LexiconWiki: Discussion

This is a page for discussing anything that you feel needs to be discussed. New player announcements, questions about rule changes or formats, and similar matters. It now reads in reverse chronological order.

New player = Dempcat. I've called dibs on the Manifesto Of Qirel.

Hi, My name is gumpy and i'm new here. Any advice for a new player?

Hi, I'm also an Alex, and I'd like to tentatively call dibbs on Megarealist Art Movement, if nobody else wants it. Of course that means I can't write up Mikhail. Um, there's a lot to catch up on, so let me ask a lazy question-- other than the Megarealist Art Movement being in some way opposed to Averianism and maybe Kevlodianism?. Furthermore, they would tend toward neophobes rather than neophiles. Is that pretty much in the right ballpark, or does anybody have any additional writeups I should read in order to be consistant with everything? I did a search for 'Megarealist' and that's what I've come up with. --alexboko

Just a mention that we seem to be listed on [this page of Lexicon games], with a nice asterisk-graph of entries-to-letters. --Kevan

Alright. January second passes a while a go so I changed us to the letter "N", I didn't set a date yet so you guys can figure that out.

Hi everyone, Navek here. I've been lurking in the shadows, following the progress of the Orbital Wars. With a lack of anything new to read, I've decided to throw in my hat and take a stab at writing some entries. I'd like to call dibs on [Massacre at Woolsae]?. I've jotted down some ideas that I'd like to work with, and should have something together in a couple of days. If this one works out, I may be interested in a couple of the phantom entries that have been bypassed.

Hi I'm Nesia. I just joined and added Manitoba.

I edited Manitoba just so it made a bit more sense and I'm editing the who and what pages to add the new information.
- Try again, it still doesn't make much sense. Potent's book was found in "the wreckage of the Manitoba", which sounds more like a spacecraft or lifeform or building or event, than an intact present-tense planet with no relevant context. You've also broken the "don't create more than two new phantom entries with any given entry" rule, even if we ignore your alphabetically-earlier phantom entries which can never be written. You don't have to hyperlink every unexplained term. --Kevan (I'm still floating around reading, a bit, and enjoying the rest)
  - Yeah, I think I just violated the rules on that one. o.o;

Okay guys, I think we're in trouble. I just marked all the players who haven't written any entries for three turns inactive and guess what? There are only three active players left: myself, Alex, and Gregg. There is no way we're going to be able to finish this on our own. I don't know about you, but I'm still having a great time, I think this game is awesome, but we're going to need some new players. I don't know what to do. Any ideas? --Thursday

Yeah. Life has been shitty recently, so I'm sorry for my continued silence. I'd like to re-commence at a later date, but for now I simply can't. Good luck though. --Josh
I would say we should just allow everyone who has submitted an entry to rejoin. That should give us a good deal more people. --Alex
- There's nothing stopping them, we just don't have any way to contact them. --Thursday
Hey everyone, hope the year's treated you well. Things have been crazy-busy but I'd be happy to put in an entry when i get the chance. Contact, should you so desire, is divideby0 @t livejournal d0t com. --RJ

Open question: I dibbsed Homotopy Campaign while H was open, partly because it sounded cool, partly because I wanted others more prolific to be able to proceed. I started researching but never had the chance to submit the entry in time. Should I write it now, or should it be left blank? --RJ

I think you should write it now. Obviously we can't go back and create new entries in closed rounds, but I think we do need to fill in the blanks where phantom entries already exist. -- Gregg
Go ahead and write it. As long as it gets written, I don't really care when you do it. Congradulations on the new baby boy/girl/kelvod! --Thursday
- Girl! We didn't even need to use Allelodrene! -- RJ
Kind of related question. What round are we on now? The Home Page says we are on K, while the Entries page says we are still on J. I've just submitted an entry for J (it was looking a little bare) but do I have to write my K entry for tomorrow or have I got a week? --Alex

I've invited players whose email adresses I know and who haven't written anything for a while to come back to the game; if anyone knows how to get a hold of anyone else I encourage you to do the same. --Thursday

Wooo. OK, I got a bit behind there... but on the upside, I'm now a proud father! --RJ
- Congratulations! -- Gregg

