Inside jokes and obscure references
By
Aghast,
Posted on: 2005-02-04 17:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
one I just realized while watching the movie last night. The town that Goonies takes place in is called....Astoria. :0)
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Now all we need is a three headed Rikti Monkey.
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"Look!! Behind you!" 
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It's a secret. You have to be part of our secret club to get in. The no BlueMoneyBoys club.
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A piece of pie for you for the Simpsons reference.
"I said No BlueMoneyBoys. We already *have* a BlueMoneyBoy"
oh and a star for you too 
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Challenger Technology - I would assume this is tribute to the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle that exploded on take-off with a civilian on board, Kristin McAuliffe (sp?), who was to be the first civilian in space.
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What fits better as a reference is Professor George Edward Challenger from Conan Doyle's Lost World story.
(apologies if this was mentioned...not up to scanning 18 pages at the moment)
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I first encountered the term wetware in Shadowrun. It refers to bioware, cloned-type additions to the body, as opposed to cyberware, the typical hardware-type stuff.
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The term predates Shadowrun, and was the title of a novel by Rudy Rucker published in 1988, part of his 'Ware' series of novels: Software, Wetware, Freeware, and Realware; it was widely used in the computer community to refer to the people in a computer installation or their mental capacity.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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The 'manager' of the Steel Canyon Icon is named Serge. He looks an awful lot like Bronson Pinchot, who played Serge, the 'manager' of the art gallery in Beverley Hills Cop.
Is this a coincidence, or are they related?
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'Serge' is a durable twill fabric, and 'serging' is the process of overcasting the edge of a piece of fabric to keep it from unravelling.
"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
FWIW, the names on the Magic SO enhancements also mean something:
Joule is an obscure unit of work measurement in physics, rather like a foot-pound. It was named after James Joule, an English physicist from the late nineteenth century.
Grey appears to reference the Gray Aliens, the standard model extraterrestrial with the large staring eyes and elongated body.
Hermes is the Greek god of messengers, speed, and stealth.
I find these names far less satisfactory than Li Tieh Kuai, Crowley, and Nectanebo.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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imvicious2u (Jan 28, 2005, 14:55) responds with:
"Duh...You want i should kill skuls boss?"
Upsen_Downs (Jan 28, 2005, 15:53) responds to imvicious2u with:
"Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls"
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Woo! a fleeting moment of infamy on the internet! 8)
Michael Spanky Rabinowitz in Talos is an obvious reference to Providence's former Buddy Cianci mayor (now serving time for racketeering, Operation Plunder Dome, best FBI code name ever). Buddy is well known for his corruption, which unfortunately has overshadowed his immense accomplishments in turning Providence into a great city. Until his latest conviction, Rhode Island had the distinction of being the only state capitol with a convicted felon as mayor, DC is not a state and does not count. In his first run in with the law he had two state policeman hold down his best friend while he beat him with a burning log and put cigarettes out on him (the guy was cheating with Cianci's wife...)
In Steel Canyon, several districts have the name of metals in their name. Rhode Island is the metal plating capitol of the US. Also in Providence there is a district called Silver Lake
Frank
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DARK ASTORIA (if anybody can tell me what relation this has to undead, I'd be very happy. I did find a guy who had a D&D campaign started in 1992 in a land called Astoria, which had been overrun by undead in the near past, but I figured that was too much of a coincidence. The guy's name is Brad Dunker, and I tried doing some searching to see if he had any connection to NCSoft, Cryptic, or CoH, but came up empty).
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This was always a running joke between me and my SO... She's *from Astoria, OR* and every time a zombie wanders by and she happens to be in the area, I go "Hey isn't that <fill in the name of one of the town's residents>?" *Whacks my head*
The town is touristy, and only lately is getting some tourist buzz due to the anniversary of being the end of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. If anyone was *from* there though they might mistake it for an Evil Dead movie...
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No one mentioned Doc Whedon's badge yet? Possibly a reference to Joss Whedon, though I don't know how much Comic Book work he'd done by the time the badge was added to Perez Park.
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Aside from the Buffy and Angel comics, I believe he's had a stint writing for X-Men.
Oh, and not watching Serenity when it comes out makes Tam and Mat cry. And baby Laser Jesus too. But mostly Tam and Mat.
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FWIW, the names on the Magic SO enhancements also mean something:
Joule is an obscure unit of work measurement in physics, rather like a foot-pound. It was named after James Joule, an English physicist from the late nineteenth century.
Grey appears to reference the Gray Aliens, the standard model extraterrestrial with the large staring eyes and elongated body.
Hermes is the Greek god of messengers, speed, and stealth.
I find these names far less satisfactory than Li Tieh Kuai, Crowley, and Nectanebo.
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Well, Hermes in this case probably refers to Hermes Trismagestus, the aspect of the god Hermes associated with certain magical orders, like Crowley's Golden Dawn, if memory serves.
