PARANOIA

Five years ago, loyal citizen Mark Alan Dunder developed an interesting Alpha Complex coordinate system for The Computer's use. Only now have I become aware of it. Belated commendation point, Mark!

What other treasures lurk out there in the dark reaches of the Web?

Loyal citizen Thomas Kerwin, AKA "Space Butler" on Paranoia-Live.net, continues to refine his PARANOIA online character generator (previously plugged on this blog on September 6, 2005). The generator now outputs a smooth .PDF file with equipment and (optionally) mutations drawn from the fine PARANOIA supplement The Mutant Experience.

Citizen Butler continues to seek feedback about the generator ("generator feedback," haha) in the forum thread aptly titled "New PDF Random Character Generator." Drop in and voice an opinion!

As part of its Surveillance Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union sponsored a short pizza-delivery video, a dramatization of a piece of samizdat folklore that's been floating around the Internet since forever. It should ring true to all PARANOIA fans. Thanks to loyal citizen Demota for the pointer; he says, "it totally reminds me of PLC."

EDIT: Broken link fixed. Sorry!

(Warning: Link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.)

One of the loyal and talented members of the Traitor Recycling Studio has an alternate life as an angry, bitter, but mordantly funny guy named Joey Headset. (Link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.) His real name is no big secret, but he doesn't want to have it linked Google-wise with Joey, so we shall keep Gre-- this person's name out of it for now.

If you're up for caustic pop-culture commentary laced with vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity, check out the NOT SAFE FOR WORK Joey Headset. (If it turns out you're not up for it, don't blame me, okay?)

The Engrish website, which features funny mistranslations of English in foreign climes, has several examples that, for reasons either obvious or inscrutable, make me think of Alpha Complex:

• Baked Chunk


• Happiness message


• Super Brain Panic gum


• And, above all, the Self-Help Terminating Machine

It's a widespread domain, Engrish is. If you happen on other relevant delights on the site, please post the links in the comments.

The Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness is a gallery of bizarre instruction manuals maintained by one Darren Barefoot.

When I happened on the instructions for blowing up a horse ("Total obliteration might be preferred in situations where the public is expected in the area the next day, or where bears are particularly prolific") and creating an exploding rat, I was for some reason moved to contemplate what kinds of weird instruction manuals and warning signs one might see in Alpha Complex. Something akin to this hellbound water heater, perhaps, or these floor sweeping instructions.

And certainly Armed Forces has instruction sheets for obtaining intelligence from Outdoors traitors, like this chart for obtaining intel from Iraqi prisoners, as well as these terse yet vital Claymore mine instructions.

What am I missing?

In "The Futures of Money" on Forbes.com, the financial speculations (haha!) by science fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling will ring familiar to fans who recall PARANOIA's licensed credits and cash hackers:

Instead of "socially responsible investment," we might be confronted with money that refuses to let itself be spent. Electronic funds might double check themselves against a blacklist before they move from one chip to another. Touch a terrorist bank account, and you might find yourself with not just a refusal of funds but also with instant taps on your phone and e-mail.

Instead of secret bank accounts, entire secret banks: offshore data havens tucked into satellites or old dead oil rigs or blast-proofed caves outside Kandahar. Black electronic money is encrypted data that does not let itself be recognized as money. Like jewels sewn into a coat lining, a self-perpetuating spool of ones and zeros refuses to admit that it is wealth.

Sterling's Wired.com blog, Beyond the Beyond, makes excellent daily reading.

Big-happy-fun Paranoia-Live.net merchandising news on the leading PARANOIA fan site:

"Citizens and loyal friends of Paranoia-Live.net -- your attention please!

"We are pleased to announce that agreement has been reached in principle to allow Paranoia-Live.net to sell officially licensed PARANOIA/Paranoia-Live.net merchandise. This may include (subject to Computer approval) fun T-shirts, mugs, mousemats and other morale-boosting apparel.

"We'll let you know more over the coming days and weeks. In the meantime you can post your comments, suggestions and product requests in [Official Merchandise Requests and Ideas].

