In which Balder raises his staff; a Guest sleeps in Valhalla; Viking learns to spit; IL stands for IsraeL; and a beginner is not a dunce.
Balder @CONNECTs, and looks out across the vast expanse of Valhalla. He sees that two guests now wander the Asgardian lands, and one poor guest seems to have lost its way.
@who
Player name Connected Idle time Location ----------- --------- --------- -------- Balder (#78) 3 minutes 0 seconds Balder’s Chimney Viking (#240) 13 minutes 15 seconds MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer Guest (#243) 2 days 2 days Balmooa ParkTotal: 3 players, 2 of whom have been active recently.
You sense that Viking is looking for you in MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer.
It pages, “hello balder”
In his concern for the lost guest, Balder’s keen hearing fails to discern Viking’s cry of greeting. Balder continues to investigate the long idle Guest.
@who Guest
Player name Connected Idle time Location ----------- --------- --------- -------- Guest (#243) 2 days 2 days Balmooa ParkTotal: 1 player, who has not been active recently.
@net-who Guest
Player name Last Login From Where ----------- ---------- ---------- Guest (#243) Dec 10 1994 138.73.1.224
@move me to Guest
Balmooa Park
Balmooa Park is the cultural center of Valhalla. The Jetson-style Valhalla Museum of Networking and Information is at the north end of the park, the Valhalla Civil Liberties Center pylon rises into the sky to the northeast, and the Spanish villa headquarters of MOO Local #192.55.87.211 lie to the east. There is a statue of a large cow with a coy pond around it in the center of the park.
You see coy pond and stately cow statue here.
Guest is here.
Valhalla Museum Networking+Information ----- N ----- Crcs Bzrr Gt W * E M Lcl #192.55.8 ----- S ----- Balmooa Park Gallery of the ArtsMoved.
look Guest
By definition, guests appear nondescript.
It is awake, but has been staring off into space for 2 days.
Balder waves in front of Guest
Balder raises his staff.
Viking yells all the louder from the Foyer of MOO Local #192.55.87.211. Balder hears and joins Viking.
You sense that Viking is looking for you in MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer.
It pages, “YO! BALDER? IS THAT REALLY YOU ?!!”
@move me to Viking
MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer
A dusty room. The faded mural on the back wall hearkens to the glory days of the MOO Programmers’ Guild. You can smell coffee from the door to the east.
Viking is here.
----- ----- N ----- Balmooa Park W * E M Lcl #192.55.8 ----- S ----- -----Moved.
You say, “Yo, it really me!”
You say, “Our Guest seems to be a bit tired :*)”
@look Viking
By definition, guests appear nondescript.
It is awake and looks alert.
Viking says, “Where are we, What is this? and what are we doing??!!”
You say, “Oh, you’re a guest, too!”
Balder raises his staff.
Viking says, “I’m not a guest I just seem to have stumbled in.”
You say, “This is the Valhalla MOO.”
You say, “Our objects can point to cyberspace, although they don’t yet live there.”
Viking says, “You’re dealing with a dunce. Me”
You say, “A MOO is a virtual world. Instead of Unix commands like ‘mv’ and ‘cd’ and ‘more’, you use ‘realworld’ commands like ‘go south’, ‘look’ and ‘look balder’.”
Viking says, “are there others here too?”
You say, “There are a lot of people who *can* be here, but there are only three people here right now: you, me, and a guest who has been idle for 2 days.”
You say, “You can see who else is here with the command ‘@who’.”
You say, “But then you probably already knew that.”
Balder suddenly realizes he’s been holding that damn staff up. He lets it down.
Viking says, “say so are you supposed to be off killing dragons or making real-world contacts, or getting info, or meeting wandering folks like me???”
You say, “On MOOs in general, you can do all of those.”
Viking says, “including the offing of giant reptillian life forms?”
You say, “Valhalla MOO is set up for meeting wandering folks like you, and for showing off galleries of work. You can also use it to create things that you want; for example, you could create a part of the MOO where you and your friends can meet, or a part where people can ‘adventure’.”
Viking says, “MOO who?”
You say, “If you wanted to create a bar for you and your netfriends, you would (with a real player), type @CREATE $ROOM NAMED VIKING’S BAR.”
You say, “You can’t do this now because you are a guest only.”
You say, “Our MOO is named Valhalla, because the real-world name of the guy who set it up, I’m not joking, is Thor.”
Viking says, “So the question is are you also *just* a guest?”