Just a little reminder from the Rules: "All the phantom entries must be either written or dibbed before any new entries for that letter can be created." --Thursday

Erm. Good point. If I dib and write Ilona Bevan, will I have to destroy Iatrogenesis? --Brendan
- I don't know. That's not my call to make. --Thursday

Gregg, I enjoyed reading Heebies, but there's a question of continuity: Josh stated back in Church At Nine West that the Church's emergence near Laeis was what fulfilled the Manifesto of Qirel and led to the Qirel Encounter. The description of the Encounter in Heebies seems unrelated. I'm not sure whether the two entries are reconcilable; what does everyone else think? --Brendan

Oh. I thought it fitted in OK. The last few lines are meant to indicate that the Heebies are indeed a complete fabrication. Church At Nine West states that the Church's emergence near Laeis, the East Rim Consortium's capital, set in motion the chain of events that led to the Qirel Encounter less than a cycle later, and that the Church was ignorant of these later events. I took it to mean that the devastation of Laeis had an effect on the East Rim Consortium that led to the Qirel Encounter, and (at least by implication) that the East Rim Consortium was behind the Encounter (which chimes with hints elsewhere). There is a similar denial in Belasyse Finch, and the point of mentioning [Mikhail Un]? was to link the two (he assassinated Finch, and is linked from there right next to a mention of the Qirel Encounter) so that hopefully it becomes clear that the East Rim Consortium was (secretly) the actor in the Qirel Encounter (though there may still be a higher power, of course - directly or, through say the strategic use of the Church at Nine West to affect the actions of the East Rim Consortium, indirectly). Or is that not working? -- Gregg
- I stand humbly corrected. --Brendan
Wow. You have definately thought about the Qirel Encounter a lot more then I have. Gregg, I did catch that the Heebies were intended to be an imaginary scapegoat for the Wars, and that is the interpretation I will hold. --Thursday
In order to help with continuity I've stuck a Chronology page on the main page which hopefully should make sorting out what came when more easy. Unfortunately it seems as I'm too late as Ion Mines already disagrees with it (it implies the Manifesto of Qirel came after the Encounter while Church at Nine West implied the Manifesto came first). If anyone else can see anything wrong with it feel free to change it. Oh, except it assumes that the Heebies are real... Hope it helps. --Alex
- Nicely done, Alex. Phase Five is my favorite. I (or somebody) should go through there and wikilink the big-name terms. --Brendan
- Taken care of. --Thursday
- Cheers. I was going to do that when I put it up but time was against me (Damn you internet cafe charges!). --Alex

Actually, is it worth locking this Wiki against third-party edits? Lexicon isn't really a "proper" Wiki because we specifically don't want random passers-by chipping in - is it perhaps time to lock it by default, and require that players log in before they can make any changes (via the Preferences page, with a special editor password)? --Kevan

I'll get behind that. --Josh
No opposition here. --Brendan
- Let's do this, please. --Josh
  - It's done. Let me know when you're all fed up of the yellow rectangle, and I'll make it blue. --Kevan

Dear 220.184.224.*:

Die.

Sincerely, Brendan

P.S. Anybody else: is there a button to undo revisions that I'm just missing, or do you have to de-spam them manually?

It's manual, but it's not too painful - if you've missed it, I summarised the technique in the Wiki Help. And I've also banned the IP address, which I didn't realise I could do until I read through the Wiki documentation a bit more. Anyone else who I trusted with the admin password can use the [IP-banning superpower]. --Kevan
- Hooray! --Brendan

Can I suggest a week's amnesty? I'm going to struggle to write an 'H' entry tonight, and as Brendan only just wrote his 'G' entry I assume the same goes for him, too. Can we call the next week an extended 'H' period, in which those so inclined can write their 'I'? --Josh

Seconded. --Brendan
I third. Perfect time, the fall play's this week. --Thursday

Erm, I have a question about the Grey Zone entry. In it it refers to humans coming into contact with other races, yet according to the Amorphians entry they are the only known intelligent alien lifeform. Do we just have a straight contradiction here or is there some way around this? I've always assumed that all these factions were humans (apart from the Jatok who were just made by a human) but what does everyone else think? --Alex