"All Hail The Computer!"

Several PARANOIA fans have recommended Bear Hunting With the Politburo: American Adventures in Russian Capitalism, by A. Craig Copetas. Copetas, an American journalist, lived and worked in Soviet Russia for three years. Simon & Schuster published the first edition of this nonfiction account in 1991; Madison Books published an updated version in 2001.

Oddsod Blok'd, of RPG.net, tells why Bear Hunting should be added to the PARANOIA bibliography: "It deals directly with Soviet cooperators -- men and women who were some of Russia's first free marketeers. In between anecdotes about insane Soviet antics -- including a man delivering a spiel based on 30 seconds of videotape while standing in an office that's being actively demolished while he's in it -- there's a lot of stuff about the first freely available newspaper and information service. This could be good material for 'the economy of Just Barely' that goes on in Alpha Complex."

Today, perhaps serendipitously, Matthew has posted an RPG.net review of Bear Hunting With the Politburo. Specifically discussing the book's relevance to PARANOIA, Matthew quotes from page 94:

"One of my chores while working at Fact [a burgeoning free-market 'cooperative'] in 1988 was to help unpack and set up new office equipment. When I started to uncrate a small photocopier that had been collecting dust in a corner, I was stopped by Roman Kudriavstev, Fact's twenty-three-year-old computer technician. 'No!' he screamed. 'We haven't yet taken care of the bureaucrat in charge!' Kudriavstev said we would all go to jail if the machine were unpacked prematurely, and his explanation, delivered in a nonstop staccato, was an anthem to the Soviet bureaucracy. 'For us to use that machine we need to build a room with a special metal door that has a specifically sized window that only opens on an approved set of hinges.' Brief pause. 'The state must sanction the door and the window and the person who will run the machine with special state documents that allow him and him alone to operate the machine, but only when the door is locked and the copy person is sitting in the room alone.' Another pause. 'The door must always be locked and what we wanted copied must be handed to him through the window and an official record of what's being copied must be made to prevent the machine from distributing subversive material.'"

Works for me!

Via PARANOIA co-designer Eric Goldberg, this Cartoon Bank cartoon that speaks volumes about paranoia in the business world. Or any world, for that matter.

The Underplex is due to hit store shelves in late March. Check the terrific cover by The One True PARANOIA Artist, Jim Holloway!

Those citizens new to the perpetually active forums on Paranoia-Live.net quickly discover its many "out-of-character" (OOC) discussions of the PARANOIA RPG and other vital subjects of the day. But newcomers may only gradually grow aware of the "in-character" (IC) forums, where several dozen active roleplayers are playing out their simulated daily lives in Alpha Complex.

The IC forums are probably similar to any number of online forum RPGs around the Web -- I haven't looked into the topic at all. Maybe they all have security clearance systems, and character inventories, and an economy. But I'll speculate to this extent: I suspect few other forum roleplaying games have ever featured a tea party with a dead badger. Note the custom dead-badger smileys. Paranoia-Live.net leads the way again!

"I've no idea what led up this," says P-L.net mastermind Andy "Jazzer" Fitzpatrick. "But it's just one of several dozen things going on right now. It's absolute madness. It's turned into a kind of twisted social experiment. What's also remarkable is the general lack of BS or powergaming or anything like that. They're just getting on with it. Whatever 'it' is."

Jazzer has advertised for volunteer PHP programmers who are willing to make Paranoia-Live.net an even more tumultuous place. If that's possible.

Two valuable PARANOIA topics are currently running on the RPG.net forums: What does the voice of Our Friend sound like?, and, rarest of treasures, an Actual Play thread by one "Cirv" about his experiences running the mission "Trouble With Cockroaches," from PARANOIA Flashbacks.

There is no more potent sales tool in this hobby than reviews and Actual Play threads. If you enjoy PARANOIA and want to support it, post a review or a recounting of your play sessions on RPG.net or the forum of your choice!