You say, “No, I’m second-in-command.”
Viking says, “Do I call you Sir?”
You say, “No, you call me later for dinner :*)”
You say, “No, wait, wrong punch line...”
Viking says, “If I knew how to quick type those smilies I’d do it too!”
You say, “Years of living on the infobahn do this to me :*)”
You say, “Do you understand ‘telnet’?”
Viking says, “so how come you’re carrying a *staff*?? and does the staff include a secretary? :-)”
swing staff at Viking
You bop Viking with your staff, making a bloody dent.
Viking says, “what is the command for spit ...as in I spit on you who have bludgeoned me with his staff.”
You say, “The staff is an experiment. It allows me to read news here on Valhalla. I haven’t quite finished it yet.”
swing staff at Viking
You bop Viking with your staff, making a bloody dent.
Viking says, “what kind of news?”
You say, “The staff has a verb for striking (Usenet news). However, if you want to spit on me (oh baby), you can ‘emote’ the spit. Type EMOTE spits on Balder”
rn alt.comics.alternative:4150 on staff
From: [T--A--N] at [news.delphi.com] ([T--A--N] at [DELPHI.COM]) Newsgroups: alt.comics.alternative Subject: CHROMA-TICK Reprints?? Date: 7 Dec 1994 00:20:56 -0000 Can someone confirm if CHROMA-TICK are page-by-page reprints of the original series??Viking says, “I thank you for empowering me with the ability to spit on my foes. Consider yourself a friend ...one upon whom I would not spit.”
You say, “You can use ‘emote’ to do other things; basically, when you type ‘emote something or other’, everybody else sees ‘Viking something or other’. So “emote cries” ==> “Viking cries”, etc.”
You say, “And just ‘emote’ will show everyone your name :*)”
Balder dances on the wind.
Viking says, “my name name or my silly valhalla name or my E name or just Clark Kent?”
You say, “Your silly Valhalla name. For example, right now, Viking.”
Viking ahhhhhh!
You say, “What kind of a computer do you have, and are you hooked directly to the internet? (TCP/IP?)”
look
MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer
A dusty room. The faded mural on the back wall hearkens to the glory days of the MOO Programmers’ Guild. You can smell coffee from the door to the east.
Viking is here.
@rose
Rosette for ‘MOO Local #192.55.87.211 Foyer’ (#157)
----- ----- N ----- Balmooa Park W * E M Lcl #192.55.8 ----- S ----- -----
You say, “Go North, young man.”
go north
You can’t go that way (north).
You say, “er... Go west, I mean.”
go west
Balmooa Park
Balmooa Park is the cultural center of Valhalla. The Jetson-style Valhalla Museum of Networking and Information is at the north end of the park, the Valhalla Civil Liberties Center pylon rises into the sky to the northeast, and the Spanish villa headquarters of MOO Local #192.55.87.211 lie to the east. There is a statue of a large cow with a coy pond around it in the center of the park.
You see coy pond and stately cow statue here.
Guest is here.
Valhalla Museum Networking+Information ----- N ----- Crcs Bzrr Gt W * E M Lcl #192.55.8 ----- S ----- Balmooa Park Gallery of the ArtsViking has arrived.
You say, “I’m going to have to kick Guest out pretty soon...”
Viking says, “is guest here now too ?”
You say, “No, guest may have quite a phone bill, though. Guest has been connected and not doing anything for 2 days.”
look guest
By definition, guests appear nondescript.
It is awake, but has been staring off into space for 2 days.
You say, “Have you been in the gallery of the arts?”
Viking says, “perhaps guest is face down on his/her keyboard?”
Balder hopes not.
You say, “Raymond Chandler could write a novel about it... “Murder in Cyberspace”“
Viking hopes not too
look pond
Coy pond
The coy pond is teeming with brightly colored fish. And each fish has a number on it...
- The Valhalla Gopher (menu)
- Cerebus the Gopher (menu)
help coy pond
coy pond (#174):
Use the following verbs to control coy pond:
- PICK <item> ON coy pond
- Chooses the item from the current list.
- RESET coy pond
- Resets coy pond to the top table of contents.
- MAILME <item> ON coy pond
- Mails you the chosen item on coy pond.
- MAILME coy pond
- Mails you the current contents of coy pond.
- BACK coy pond
- Move back to the previous page of coy pond.
- NEXT or PREV ON coy pond
- Choose the next or previous page while reading an item on coy pond.
