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This is an interestpost. I have an idea for some sort of vaguely tongue-in-cheek 'religion' that exists mostly on the Internet and no one took it very seriously until all those half-joking oaths and 'observances' and stories and myths and whatnot hit a critical point and an actual deity coalesced, and no one ever told it it was only ever meant to be funny. Gonna ruminate on it some.
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Dec 10, 2017 10:30
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:13 |
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Sygyzy, God Of Telecommunication Decades ago, in the infancy of what would later become the internet*, a particularly geek-centric culture started to grow. The system was used almost entirely by network researchers, computer scientists, and the people who were busy inventing the drat thing, and as with any particularly inwards-looking subculture, in-jokes and references became endemic. *Note: this post is going to use a bunch of real-world terms despite the fact that we're creating a whole new world here; this world will probably use different terms for things like 'USENET newsgroups' and such, and we can come up with more fantastical and fictional equivalents if and when it matters, but for simplicity in reading (and writing) I'm using terms that will be more familiar to players. The first known reference to Sygyzy came about during the development of the protocols which would later become the standard for the early days of network communications; one newsgroup discussion of the protocol veered into the topic of packet loss. One user, a man named Reginald Vidankham, joked that "occasionally packets will be lost, but you must not think of this as an error; in reality they are sacrifices to Sygyzy, the God of Networks." Vidankham was joking - he was, in fact, one of the people working to smooth out the issues of packet loss at the time - but before long the joke was out of his control; other users were making references to Sygyzy, jokey 'prayers' and 'hymns'. Vidankham played along with the jest, and was soon acclaimed as the High Priest of Sygyzy and the Keeper of Scripture. Most of the jokes were exceedingly silly. Some were crass. Many were juvenile. In this, they were no different from the many in-jokes that permeated the early days of network connectivity. Reginald Vidankham, however, decided - as a hobby and a sideline, as well as something that would give him the excuse to jump into almost any discussion - to actually take his 'job' semi-seriously, maintaining a fairly exhaustive list of everything that anyone said about Sygyzy and declaring whether they were 'accepted within the canonical scripture,' and the fact that he was also a well-regarded scientist whose work on network protocols had been groundbreaking meant that people would actually listen. To his personal friends he would readily admit that the whole thing was a lark - he'd even chosen the name Sygyzy after an astronomical term that he happened to find somewhat silly to type - but he would at least act as though he took the matter seriously. Over several decades, as networked computers stopped being a curiosity and started becoming a global phenomenon that was starting to revolutionize finance and commerce and popular culture, the 'Cult of Sygyzy' became almost institutionalized. Many an IT department would set up joking little shrines in the corner of a server room, or burn incense over a malfunctioning computer ('the ritual smoke appeases Sygyzy,' they would say, laughing, 'so that he does not decide to release the Magic Blue Smoke that makes your computer work'). Various companies began selling little tokens and icons to IT workers who - like so many IT workers - had more money than sense... and this is where Vidankham's wisdom became apparent, as he was able to successfully sue for a cut of their profits. It was all a grand joke, a way to further separate the suit-and-tie office drones of the world from the strange little IT drones in their hobbit-holes who, everyone admitted, were good for keeping the computers running but who no one actually wanted around when everything was working right. A few more decades passed. Now the people who had cut their teeth on network infrastructure back when Sygyzy jokes were all the rage were the ones teaching classes to the next generation of college students, who learned all the jokes by rote - either by hearing them from their professors, or going and looking some of them up in the USENET archives as a way to try and score brownie points and maybe some all-important extra credit. Before Vidankham died of natural causes at the age of 59, he declared his favorite grad student, Maisie Sinclair, to be his successor as Sygyzy's High Priest(ess). He even used a portion of the royalties he had earned over the years to set up a non-profit foundation devoted solely to keeping his archives of Sygyzy Lore online - to pay for the hosting fees and the web domains and all that stuff. "Why not?" he told Sinclair one evening, when he'd gotten her permission for the 'nomination.' "It's been a good joke for this long; let's let it keep going for a while, I figure." Now... faith is an interesting