Hm, Amorphans is pretty clear on this. I'd like to say I had a plan but I didn't; it was, in fact, just a stupid mistake. However, it's not a serious one. We can either have the 'lost colony' idea below (which explains why we refer more to Terrans than Humans), or I can just edit the entry to refer to other habitable planets, rather than other races. I like the lost colony idea more though. --Josh
Hey, I just finished the HMS Ark Royal XVI entry when I read this. It suggests the 'lost colony' idea. Looks like we have a telepathic mind link, Josh. ;) --Thursday
And I've just noticed that Ben suggested such a thing back in the East Rim Consortium entry. Seems like an ever expanding telepathic mind-link... --Alex

Just wondering, what year does everyone think the Orbital Wars are taking place in? I know we've all kept it rather vague (probably the only way we could do it) but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's, at least in their own mind, decided when they think they are. I would put them anywhere in the 27th to 31st centuries (2600 CE to 3000 CE) but what years was everyone else thinking of? --Alex

I'd put them much farther in the future then that. Wait, I don't know. It's hard to say. If all these factions are comprised of humans, then there are two options. Either they all descended from Terra, which would mean tens of thousands of years in the future, or the humans on Terra are descended from somewhere else, which would mean these wars could be taking place any time. The Grey Zone entry seems to imply that there were other beings outside of the Grey Zone before the Terrans had space travel. Maybe Earth is some sort of lost colony, seperated fro thousand of years? --Thursday
- I had it places as no more than three or four hundred years into the future. Considering the acceleration of process, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest that we can achieve the level listed herein in the same length of time as that which separates us from the Elizabethans. --Josh
- A bagatelle, I assume. If you haven't, I suggest you read the section on Quantum Mechanics in the book Visions by Michio Kaku. He makes a pretty strong case for why we're tens of thousands of years from the kind of society portrayed here it the Orbital Wars, which would probably be classified as a 'Type 3 Civilization' (assuming that all these factions are descended from the Terrans, which is now no longer certain). --Thursday

Hmmm, I've just labelled all the people who haven't written anything since the E entry as "inactive", namely Andrew, Kevan, Holly, and U3. I've also put Eidosabi there, since he said he probably won't write any more entries, and thus shouldn't count towards our maximum citation slots in each letter. Also to note, a few of the current entries have dibs called, but the person calling it didn't put their names anywhere. (Yes, you can just look at recent changes, but you shouldn't have to do that, in my humble opinion.) --Ben

Mm, sorry to be silent; haven't had as much spare time and attention and enthusiasm as I expected to have, when this started. Nice that the game's sufficiently fluid to work around this, though. I'll keep an eye, and may return before the end. --Kevan

Question: What happens if no one writes the Gaurron entry before the turn is over? --Thursday

Well, the way the rules are right now, I believe anyone who hasn't cited it can write it during the H round, in addition to their entry for that letter. We're going to have problems, though, if there are people who want to be "active" but don't want to write entries for phantoms, since the number of players is going down and the number of letters that can't take any new phantoms are increasing (S is now actually 2 over, and a few like M are approaching fullness). --Ben

I just had the most awesome yet awful idea ever: a 24-hour lexicon game. Naturally, the current format with something like "a letter each hour, not doing X or Q" wouldn't work, so an alternate ruleset would be needed. I was thinking something along the lines of: the first entry could be new, every other entry must come from a phantom citation from some entry. Every entry would have to cite exactly two (no more, no less) unwritten entries, and every entry after the first would have to cite at least one entry the player did not write themselves. You win if you get 24 entries written within 24 hours of writing your first entry. After 24 hours are up, clean-up could consist of all the players writing all the unfinished phantoms at a leisurely pace. Or continuing the game at whatever pace they desired if the subject still seemed interesting to people involved. --Ben

This sounds like a fantastic idea, but the co-ordination required to get everyone with the same 24 hour period off of work (allowing for timezones) makes my head bleed. Although I suppose that the 24-hour periods would not have to be syncronous; just so long as everyone completes all 24 posts within 24 hours, the game could be played over, say, 72 hours without any harm being done. So yes, sounds interesting. --Josh
OH DEAR LORD. --Thursday

