Socially stunted nerds are the real heroes: Let's Play Technobabylon!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Socially stunted nerds are the real heroes: Let's Play Technobabylon!

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

I'd wondered if there were any biological connection between Mandala and Charlie, considering conservation of detail/the fact that we only saw four embryos despite the IDs implying five/her complexion and age. I guess her discussion with Quince mostly denies that theory, though it would make for a fine motive for Baxter to engineer things against her.

"Salam" is one derivation of the (relatively) famous triliteral SLM, which at its core refers to wholeness and safety. The general idea in Semitic languages (those being Arabic, Hebrew, etc.) is that the roots of most verbs and nouns are constructed from a sequence of consonants, and then variations on vowels and auxiliary consonants clarify the specific meaning as derived from that root. This is why Hebrew uses "shalom" and Maltese uses "sliem" as a greeting in similar ways. And thus what's interesting here is that Jinsil says "Ahlan wa sahlan", with an N at the end rather than an M. Either they're putting on an act by speaking fake Arabic (which seems unlikely given their background and the game's stance towards worldbuilding), or they're speaking a language related to Arabic that nonetheless isn't Semitic. Obvious candidates here include various other Afro-Asiatic languages like something in the Berber (so few vowels) or Chadic (lots of folks in Niger or Nigeria) categories, though other things that took loanwords from Arabic like Turkish or Farsi would also work.

Edit: Apparently Jinsil is a female Korean name? Now I'm really wondering about what language she's using.

Don't mind me, I'm a bit of a trivia buff.

NGDBSS fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jul 2, 2016

# ¿ Jul 2, 2016 07:24

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 05:43

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

That makes sense, at least. I guess that the phrase just was using a different form of welcome with moderately different connotations (since "ahlan wa sahlan" is, as above, explicitly meant for strangers). Apparently Saudi Arabian Airlines even uses it as the name of their inflight magazine.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2016 17:31

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Given the future-science nature of things, if Baxter's head isn't around couldn't someone have engineered a solution for carrying it along hooked up to some crazy life support? Hell, Futurama had been around for a decade and a half before Technobabylon was released.

Niester reminds me of a weirder variant on the Yippies, honestly. They certainly had a reputation for not trusting anyone they deemed too "old", after all. Which makes it all the funnier that as they aged the movement dried up in various ways, such as Jerry Rubin becoming a stockbroker in 1980.

Your mention of some potential sort of disease mage in D&D is an actual thing, and something of a hilarious exploit in 3rd Edition to boot. See, there's a prestige class (read: variant character option) called the Cancer Mage which very early on gets the ability to simply ignore the negative effects of diseases other than cosmetic details. And in addition to that, there are several diseases in 3E's history with rather bizarre and not entirely ill effects. In particular there exist Festering Hate, Vile Rigidity, and Warp Touch. Festering Hat's effect is straightforward, dealing 1d3 Constitution damage (which would normally be really bad) and granting a +2 cumulative bonus to Strength per day. Similarly, Vile Rigidity grants a +1 cumulative bonus to natural armor per day but also incurs a -2 cumulative penalty to Dexterity per day. (I'm guessing you can see the ease of abuse here.) Finally, Warp Touch is weird; once you get it, you roll once on a table for a random effect and then you're done. Many of the results are bad, but you're a Cancer Mage and therefore don't give a poo poo about such inconsequential disease effects as growing a brain tumor or dying by having your body turn to liquid. And despite all this nonsense, Cancer Mage is still not terribly crazy compared to some of the nonsense that an ambitious spellcaster can pull. Massive bonuses to attack and defense are nifty, but not if your opponent can bypass your ability to use them in the first place.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2016 08:34

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Bacter posted:

Yippies? Is that like hippies? I need to investigate.

And I actually DID have the cancer mage in mind when I was talking about that. Back when I first met Mzbundifund, in our days at the University of College, I'd read through his D&D tomes, sort of freeform making fun of them while he played System Shock 1 or something, and no book was as fun to mock as the book of Vile Darkness!

The Yippies were the Youth International Party, basically a weird leftist counterculture group with a penchant for street theater. (In their time they were sometimes called the "Groucho Marxists".) Once they went into the New York Stock Exchange and tossed a whole bunch of fake money onto the trading floor, which is why the viewing gallery is now blocked off from the floor by bulletproof glass. But the other major thing they're known for is Steal This Book, a manifesto and how-to guide on their particular brand of activism. In its time its discussions of topics like the Pig Empire were likely meaningful if a bit out-there, but nowadays it's more adorable to look at. (These days if I'm looking for leftist political activism in my literature, I look up China Mieville.)

# ¿ Jul 8, 2016 18:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Socially stunted nerds are the real heroes: Let's Play Technobabylon!