thing. Sure, everyone knew that no one actually believed in Sygyzy. When a capacitor burned out and the tech guys said "oh, Sygyzy has claimed another sacrifice" it was just a joke - and not a very good one, repeated over the years by rote. When the latch on a guy's ethernet cable plug breaks off and he yelled "Sygyzy dammit!" it wasn't a symbol of belief; it was a cultural signifier, a way of announcing to anyone within earshot that he was a part of the Tribe of people who Know About Computer poo poo - and, more often than not, that You Are Not. Honestly, none of it was meant any more seriously than it was meant when afficionados of a particular science fiction TV series would make the distinctive hand gesture of one 'alien' (read: 'human with ear prosthetics and a distinctive haircut') character at one another. But it's not as though many of these people believed in anything else, either. The Old Gods rarely got more than lip service, and in many cases got even less than that. So their calls to Sygyzy might have been piddly, worthless little wisps of Faith... but they were more powerful than any other Faith that might have been hiding in their hearts. All of which is to explain how Maisie Sinclair came back home one day after attending a training seminar on new fiber-optic telecommunications techniques to find a faintly glowing translucent figure, connected to her monitor by a thin umbilical cord of light, sitting in her desk chair, leafing through printouts of old USENET posts, looking up at her and saying "You know half of this stuff isn't internally consistent, right?" ***** What kind of god are you? Sygyzy is a New God, born from the belief of a multitude of tech professionals who didn't really have much else to believe in besides the fact that the latest movie about their favorite comic book character will probably not be faithful to the source material and that maybe a new car will help them feel better about the fact that Jane in Sales won't give them the time of day. Who are you? Sygyzy is the God Of Telecommunications. He is also, depending on who you listen to, a mischievous trickster, a demanding taskmaster, or a mellow nerd who just wants to help his fellow nerds out. No one has yet told him that no one takes him seriously. Where are you from? He's from the Internet. Yes, you should be concerned about that. What are you the God of? Sygyzy is the God of Telecommunications [+2]. He's not the God of the Internet - he's the God of the poo poo that makes the Internet work. No more, no less. (this could conceivably expand into Communications in general, or even Technology, but for the time being it's intentionally pretty limited) Where do you excel (+4, mortal)? Sygyzy has long been held to maintain power over the Magic Blue Smoke - the semi-mysterious 'stuff that makes your computers work.' That is to say, if it's electronic, he can break it. What gives you an edge (+2, mortal)? Formed from the belief of those who have invoked him, Sygyzy is, inescapably, kind of a Nerd. He knows stuff about technology. Also about particularly lowbrow pop culture. What upends your plans (+2/+4/+6, situational, optional)? Sygyzy's biggest problem is that No One Takes Him Seriously. He's a joke; he's always been a joke. Just as no one actually laughs when a deer walks into a bar, no one actually respects him. Anytime he's doing something that depends on being taken seriously, he can be penalized. What kind of story do you want to tell? I remember the early days of USENET and things like "Kibology," and the idea of playing something inspired by that sort of tongue-in-cheek "mythos" appeals to me. Also, it's a far cry from the kind of nature/life/healing goddess motherly-type I tend to play in this sort of game. What kind of story I'd actually like is a sort of examination of how faith and belief and Divine Powah are intertwined, really - but what that means in practice, in terms of "well do you want to punch demons or not" or what have you, I'm not too comfortable asking for in advance, if only because part of the fun, for me, is being surprised. I guess I mostly want to see if I can get Sygyzy taken seriously enough that I'll have to change his Foible, really. And lastly, because I suspect it will come up, I'll add an extra question: Doesn't this app conflict with Jamezbfod's? I don't think it does, actually! He's a being of software; Sygyzy is a being of hardware. I suspect the two of them - in the hypothetical world where we both get accepted - could interact in surprisingly fun ways, either as allies or enemies. It could be sorta neat!
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Dec 11, 2017 23:40
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LLSix posted:I love everything about this. The fluff is so good that I almost missed how much overlap there is between all three of your qualities. Telecommunications can make things work, or even work better, or even, theoretically, create new means of telecomms. Magic Blue Smoke can only break poo poo - it can only let the Magic Blue Smoke out of your computer. Essentially, the former is a Swiss Army Knife and the latter is a big ol' hammer.
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Dec 12, 2017 02:21
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