Welcome to the game, Eidosabi, and glad to have you. Am I correct in interpreting your bio page to mean that writing fan fiction is a part of your doctoral coursework? --Brendan

Brendan, thank you for the welcome. You are correct, my entry was a requirement of my doctoral coursework. (What can I say, I've got a great job!) Each week we are actively exploring and studying a different type of online social interaction. Our primary focus is on how such software can benefit instruction. For example this week we are studying MOOs and MUDs, so we have to spend an hour playing Zork 1, read three articles, spend four hours on LambdaMOO, and then write up a description of our interactions, similarities and differences with previous types of interaction, and their relevance to instruction. If you're interested, feel free to swing by my blog entry related to the [[Orbital Wars]] and leave a response. I probably won't write anymore entries, but I have been bitten by the "Orbital Bug" so I'm sure I'll swing by from time to time to see how everything unfolds. And again, thank you for letting me participate. - Eidosabi

Hi. I've just finished adding my entry for the week and, as its a big one with oodles of citations which draws on loads of other people's works, I was kind of hoping people might go through it and look for any obvious errors. I was trying to bring a little kind of chronology as to what was going on, without actually delving into motivations, too many events and leaving enough blank areas for future expansion. What does everyone think? -- Alex

I don't know. I can see the rational behind trying to explain what's been going on, but I think that was better to leave to unofficial notes and the like that weren't part of the gamestate proper. This is a bit restrictive, you've defined all the major players and events before we're even halfway through the alphabet. Sure, people can come up with stuff that wasn't mentioned here, but there needs to be a good reason why it wasn't on the Official Factions And Phases entry (and why combine the two? Factions and Phases seem rather clearly distinct, to me). Maybe we should have, from the beginning, had some sort of harder limit on the number of citations an entry could make, or how long an entry could be, to keep any one entry from defining too much. I know I've been guilty of that as much as anyone, mind you. It just seems to me like, even before this entry, most of the interesting stuff has been "set", although I've been trying to see if I can't get around that with Frank Jatok-style entries. Hmm. --Ben
I applaud the effort (it must have been difficult to figure all of that out). I think situations like this make the game all the more interesting. I'm surprised that the Durvii Battalion is mentioned in more than passing, but the Spacers' Federated Guild is entirely absent, and someone has to figure out why. And if no one does, well, then it will remain a mystery. The hisotry of the Orbital Wars is going to be far from complete by the time we get to Z, I suspect. I guess whoever's left at that point will get the job of filling in the gaps, even after the last entry has been written. --Thursday
I too applaud the effort, but I share Ben's concerns, and they take priority for me. Obviously the Jatok, Terrans and Kelvod are the Big Three, but there's still plenty of room for another powerful faction or two--or there would be, if Factions and Phases didn't preclude any mention of them. I'm also mystified by the inclusion of Klein Brittan, but not Pharmacon or the Dysgnostics. Obviously that's something of a matter of opinion, but that's exactly my point--Factions and Phases casts one player's opinion as fact. I think Factions and Phases is excellent work, Alex, but it's too much, too rigid and too soon. One compromise I immediately thought of: maybe "Factions and Phases of the Orbital Wars" could be a controversial book that gained a great deal of publicity, but is now widely held as incomplete? --Brendan
I'm afraid I'm going to have to contradict parts of this, simply because I find it too confining. I will try to keep my deviations minor, so that the writer may adapt his work. --Josh
Quick explanation. I tried to limit the switches between phases to the joining or leaving the wars of governments, hence the lack of appearances by groups such as the Dysgnostics or companies like Pharmacon. (I wasn't sure as to the nature of Klein Brittan as either a group or a government and so only tentatively included them.) I agree it could possibly be seen as limiting, although I did state that these were the groups that led the future historians to declare one phase over and another beginning. There is therefore room to say that there are other groups, governments and corporations out there but which the historians (for whatever reason) didn't think warranted the starting of a new phase.
Alternately I don't mind if you want to move the entire piece over to the out-of-game factions page that Ben made (and without which I would have been taking a lot longer over that entry)... --Alex
OK. I think I've resolved this. I've edited down the Factions and Phases entry to something a little less restrictive but still including the basic principle, that the length of a phase is linked to the alliances between the factions involved. However, to preserve the work I did on the original entry I have moved it to its own Apocrypha section on the Home Page. It can still be used as a jumping off point for people to get ideas from but won't be considered canonical for those who have other ideas. And incidentally I have created an entry in the cut-down Factions and Phases for a book which will describe all the alliances. But that will be under S by which time we will probably have sorted them all out. Hope this makes things easier for people. --Alex
Well done, although that leaves us with exactly one remaining space for a phantom entry under S. I suggest replacing all Ss with Zz for the rezt of the game, juzt to be zafe. --Brendan

