The recent, well-deserved demise of the highly inaccurate #a1 FAQ on Traxus has left a vacuum waiting to be filled. To fill this vacuum, I write the following ultimately futile document, ostensibly aimed at the novice entering #alephone for the first time, but in actuality meant for the amusement of my CLIQUE brethren (and hot sistren (I hereby defend this valid-but-awkward archaic word with an itself awkward parenthetical within a parenthetical, and this hyperlink), but that is another topic entirely!).

FAQ follows (below the cut).

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

Day 1

Dear Diary,

Today I checked Pfhorums as usual. There wasn’t much to see there. As usual lately. I mean, Moppypuppy got all huffy about his stupid topic (the one about the video, good God). There’s also a new scenario announcement: “lolnova.” It’s a joke scenario; whether the creators realize this or not is the only question in my mind.

ESB is getting some new adrenaline shot through its shriveled balls: some guy named “Godot” showed up. I swear something like this happened on Pfhorums two years ago… However, this Godot claims to be Hamish. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just ukimalefu posting more of his redundant crap so ESB never dies. We were so close, too…

Three posts from glory.

Day 2

Dear Diary,

I thought about things a little yesterday, and I just realized I haven’t played at all in a month or two. The nights just after my router replacement were joyous, full of netgames. I think I hosted a hundred within a couple of weeks. It was a new leaf for me, after the many months of non-gaming. Things were looking up.

Then what? I got drawn back into the CLIQUE meta-game. And I like it. I’ve got some comments from outsiders on JFO now, which might be because of the recent Pfhorums outage. I think I like the people here better than I like the game itself, if you can believe that. Why play at all?

Day 3

Dear Diary,

#alephone lately has been mainly join/part messages and discussion about Smithy. Don’t get me wrong; Smithy is a great program that will add new life to Marathon. It’s just a few years too late for me. I talk a lot about this program and others, but I need to face the reality that I’m not planning on mapping ever again. Sure, I might make a level occasionally, but I think everyone agrees that my heyday was over by the time I started Pelikan. It’s another case of learned behavior: making a fuss out of Marathon when I have almost nothing to do with it any more. Why bother?

Day 4

Dear Diary,

I launched the 4GET MARARTHON campaign. Some might ask why, and I will answer them in the privacy of this journal: for me and for Wolfy. Both of us have things we want to accomplish that became twisted and unrecognizable at some point in the last four years. I want to write, and my prose lately has taken me to new and frightening places, causing me to draw unforeseen conclusions about myself. Treellama went to school for his music, a noble goal. We both need to forget Marathon. There’s a word other have used in the past for the act of forgetting the game, but I don’t dare utter it just yet.

Day 5

Dear Diary,

4GET has already produced fruit. I wrote more in Earth Mother. Wolfy finished a song he began months ago. There’s not much of a choice now.

Now

loch

~~~~~~~~~~

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

I’m late to the party on this one; thanks #a1 for finding worthwhile stuff while I’m at work.

This month.
Overall.

It’s a place where this makes sense:

18:41 <@Wrkncacnter> ONE FAILURE
18:41 <+jon_irons> dark rooms: are hux a bad CLIQUE habit
18:41 <@RyokoTK> CLIQUE: are hux a bad dark room habit?
18:41 <@RyokoTK> (heh heh heh)
18:41 < ahuxley> dead end dark room would be bad
18:41 <@treellama> olmec

The end of July brings more than one new tiding. In addition to the cumulative IRC information page that I generate every month, I’ve split the master log up by month in order to put a finer touch on the channel data.

• March ‘08
• April ‘08
• May ‘08
• June ‘08
• July ‘08

Link.

After some odd downtime, the spy log has returned with a vengeance, running via my constant IRC connection on the newly-christened boretower. There’s a gap of nearly a week, but I think you’ll forgive me. Thanks to Thermo for getting my ass moving on that one.

SURPRISE! A special emergency JUICEcast 3 for all you JFOers. Good luck with this one.

Note (6/11/2008): I dug up the ridiculously huge original recording, which had the voices in one channel and the music in the other. I made the music at the end a little softer, so now you can at least hear what we’re saying. I think this makes JC3 somewhat listenable again—although still I can’t vouch for the actual content.

NEW YORK CITY: Under a lethargically rising Sun, a young man wandered into the playing field known as #alephone@irc.freenode.net, more commonly shortened to #a1. He saw before him a variety of men, surrounded by force fields that denoted their status in #a1. There were regular people, most of them silent by choice, some chattering like monkeys. Then there were the obvious governors of the realm, statuesque upon their golden thrones: those who bore the symbol @ upon their brow. They had the power of God in this small universe, and the will to go along with it.

After a few opening courtesies, the young man realized that the Sun had topped the surrounding landmarks just enough to illuminate a third caste in the playing field, a small group of people with the scarred rank of +v engraved in varying zones on their epidermis. Some seemed to have this mark repeated in more than one place, and some had artificially smooth skin from which the rank had been erased. As he participated in the banter surrounding him, he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask what this +v meant.

The immediate reply from all comers was the most obvious: One of +v has the Voice. That made sense to the young man, and he was satisfied for a short while. But after the moments faded away behind him, he once again found his eyes and thoughts resting on that jagged scar of the Voice. Why did they need Voice on this field, when all were free to speak as they wished? Even a newcomer such as the young man could raise his words to the highest of Kings there. Soon enough, a pattern emerged: those with +v nodded and spoke along with the governors, in league with them on more levels than the young man understood. A single mind seemed to control them at times.

He pardoned himself and raised a new question, begging to know about this subtle group. Lower men with neither Voice nor Power quaked and hid their faces in their hands, gnashing their teeth to drown out the inevitable answer: the group he detected was the CLIQUE.

Just then, one of the Voicèd ones released a torrent of offensive laughter. All eyes looked toward him. From the outstretched hand of a CLIQUE Governor came a bolt of fire that struck the most prominent scar of honor in the shape of -v, melting that flesh back together, leaving a gagging odor of cooked meat. The young man winced and withdrew himself from the sight of the CLIQUE.

Suddenly, the CLIQUE addressed him in unison. They told him he had taken a false step; he was the unlucky man whose body would become the scapegoat of the CLIQUE’s anger. YOU WHO ARE WITHOUT VOICE SHALL HAVE THE VOICE RENT FROM YOU, came a mighty wave of thought. No! he screamed, I do not wish that fate, and after all, I have not the Voice to begin with!

YOUR OPPOSITION IS IN VAIN. ACCEPT YOUR PUNISHMENT.

Then there was only pain, and behind his eyes, he saw an image.