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Imagine a place which exists not too long ago (only a few decades), and not all that for away (roughly 210 miles by interstate), in the city known as Indianapolis. On the north side of this fair metropolis is a institute of middling learning which we shall call North Center High School. During this wild and crazy period of the late sixties, the instigation of a debacle which would span the decades occurred.
The wise administration, in their infinite knowledge, decided that symbolism was needed to bring the student body together. They asked one Dr. Quincy P. Mandra, who unknown to them was a high level agent of S.H.U.S.H. (Secret Headquarters of Underground Spys and Heroes), to create this symbol for them. Being the sort of techie person that he was, Dr. Mandra created this symbol, but included a thought transference device, intended to broadcast "good vibes" to the students, and make their high school careers happy and productive. The symbol, which the administration found good ("It is good."—Administrator), and gave the name of Terrazzo, so that it was henceforth known as the Terrazzo Symbol, was the focusing lens for this device, even though it only looked like a tile pattern on the floor. It seemed that all would be joyous within the halls of North Center.
But there are some things humanity is not supposed to mess with, and
the minds of high-schoolers are no exception to this rule.
Something was terribly wrong with the though transference device. Instead
of promoting happiness and respect, it promoted apathy and ridicule. Worst
of all, the students began to disrespect the Terrazzo symbol itself, walking
on it whenever they had the chance and eventually ignoring it completely.
When S.H.U.S.H. found out about this fiasco during the late seventies,
Dr. Mandra was instantly removed from their ranks and his inventions destroyed.
Now, not being the most stable type in the first place, with his leanings toward "Mad Science" and all, Dr. Mandra cracked like a cheap plate. He ran to the place of his utter triumph and utter failure, North Center High School, and saw the tragedy for himself. Not only were students tromping on his masterpiece and being general goons, they were being reckless and stupid as well. In front of everyone, teachers, administrators and himself, students were flipping matches into the trashcans that were recessed into the walls. The administration, while bemoaning this fact, showed no intention of doing anything about it. In his rage, Dr. Mandra screamed, "They should all be boarded up!" A nearby administrator blinked, stared at Dr. Mandra and began rhapsodizing about what a wonderful idea that was, and how the students couldn’t flip matches into boarded up trashcans, and how all their problems were solved and yatta, yatta, yatta…
Dr. Mandra, who had actually meant that the students should be boarded up, stood there in a state of shock. It took being TPed by a particularly annoying student, who had mistaken him for a new statue, to knock him out of his paralysis. Dr. Mandra knew what he had to do. He ran home and grabbed one of his last remaining inventions, the dimensional-terraformer-warper or DTW, and ran back to North Center. In this brief span of time the administration had somehow manages to cover each and every recessed trashcan with an ugly piece of wood colored Formica. Dr. Mandra tore one of the wooden panels off and used is DTW to create the hideous realm known as lower C Hall.
In doing this, Dr. Mandra was playing upon the known cruelty of the upperclassmen of North Center. By some strange anomaly, while North Center had an upper A hall and a lower A hall, an upper B hall and a lower B hall, and the same pattern for all of the other halls D-H, there was no lower C hall. Upper, yes, lower, no. This had long been the emotional undoing of many a poor freshman, especially when a "kind" senior pointed out that "oh yes, C544 is in lower C hall, downstairs." The use of his DTW would drag all of those hapless freshmen down to him and his lower C hall where they would become his first line of defense, that hideous force known as the Freshmen Hordes.
With this defense force in place, Dr. Mandra began to work on modifying
his thought transference device. First he would take over the minds
of the student body of North Center. Then, by using them as his army,
he would set up Terrazzo thought transference devices all over the world,
so that no one would ever ridicule his invention again. Various people
have thwarted his plans several times in the past, but these setbacks have
only made him more determined.