Um, in RJ's new entry, Fool, he cites a phantom entry entitled 'Ellipse and Spiral'. Since we're already past the E section, what do we do with this? Do we change the name, or do we treat the book as if it does not exist, as RJ seems to be hinting at in the entry and on his player page?--Thursday

Good point. Fool is a legal entry with or without Ellipse and Spiral, so I say we ask him to either change the name ("Potent's Ellipse and Spiral?") or unlink it. --Brendan
Indeed. Nonsense rumours of a lost manuscript, of which all references are mysteriously deleted, and all records suppressed? Clearly the conspiratorial ravings of a crackpot which one should ignore. If one knows what is good for oneself. (I'm amused by it, myself, but I'll accede to public opinion if it's strongly the other way.)--Ben
But the [Ellipse and spiral]? entry was there when I wrote Fool... --RJ
OK, I'm sure some of you got the point. Actually, what I've done is cite an extra unwritten phantom entry which will never be written, as the round for E entries is now past. It doesn't exceed the max number for that round (E) and is at my discretion. I thereby find myself not in contempt of the rules, nor hopefully any other players :) This is a great game so far. --RJ

It should be noted that "Jatok" now refers to both a planet and a swarm of robot bees (Nice!). This isn't a problem, it just needs to be kept in mind by whoever ends up writing the entry. --Ornithopter

I vote Holly writes it. --Brendan
Ah, tsk, I must have missed, during my research, the one reference to Jatok actually being a planet, in Conspiracians. Still, not hugely implausible. We call people who live on Mars martians, and people who live on Earth earthlings. Well, "Terrans", if you don't want to start a fight with one, but the name is still there. The planet was (unimaginatively, admittedly) named after the race which colonized it. Probably. Whoever writes the Jatok entry will undoubtably illuminate us further, as the Frank Jatok entry naturally had to focus a bit more on the creator rather than the creations, and what they did during the orbital wars themselves. --Ben

Hmmm. If we "idle" U3, who is the only one who hasn't gone at least one of in the last two rounds (although honestly, after the turnout on the E round I wouldn't be surprised if we've lost a few more), that means there are only two open slots for phantom entries for "S". Just remember there are plenty of letters that still only have one citation that can use much more love. --Ben

Yes, I noticed that too and quickly changed the first letter of a phantom in Erks. -- Gregg

Players remaining who are allowed to write [Qirel Encounter]?:

Alex
Thursday
RJ
U3 (who I don't think is playing anymore)

--Brendan

Mmm. It's fairly reasonable to assume that, especially what with the rule (which nobody has added to the ruleset yet but we voted in a few threads back) of being off the official player's list if you miss two rounds in a row. --Ben

If you want a true creative writing challenge, I encourage you to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Every November, NaNoWriMo encourages writers all over the world to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I participated last year (and finished), and it's a blast! http://www.nanowrimo.org/ --Thursday

If anyone has any kind of grounding in quantum physics, could they please cast an eye over Ether and tell me if it's fatally flawed? I only know what I've picked up over the years so I could be miles out. Thanks. --Josh

