PARANOIA

Matthew Sprange, doyen of Mongoose Publishing (publisher of the current edition of PARANOIA), has posted on the hyperactive Mongoose forums the 2007 installment of his annual "State of the Mongoose" business report. The four-part conspectus includes an overview, roleplaying, miniatures, and special projects.

After a prolonged shakeout of its major new in-house printing system, Mongoose is now shipping many thousands of hardcovers each month. (PARANOIA suffered a year-long downtime, but current releases include Flashbacks 2, STUFF 2: The Gray Subnets, and the mission omnibus Alpha Complex Nights.) About forthcoming PARANOIA support, Matthew writes:

We have a strong love for PARANOIA here at Mongoose (I can’t wait to see what new editor Charlotte makes of the first PARANOIA book she is given to edit!), and 2008 will see some pretty exciting additions. We are aiming to bring you more scenarios, along with a greater depth of support in Signs & Portents, but I have to mention two books that will be coming out in the first half of 2008; The Big Book of Bots and The Thin Green Line. The first I presume needs little introduction, but whether you are looking for a character somewhat more durable than a Troubleshooter or an evil GM wanting to inflict maximum pain on his players, The Big Book of Bots will present a staple of Alpha Complex in a variety of interesting and lethal styles.

The Thin Green Line will do for the Vulture Squadrons what HIL Sector Blues did for Int Sec. Expect the very worse moments of Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, and Full Metal Jacket, mixed in with hysterical Commies, contradicting orders, and your ever-present friend, The Computer.

Though Matthew doesn't mention it, I understand both of these books are currently scheduled to be written by Gareth (The Traitor's Manual) Hanrahan. Gareth has enjoyed a pleasant idyll, casually dashing off the forthcoming Mongoose edition of Traveller, and, now refreshed, is about ready to buckle down to some serious PARANOIA.

"This year has been an interesting one, as the Chinese say," Matthew concludes, "but as a whole, the company has been gearing itself up to reach for the next level. [...] We are not batting down the hatches and preparing to ride the storm of a shrinking market – far from it. Mongoose is looking to expand, and enjoy the rich and diverse industry in which we belong."

This week-long (and counting) thread on the RPG.net forums, "Write a letter to your favorite/least favorite game," starts out funny (and PARANOIA makes a brief appearance early on) but evolves rapidly in remarkable ways. I leave the fascination for you to discover. (Caution: Some vulgar language and arguably sexist attitudes.)

This thread resembles another RPG.net forum topic from 2002, "RPGs as clingy girlfriends," a similar examination of the relationship between seemingly uncoupled passions. (Though if the sexism of the previous thread bugged you, don't even think of reading this one.)

Two weeks ago, as part of this blog's distressingly frequent series "PARANOIA in the Real World," we mentioned a high school in Roanoke, Virginia where the students exhibited "mysterious symptoms" that teachers were forbidden to describe. Now, according to David Harrison in the Roanoke Times, experts say the symptoms at William Byrd High were a "mass psychogenic illness" or "collective stress reaction." Apparently a similar case happened in 1939 in Bellevue, Louisiana.

Young women who are living with a great deal of pent-up stress are more susceptible to psychogenic illnesses, according to [Robert E.] Bartholomew, a sociologist in Australia who has been following the case at William Byrd via the Internet.

"The symptoms aren't just 'all in their heads.' They're real, though the cause is psychological," he wrote.[...]

Bartholomew said psychogenic episodes were common in more repressed medieval societies but have become rarer in the Western world as people now have more ways to release pent-up stress. Still, he wrote, "outbreaks are much more common than are reported in the media."

In 2004, chorus members at Starpoint High School near Buffalo, N.Y., reported feeling [dizziness], headaches and nausea. Extensive tests on both the students and the building found nothing. The following year, a "mysterious odor" at West Cedar Elementary School in Waverly, Iowa, was blamed for fatigue, headaches, itchy eyes and dry throats among roughly 10 percent of the student body, according to an article co-written by Bartholomew earlier this year. Health officials and the Environmental Protection Agency found nothing wrong in the school.

