when he attacked several of the judges. Mrs. Rat also made it clear that they intended to violate Article 9, and that if anyone tried to mobilize against them, that she would super-violate Article 11 with extreme prejudice.
The powers that be were effectively at a standstill. No one wanted to fight an army of thumbed rats, or be the first to find out what lunar technology was capable of. Instead, the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, agreed to stay away from the FMB, provided Nihil and Mrs. Rat use their abilities and resources for the common good, when needed... but as a snub, vetoed the granting of a .aq URL. Bored with red tape, and not wanting to get caught up in a war with the rest of the world, anyway, Nihil and Mrs. Rat returned to Antarctica, or AQ, and reluctantly set up www.nihil-and-rat.com.
Although they still deal in unusual threats, and other related phenomenon around the world, Nihil and Mrs. Rat have, as of 2008, put increasing focus on web-based animation for whatever reason. This will perhaps continue as long as the world remains intact.