The term <item> means the menu number of the first few characters from the title.
If you are familiar with the Generic Gopher Slate, that’s what this really is.
Viking says, “so is it *bad form * to say where your body is (as opposed to your psyche?”
You say, “No, not at all. In fact, I can sort of see....”
@net-who Viking
Player name Last Login From Where ----------- ---------- ---------- Viking (#240) Dec 12 1994 zeus.datasrv.co.ilViking laugh
Balder puts his hand over his eyes.... Illinois!
You say, “And you work for someone called... Data Services?”
Viking says, “Illinois?”
You say, “Well, maybe not.”
Balder laughs
You say, “Haven’t had my coffee yet. Can’t be psychic without coffee.”
Viking says, “you doing some *finger* trick?”
You say, “Sort of. @net-who tells me where you’re connected from. I just made a joke (bad one, of course) about the abbreviation for your country (il).”
You say, “I don’t actually have any idea what ‘il’ stands for.”
Viking says, “I’m sitting in front of an old mac plus in Tel Aviv "
You say, “So, IL is Israel?”
Viking says, “il "
Viking says, “yes IL is IsraeL”
Viking says, “and although there are many intrepid net wanderers in this country you bumped into an idiot.”
You say, “Novice, not idiot. You type too well for an idiot. :*)”
You say, “How did you get here? Gopher?”
Viking says, “it is now 8PM and I’m off for a bit of dinner. It was nice talking to you.”
You say, “Well, stop by anytime; feel free to get your own player.”
Viking says, “actually I Telnetted to this address”
You say, “Then you know how to get here in the future :*)”
Viking says, “but each time you come here you get another name assigned?”
You say, “No: you came in as a guest, so you get one of the random guests (Viking, Gutenberg, Ada, Marco, Guest).”
You say, “There are also instructions in the opening for creating your own, and then you’ll always have that name.”
Viking says, “so that means there are people (like you?) ( and Thor?) who are not guests!?”
You say, “Right. There are a few people; that way, you can recognize people when you meet them a second time. (have you typed “LOOK BALDER” and “LOOK ME” yet?)”
Viking says, “so you picked the name balder?”
Viking says, “I’ll try it now”
You say, “Well, since “Thor” was the main person, I sort of went with the analogy for my ‘wizard’.”
You say, “My *real* player is “Andri”; he lives in the Perpetual Cabaret.”
You say, “Oh, and my real name is actually “Jerry”. On the Internet, you can reach me as “[j--r--y] at [acusd.edu]”, but you can also come onto Valhalla and “@SEND BALDER” to get mail to me.”
look me
Balder the Brave strides across Valhalla with a strong purpose and a light in his eyes.
He is awake and looks alert.
Carrying: Cerebus the Gopher Valhalla File utilities Balder’s Note Pad staff Balder’s Owl Generic Box of URLsViking says, “who said he didn’t understand whatOR?”
You say, “Pardon?”
Viking says, “...how do I leave mail here is there a PO? and how do I own a name? Do I have to use help and start writing things down?”
You say, “Well, probably you don’t need to start writing things down *yet*. If you want to make your own name, “@QUIT” (<== something to write down) as Viking, and then telnet back here. Then, think of a name (it can be your real name, most people’s is) and a password. Then, type “@CREATE name password”. The name and password can’t have spaces. You’ll be connected with that name. From then on, you’ll use @CONNECT name password to come in.”
You say, “But the instructions are in the opening text, so you can read it there.”
Viking says, “thanks and see ya around!”
Balder waves bye.
Viking says, “bye”
Viking spits in joy
Balder jumps back.
Viking has disconnected.
The valkyrie arrives to remove Viking.
And with the Valkyrie carting Viking off to bed, Balder himself @QUITs and rests his head.
Related Pages
- Introduction
- Can’t get there
- The Kinder Gap
- InfoShok
- Guerilla Semiotics
- Information Media
- The Internet Library Today
- Power
- The Internet Board of Control
- The Library of the Future
- The Information Promise
- I Sing the School Electric
- Pushing the Envelope
- Cyberpolitics
- The InfoPoor
- MUSHing the Electronic Frontier
- Murder in Cyberspace
- Do Not Bend, Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate
- Alpha, Beta, Gamma
- American Intifada
- Another Lost Soul on the Information Highway
- Junk Mail
- Addicted!
- A Wake on the Internet
- Good News!
- Do it in the road
- Internet Death Imminent
