Step Three: Profit: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''We have it all figured out! Step One: we land the Exodar. Step Three: we defeat the [[Legions of Hell|Legion]] and go home. There is only one detail missing....''|Male draenei joke from ''[[World of Warcraft]]''}}

*:* What the hell ''is'' One Piece, anyway?

*:* The best part about this is that it's ''intentional''. Luffy wouldn't be doing it if he actually had any concrete idea of how to accomplish it. He even specifically told Silvers Raleigh (one of the few survivors of Gold Roger's crew) ''not'' to tell him what it is.

{{quote|'''Luffy''': ''We are NOT asking him where the treasure is hidden!!! We're not even asking him whether there IS any treasure or not!! I'm not sure, but... ...everybody set out to sea, risking their lives to search for it!!! If you ask this old man anything about it here and now... Then I'll quit being a pirate! I don't want to go on a boring adventure like that!''}}

Phase 2: [[Failure Is the Only Option|Beat the Pokémon league]]

Phase 3: ?

*:* Really, it's never even shown whether or not he even knows what he's doing at this point.

**::* Someone needs to [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|introduce]] the above two [[Idiot Hero]]es.

**::* It's also not even clear, in the context of the anime, what a "Pokémon Master" ''is'', or what the qualifications are for the title. Many fans have concluded that you merely become a Master when your skills are widely recognized enough for there to be consensus among other trainers that you are one.

**::* In fact, it's never even really specified as to whether a Pokemon Master is even a real thing or just a name Ash assigned to his fairly nebulous goal. It seems unlikely that it involves catching and recording every single Pokemon, since Ash only attempts to catch roughly 20% of the wild Pokemon he encounters, except of course that one time he caught 30 Tauros for no apparent reason.

**::* For the love of the pokegods, will somebody tell Ash that he needs to ''weaken the damn things'' before he can capture them with an empty ball? In order to become a master you have to conquer the page 1 basics first.

*:* Furthermore, Team Rocket's intentions-

{{quote|Phase 1: [[She Cleans Up Nicely|Clean up nicely]] the Sisterhood.

Phase 2: ?

* The title character of ''[[Shinryaku!Squid Ika MusumeGirl]]'' has come up with a [[Take Over the World]] plot which goes like this:

* Buried under half a dozen [[Xanatos Gambit|XanatosGambits]]s in [[Touhou Project]]'s official manga ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' are two protagonists and one vampire who have unabashedly embraced the Step Three: Profit:

{{quote|Phase 1: Raise a few members of Earth's dead<ref>All of three people in small town California, to be precise</ref> as zombies from [[Special Effect Failure|your flying saucers powered by strings]].

Phase 2: ?

* As ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_18643_6-evil-corporations-in-movies-with-terrible-business-plans.html "6 Evil Corporations in Movies with Terrible Business Plans"] shows, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation continuously has some plans involving the ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'' - a killer machine which can never be controlled, and usually escapes traps. What are they intending to do?!

* ''[[The Avengers (2012 film)|The Avengers]]'':

** Most of [[Honest John's Dealership|Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler's]] schemes in ''[[Discworld]]'' novels are like this. It gets fully explained in ''[[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'':

Not that it worked. There was always, he found, some small but vital flaw in the process. It generally involved a strange reluctance on the part of people to buy what he had to sell. }}

** There was another one in ''[[Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', that almost gets to "profit", but trails off with "7. You're looking at me funny, Sarge. 8. Are we gonna get in trouble for this, Sarge? 9. Sorry, Sarge..."

{{quote|Phase 1: Invade earth, the stronghold of the people who have weapons that can [[Curb Stomp Battle|destroy our warships in one shot]], using a method that makes it impossible for us to bring any warships with us.

Phase 2: ?

3: [[Mad Max|''Mad Max: Escape from Thunderdome'']] }}

* Ladies and Gentlemen: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130918093452/http://piccsy.com/2010/08/how-to-draw-an-owl/ How to Draw an Owl].

** As stated by ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'':

*:* ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' finally explains their goals: {{spoiler|The rest of Umbrella was profitable, the zombie divisions were a personal project of the founders, who were trying to create immortality drugs.}} It doesn't make the rest of their intermediate plans any less asinine.

**::* That explanation, however, completely subverts what the earlier games implied: that {{spoiler|the T-Virus experiments were the end result of numerous attempts to create a highly-transmittable version of the Ebola virus, by allowing its infected victims (who would usually be dead) to actually get up and infect others, as a biological weapon which they would then basically sell to the highest bidder. The Raccoon City incident could be interpreted as either a genuine accident or a planned testing ground for the virus's destructive capabilities disguised as an accident (more likely the latter, given the numerous mentions of "test" and/or "combat data" in files).}}

***::* That was one usage explained in ''RE3''. Other uses were to create "Bio-weapons". Soldier like creatures like Tyrants, and creatures like Hunters. Zombie people seem to be a by-product.

