In 1984, Ray Stantz took out a third mortgage on his childhood home.
It was the house his parents had left him, the house where he had been born.
Talked into an obscene 19% interest rate by his business partner, Peter Venkman, this
alone would come to $95,000 over the first five years.
While it was almost a certainty that Ray would default on his mortgages, thanks to this start-up
capital, Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman and Egon Spengler would establish a business involved
in the most indispensable defense science of the next decade: the investigation and
elimination of the paranormal.
Over the course of their careers, these Ghostbusters would not only prevent Ray’s house from
being seized by Manhattan City Bank, but also save the Earth from being dominated by an
ancient, eldritch Sumerian god and a 16th century Carpathian Warlord.
While the Ghostbusters would be responsible for dealing with cosmically powerful inter-dimensional
forces that would terrify most mortals beyond their capacity for rational thought, it existed
in the barest sense as a Pest Control Company.
After their grant was cancelled by the Columbia University due to their unorthodox experiments,
Stantz, Venkman and Spengler became convinced that they had developed the technology to
successfully capture and contain ectoplasmic entities and decided to go into business for themselves.
With their initial capital, Ray and Egon successfully developed an unlicensed nuclear accelerator
capable of emitting a stream of positively charged ions as well as an ecto-containment
system custom built to hold all vapors, entities and slimers.
The Ghostbusters established their headquarters in a decommissioned firehouse which, at the
time of its purchase, featured serious metal fatigue in all load bearing members, substandard
wiring, a surrounding neighborhood reminiscent of a demilitarized zone, insufficient power,
and a working fire pole.
A 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance conversion served as the Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters primary
means of transport.
By the time their headquarters had been refurbished, the Ecto-1 restored and Janine Melnitz hired
to serve as an administrative assistant, the Ghostbusters were completely broke, with just
enough petty cash left over to afford some Chinese takeout.
Worse still, their marketing campaign had landed them just one paying customer.
Yet in a space of a single night, all that would change.
When a focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm, also known as a Class Five full roaming vapor
began terrorizing the Sedgewick Hotel, its dramatic and expensive capture by the Ghostbusters
catapulted the group to become a media sensation and instant financial success.
To help with their new sizeable workload, Winston Zeddemore was hired as the group’s
fourth dedicated Ghostbuster alongside Stantz, Venkman and Spengler.
As the entire Eastern Seaboard came alive with talk of incidents of paranormal activity,
The Ghostbusters gradually became aware that their booming business was merely the prelude
to a terrible, malevolent power that stood poised to enter their reality.
When a representative from the Environmental Protection Agency deactivated the Ghostbusters
containment system, a flood of psychokinetic energy was released across New York City.
This heralded the arrival of Volguus Zildrohar, Lord of the Sebouillia, known to its cultists
on Earth as Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Traveller and Gozer the Destructor.
Meeting this ancient god atop 550 Central Park West, Ray Stantz accidentally caused
Gozer to manifest a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, mascot of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Corporation,
to serve as humanity’s destructor.
With their traditional methods useless against this cosmic force, the Ghostbusters instead
reversed the particle flow through the gate Gozer had used to enter their realm, crossing
the streams of their proton packs and causing every molecule within Gozer’s dimension
to stop instantaneously and explode at the speed of light.
While this victory had saved all of humanity, it also put the Ghostbusters out of a job.
Faced with declining paranormal sightings and lawsuits over the destruction they had
unleashed, the group was legally disbarred from the investigation of the supernatural.
Ray would go on to own an occult bookstore and perform in children’s birthday parties
together with Winston while Egon and Venkman conducted laboratory experiments and hosted
a pseudo-psychic television show, respectively.
Once again the group became aware of and began investigating the presence of a supernatural
psychomagnotheric slime that had begun to spread through New York’s abandoned Pneumatic
Transit Lines.
This slime was the manifestation of negative human emotions and manipulated by the spirit
of Vigo Von Homburg Deutschendor, Scourge of Carpathia and Sorrow of Moldavia to facilitate
his return to the mortal realm.
Hoping to create a symbol of hope to offset the influences of Vigo, the Ghostbusters used
positively charged mood slime and a pop remix of the 1967 song “Higher and Higher” to
animate the Statue of Liberty, and used its inspiring presence to rally New York’s citizens.
Weakened by the city’s positive emotions, Vigo was destroyed by the Ghostbusters through
a combination of proton streams and mood slime.
Once more solidifying the Ghostbusters as New York City’s premier paranormal elimination
service, ...and ready to believe you.
The Templin Institute investigates alternate worlds and realities.
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