It can be easily forgiven for a scholar to not fully research quantum physics, a field of research that went the way of astrology and alchemy, disproven yet paving the way for more modern advances in science. Also, it should be remembered that the primary purpose of this work is, at least in my humble opinion, historical, rather than scientific. The exact how and why of a technology or scientific theory isn't strictly necessary. A description of "what it does", followed by the important implications and consequences of its existence should more than sufficient. Although other scholars are free to disagree with me on this point. (This isn't, at least in my mind, hard scifi. I wouldn't sweat it. When in doubt, just use made-up scientific jargon.) --Ben

Hullo. I apologise that my 'D' entry is so late, appearing now on Monday evening. Sorry. I thought today was Sunday for some reason, and realised I hadn't even written it yet. Erk. Sorry. Also, would someone might taking a look at it, and seeing if they can work out why italicized text isn't possible there? I've italicized some text at the end, without trouble, but I can't do likewise for some text at the start. I've tried making the <i> tag at the start of the line (and not), on a line by itself (and not), tried putting text before it it in case there's a bug with a tag being the first thing on a page, but nooo... Tried using apostrophes too, but nope, it's not having it. Grr. This is for the Dabiel entry, incidentally. --Andrew

Taken care of. --Thursday
- Aha, thanks. Ah, I see, the formatting is required on every line, it can't just be put once around a section. Tricky Wiki. --Andrew

Bwahaha-haha! -- RJ

Is that for "the idea that there many permutations of history, all of which are equally true", or for making a phantom entry for [The Orbital Wars]?? --Kevan
- If I might wear the black hat for a moment, I'm quite a bit "feh" towards both those things. There's a reason why we expressly say contradictions were bad, and this just looks like a way to justify them, whatever you might say outside the entry. And as for orbital wars, it will be rather hard to summarize them in their entirety when we've still got several entries left to go. And if we did want them, aesthetics would probably demand that the "the" not be a part of the entry name, although making that change would make the problem even worse, really. But still, the entire lexicon is, arguably, an entry for the Orbital Wars. --Ben
- I must agree with Ben. The Orbital Wars entry seems a bit harsh, and this easy escape route to justify all contradictions instead of letting contradictions work themeselves out (through changes or advanced historiography) strikes me as cheap. --Thursday
  - Much respect to Ornithopter. --Josh
    - Indeed. Brilliant. --Holly
    - Yes. Five hundred points. --Brendan
    - Magnificent. --Kevan
    - I salute you. --Thursday
      - Well played Trebek! Next time, next time... (escapes in CLAW jet)

Hm, Durvii Battalion says "the group utilized technology derived from Barren Walkers to create war machines that could make planet-to-planet hops in the blink of an eye", which I think conflicts fairly clearly with "the absolute limit of the speed of light on how fast information can travel" in Belated History Effect. Perhaps change it to "planet-to-planet hops at the speed of light", or something similar? --Holly

I was going to point that out myself. For that matter, it also states directly in Barren Walkers that "no way of controlling this teleportation was ever discovered;" I guess "technology derived from" isn't quite the same thing, but as described it seems to be functionally the same. I'm glad you've joined the game, Royce, but the inconsistency thing really does seem to be a problem.
- I think the point was that the Durvii had so little contact with the outside world that they could have this advanced technology and not necessarily pass it on to any of the other factions. Nevertheless, considering that the Durvii were supposed to have run out of fuel, these blink ships seem a little powerful. --Josh
  - I do throw in a little clause there that takes care of this. Their ships are powered by 'otherwise inert gases found in the atmosphere'. I assume this implies that the gases had no other use, especially to the Jatok forces. Sorry I keep messing up your game. --Thursday
  - There, I changed the entry. Happy? Durvii, Vhorm, and the Norando Asteroid Field are now all within the same system, which means (in case you didn't pick up on it) that they are very close together. Hopefully no one will have any problems with this. -- Thursday
    - Mmm, it was a good entry, except for the fact that Barren Walkers themselves didn't travel at faster than light speeds, so really, just fixing "blink of an eye" to "at light speed" would have been enough for me. That, and the entry does get bonus points for, so far, being only other one written so far this round besides my own. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if we get another five or six at the last minute like last round.) Reducing them to a single system almost lessens the point, but it might have been an important system, and xenophobic people aren't always known for wandering far away from their home turf, anyway. --Ben