**::* Wesker himself notes the stupidity and impossibility of profiting from such a scheme, and notes that the only way Spencer could ever hope to make money off this was to have an outbreak and kill all of his staff to avoid paying them. Guess what happens?

***::* Wesker does, though, note that creating a virus that can potentially infect every single living organism on the planet, and then having the lab that specialises in its study be right-smack in the middle of a forest ''teeming'' with animal life (in fact, Spencer actually ''built'' it there ''on purpose'') suggests that his boss actually ''wanted'' the virus to get out. Umbrella was ''never'' meant to make a profit out of the T-virus; only Spencer was, and the profit wasn't to be cash.

* [[Troll]]s on the ''[[RunescapeRuneScape]]'' forums use this quite a bit on "How do I make money" threads. Step 1. Cut willows. Step 2. ? Step 3: Profit (Willow logs are very cheap, around 13 GP each.)

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'',: one of the Draenei jokes is an ultimate plan for the victory over evil:

*:* Also, a gnomish oil rig in Borean Tundra has a note on the wall with a Step Three: Profit plan. Step 1 is "build oil rig", if you're wondering.

*:* One of the goblin jokes is "Skip to step three: Profit!"

*:* In the Sunken Temple, Itharius sends you to kill three different troll leaders; the third leader is the Prophet Jammal'an. The quest to kill him, naturally, is called "[[Incredibly Lame Pun|Step Three: Prophet.]]"

Step 2: [[Famous Last Words|I won't turn a profit by obeying them!]]

Step 3: ??

** Bonus points for step seven: using hyper-advanced, brain-mapped (and dangerously [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|unstable]]) AI and robots not to make money, but to ''eliminate the need to hire more humans you can't afford to keep replacing because the tests kill them''.

Step 2: [[Too Dumb to Live|Make sure all the robots have weaknesses to each other's weapons]]

Step 3:Unleash the robots across an undisclosed city to cause havoc

Step 4:????

{{quote|1. Make the [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]] download [[Deadly Upgrade|GITD]].

2. [[Kill Them All|Lobotomise them]].

3. ?

* In [https://web.archive.org/web/20101213211159/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/423 this strip] of ''[[Loserz]]'', in-comic:

([[Beat Panel|...]])

'''Riff''': Nope. Can't think of anything.

**:* Said scam comes with a dose of [[Fridge Brilliance]] when you realize that Ed sometimes repeats thing he sees in comic books..... {{spoiler|and then turns into [[Nightmare Fuel]] when said scam summons a large flock of ravens.}}

*:* Many of Eddy's plans could probably be summed up as this, especially ones where he actually seems to go out of his own way to sabotage, such as randomly putting a bowling pin in a cream puff they were selling (to make it bigger maybe?)

*:* [[Word of God]] is that this was intentional. The whole point was a [[Green Aesop]], but they just couldn't bring themselves to use realistic people with realistic motivations as villains. Too many kids with parents in those fields watching, you see.

*:* And the [[Very Special Episode]] about HIV/AIDS takes it [[Up to Eleven]]:

*:* Eventually, The Geezer does come up with a use for Old Faceful: He opens a car wash.

{{quote|'''Phase 1:''' Use a [[Mirror Morality Machine]] to turn all dogs into [[Angry Guard Dog|vicious attack dogs]]

'''Phase 2:''' ?

* ''[[Freakazoid!]]!'' [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshades]] this in a fight against a giant snake:

{{quote|'''Phase 1:''' Loud [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]] warcry

'''Phase 2:''' Charge and grab giant snake by the neck

*:* At another point, Doctor Doofensmirtz has the ''genius'' plan of stopping all the cars in the Tri-State Area, and only he alone, who has invested in a tow-truck business will become rich! And then he realises that it will be really hard to get his tow-truck through the roads, since they'll all be jammed...

*:* Yet another example, from "Mom Attractor":

{{quote|Phase 1: '''Doof''': [[Makes Sense in Context|I know it sounds complicated]], but [[Blatant Lies|I've thought this one through]]. [[Makes Sense in Context|Babies cry, everyone's unhappy]]...

Phase 2: ???

*:* The internet dot com bubble basically ran on this exact plan, pets.com being the poster child of an ill-defined business plan relying on the mystical powers of the internet to make money when conventional business savvy dictated to look elsewhere.