Closer to home, a mysterious "mad gasser" sparked panic in Botetourt and Roanoke counties in 1933 and 1934. Residents claimed that someone had sprayed their houses with some poisonous gas that was making them sick. An analysis of the gas found it to be similar to common insecticides, leading to a Roanoke Times 1934 headline: "Sample of 'Gas' Is Found To Be Harmless To Humans."

Depression-era mad gassers spraying insecticide! Forget PARANOIA, it's time to start outlining a Call of Cthulhu investigation.

The recent birth announcement by proud father Biggles, VIOLET Administrator on Paranoia-Live.net, meets the highest Alpha Complex standards for such missives, which is easy inasmuch as HPD&MC has not yet defined standards for announcements of (horrors!) natural births.

Congratulations to Biggles (who writes for the Traitor Recycling Studio and the Mongoose Publishing PARANOIA line under his other alias, "WJ MacGuffin") and to his unnamed partner citizen who is, according to certain dubious Old Reckoning accounts, an equally vital participant in the messy process.

(Guess that's the last of Biggles/WJ we'll see on the next Traitor Recycling project. But I'm not quite ready to talk about that yet....)

Labels: births, decanting, messy

Via Shanghaiist, a recently compilation on the Chinese-language Tianya forum lists over 3,000 permits and fees a Chinese citizen may face. Though I can't find the link, apparently China Digital Times translated a few -- some understandable ("Resource protection fee for forests seizure," "Certificate to acquire, reject or reinstate Chinese citizenship"), others a bit odd:

• Experiment fee for pesticide use on the farmland


• Service fee for the distribution of civilian-use guns and ammunition


• River path sand mining administration fee


• English typing skill test fee


• News gathering professional qualification test fee


• Dog restriction fee

This list isn't a laugh riot in itself, but it does prompt speculation about fees a mischievous/devious/venal PLC or CPU clerk might request from hapless Alpha Complex Troubleshooters:

• Deviant tongue-print reconciliation fee


• JWD Sector Rogue Hot Fun Recapture Fee


• Cafeteria tray disinfectant and anti-radiation treatment


• CruncheeTym algae chip bag opacity- and radar-invisibility standard assessment fee

...and so on. Other ideas?

Greg Ingber of the Traitor Recycling Studio writes, "Here's a quality PARANOIA situation. A local high school [William Byrd High School in Roanoke, Virginia] has a bunch of students coming down with strange symptoms: dizziness, head rushes, headaches -- oh, AND uncontrollable twitching. So they send out a letter to parents. But they aren't actually allowed to tell the parents what the symptoms are. Obviously, they're trying to avoid copycat sufferers, kids twitching in front of Mom to get out of school. So the teachers just tell the parents to 'look out for mysterious symptoms' -- causing precisely the sort of mass hysteria they were trying to avoid.

"The most bizarre aspect: At a school board meeting, the head of the school board actually asked one of the parents at the meeting to specify the symptoms, because everyone on the board had been expressly forbidden from doing so."

Why this moratorium? Quoted in a news story by David Harrison in the Roanoke Times, Roanoke County Public Schools Superintendent Lorraine Lange offers a compelling explanation, worthy of The Computer's diligent micromanagers in the Central Processing Unit service group:

"If we were more specific about the symptoms these individuals are experiencing, we would identify who those individuals are. We have to respect their privacy," Lange said.

"They won't close the school down," Greg continues. "Mind you, if three snowflakes hit the ground, they'd close it in a heartbeat. But uncontrollably twitching kids? Well, that could just be from the video games and the energy drinks. I swear, you could have a third of the kids staggering around the halls with their faces rotting off, moaning 'brains, braaaains,' and the school's solution would be to tell parents, 'Please keep an eye out for any change in your children's eating habits.'"

There's a short but amusing PARANOIA article in this month's Signs & Portents magazine.