Joule also the Metric System (SI)'s unit of Energy, and isn't obscure at all. I believe the SI unit for Work is the Watt, but I'm a bit rusty.
Edit : Energy *is* Work, silly me. The Watt is the Metric measurement of Power, which is Work or Energy over time.
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No one mentioned Doc Whedon's badge yet? Possibly a reference to Joss Whedon, though I don't know how much Comic Book work he'd done by the time the badge was added to Perez Park.
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Aside from the Buffy and Angel comics, I believe he's had a stint writing for X-Men.
Oh, and not watching Serenity when it comes out makes Tam and Mat cry. And baby Laser Jesus too. But mostly Tam and Mat.
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Yea, he's on it now, but I don't think that had started at the time the name was given.
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Well, Hermes in this case probably refers to Hermes Trismagestus, the aspect of the god Hermes associated with certain magical orders, like Crowley's Golden Dawn, if memory serves.
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Wrong. Hermes 3 Meg is not associated with the caduceus, while the god Hermes is.
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Joule also the Metric System (SI)'s unit of Energy, and isn't obscure at all. I believe the SI unit for Work is the Watt, but I'm a bit rusty.
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Which is also the reason Holm's creations are named Watt (his personal combat assistant / Targetting Drone) and Joulie (the paranoid andr... erm, hologram). Actually, Joulie is also named after a completely unrelated character in the now finished "fake" sprite comic Kid Radd.
I believe he would have had Fray out at the time.
Hermes and Hermes Trismagestus are the same guy. The difference is that the Greeks began using the latter name after melding Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth.
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William's Square - after the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams
Louis Forest - stumped on this one. Lots of founders of things named "Louis", but none as clearly related as, for instance, Roger Williams.
Blackstone Hills - the U.S. Constitution was based, in part, on Sir William Blackstone's "Commentaries on the Laws of England" (1765).
Hutchison Park - jury's still out on this one.
The Gaspee - The HMS Gaspee was a British navy ship that was burned by American colonials after it ran aground while chasing a suspected "smuggler" in an attempt to collect taxes from the itinerant Americans. It was a fairly large event leading up to the Revolutionary War.
Red River is geographical and Liberty Town is fairly self-evidently related.
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OK not sure if anyone already answered about some of these (wasn't able to read the entire thread). But I believe the reference to Loius Forest and the Red River one are in fact Canadian references.
Since all of these places in Founder's are about revolution and founding stuff, I came to that conclusion. the Louis one is fro Louis Riel who, with Gabriel Dumont and some other metis leaders rose up in the town of Red River in Manitoba to break away from the country of Canada to form their own sovreign nation. Of course that failed and most of them were rounded up and hung for treason, but the war lasted a good many years and the battles stretched from Manitoba through Saskachewan and ended in Alberta. Yeah that is about the most exciting thing that has happened up here.
One I can't believe nobody's gotten yet is the Tech SO for Disorient(?) duration. It's a Holey Field generator. I'll leave you to supply your own rimshot.
Have you or someone you know been the victim of Nerd Rage?
Find answers, get help.
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Joule also the Metric System (SI)'s unit of Energy, and isn't obscure at all. I believe the SI unit for Work is the Watt, but I'm a bit rusty.
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If you use the metric system, the Skuls win.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
ok ok ok i have to know, if this was posted earlier in the thread i apologize, i dont have the time to read that many pages.
nemesis " NONE SHALL PASS "
Black knight?
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It's a Holey Field generator.
[/ QUOTE ]Now, all I could think of here was "Lazlo?"
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Joule also the Metric System (SI)'s unit of Energy, and isn't obscure at all. I believe the SI unit for Work is the Watt, but I'm a bit rusty.
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If you use the metric system, the Skuls win.
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Hey, I can't help it if you Americans are still stuck with the Imperial system while the rest of the world uses the much more intuitive and scientifically approved Metric system. But no, Metric has to be gone to the Americans! 
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Hey, I can't help it if you Americans are still stuck with the Imperial system while the rest of the world uses the much more intuitive and scientifically approved Metric system. But no, Metric has to be gone to the Americans!
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Feh, metric blows. They made it all easy so people wouldn't have to do math in their heads, and where's the fun in that?
SI, now, SI (which is *not* the metric system) is heaven-sent. And if you ask me to explain the difference I'll have to go hide under a rock until you go away, so there. 
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My favorite reference, and it may have been mentioned already, maybe even by me, I don't know, has always been the reference to Strikeforce: Morituri at the end of the Manticore TF.
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Wow. You may have the most obscure reference so far on this thread!
Got any details on this, as I'm quite a few years removed from that comic.....
Keep'em coming, folks. I think it'd be nice to get confirmation from the developers on some of these, though.. some could conceivably come from one of a number of sources.
No one mentioned Doc Whedon's badge yet? Possibly a reference to Joss Whedon, though I don't know how much Comic Book work he'd done by the time the badge was added to Perez Park.