You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound... a dimension of sight... a dimension of mind. You are moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over onto... The Twilight Bored.
Narrator: Respectfully submitted for your perusal - a Vandalian. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another cybergalaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Bored.
Scene: Tuba Dave, Secretary General of a small piece of cyberspace known as The Bored, makes an announcement:
Secretary General Dave: On this day posts were made in the principal forums of The Bored. These messages very obviously did not originate from here. This has been scientifically attested to. Rather, they came from a race calling themselves the Vandalians. The first posts were somewhat cryptic, announcing merely that there would be multiple postings made in various threads. We were further told that these posts would be peaceable and that we should take no alarm.
Scene: A Vandalian comes to The Bored. . .
. . .and is questioned by the administrators and moderators
Vandalian: Ladies and gentlemen of The Bored, we greet you in peace and friendship. We come from a place far beyond known cyberspace. A place far more developed than The Bored, but we come as friends. Our intentions are honorable. We desire above all things to help the people of The Bored.
Secretary General Dave: Precisely why have you chosen our Bored for a visit?
Vandalian: It has come to our attention that The Bored has been plagued by both natural and unnatural catastrophes, all of which could easily be acted upon and prevented. We are here to help you
Administrator LB: Are we to assume that your purposes are so totally altruistic that you have a singular and abiding interest in helping others, and may we further assume there is nothing ulterior in these motives beyond this vast humanity that you have mentioned.
Vandalian: There is nothing ulterior in our motives. Nothing at all. You will discover this for yourselves before too long simply by testing the various devices which we will make available to you. We can show you, for example, how to make the server issues you have been experiencing go away. We can demonstrate to you quite practically how to prevent scathing political threads and even how to welcome new members without scaring them off for good. We ask only that you...trust us. Only that you simply...trust us!
Scene: Cryptologists Uly Chambers and Catfish, along with Bored officials gather. . .
. . .to decipher a thread given to them by the Vandalian
Moderator Bob: Have you decode the thread, yet?
Uly: We’ve tried everything. Standard, direct, reversed, systematically-mixed, keyword-mixed, random-mixed, reciprocal, conjugate...every nature of sequence of letters that we can come up with. But I'm gonna tell you something right now, Bob. This is a tough thread. This is a real tough thread
Moderator Bob: The Secretary General seems to feel that if we could decipher this thread...we might be able to decipher the Vandalians themselves.
Uly: Do they need deciphering? They've done all right by us so far. Did you hear about that server they demonstrated this morning? Six hours later the Bored was running as smooth as ever. No ISEs or delays.
[Uly looks at the Vandalian thread]
Uly: We might lick this and we might not.
[Uly looks up]
Uly: But I got a strange feeling that--
Catfish: That what?
Uly: That we're looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Scene: Uly deciphers the thread
Uly: Our visitor's thread bears the following title - To Serve The Bored. I'd call that a reasonably altruistic phrase. Wouldn't you agree?
Moderator Bob: (thoughtfully and softly) To Serve The Bored. To...Serve...The Bored! I hope so. I fervently hope so.
Scene: The Vandalian is again questioned by Bored big shots
Administrator LB: I shall ask our distinguished guest to reply to the question put at the last session by several BBs. Namely - what is the motive for the Vandalians in offering these great gifts to The Bored?
Vandalian: On my board there is a saying, "There are more riddles in a stone than in Bob Juch’s head." The motives of intelligent beings, though they may at times appear obscure, are simple things compared to the complex workings of cyberspace. Therefore I hope that BBs will understand and believe when I tell you that our mission upon this Bored is simply this--to bring to you a smooth-running, ultra-friendly message board, which we have in the past brought to other sites throughout cyberspace. When your Bored has no server issues, no more flaming political threads, no more derision and plenty of new BBs, that will be our reward!
Scene: Uly and Catfish discuss the post
Catfish : So you’re going to log onto the new Bored
Uly: Yes, I’ve been waiting for days for my chance
Catfish : Help me get rid of this strange little knot inside me. This very funny persistent nightmarish feeling.
Uly: Nightmarish?
Catfish : That's right. A little sixth sense, if you will.
Uly: That tells you what?
Catfish : That tells me that maybe this is all too good to be true
Scene: Thanks to the Vandalians, The Bored is revamped and ready to go. Bored Buddies new and old, line up to log in
Scene: Catfish attempts to stop Uly from logging in
Catfish : Can you get out of this? Can you refuse to log in?
Uly: Are you kidding? I've been waiting weeks for this. And don't say that in the chat room or there'll be a dozen BBs over the two of us to take my place.
[Catfish looks concerned]
Uly: What's the matter, Catfish ? What's going on?
Catfish : I...I finally deciphered their language. All of it. I read the entire thread.
Vandalian: Please move ahead. You're holding up our login procedure. Kindly move ahead.
Uly: Well?
Catfish : Uly, the first post is just a collection of English words with their own translation. But the rest of the posts...the rest of the posts...
Uly: What is it?
Catfish : To Serve The Bored...it's a promo! Just another lame promo for TEN!, returning to The Bored next Monday. The Vandalians are serving up another week of this crap.
Uly: No! We've been fooled. Let me out! Let me out!
Narrator: The very explicit and very specific differences in points of view. To the wee ones...the little folk called Bored Buddies...it's a marvelous adventure, a voyage to another Bored. An exciting sojourn to another section of cyberspace. But to the very large, granite-faced inhabitants known as Vandalians...it's nothing more than a shameless promo, a very comfortable ripoff of an old classic. Like I say...it's all in the point of view.
Scene: Uly is trapped on the New Bored. Like many others, doomed to play TEN!, starting Monday, May 21.
Uly: How about you? You still on The Updated Home for the Weary, or on the New Bored with me? Really doesn't make very much difference, because sooner or later, we'll all play TEN!...all of us."
Narrator: The recollections of one Uly Chambers with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of BBs. The cycle of going from player to played. The metamorphosis from being the member of an internet site to a chess piece. It's tonight's bill of fare from...
The Twilight Bored.
TEN! returns Monday, May 21
Consider yourself...served!
