Talk:Orz

It seems to me that *silly* just means 'stupid' to the orz. "I am clear! You are not so silly." Is it just me or have other people noticed this too?

Singular Orz

It may not be an accepted theory, but I remember (from some years ago) that Orz always refers to itself a single entity. Would anyone mind if I change all the self references here to singular forms?

Seems like a good idea. It would make sense to elaborate on this fact in the article too. Also, it may be possible that there are other entities of its kind. - SvdB 23:02, 5 Oct 2004 (CEST)

It is not true that Orz always refer to themselves/itself as a single entity: "Who are you? You are not Orz We are Orz! Orz are happy *people energy* from the outside." I don't object to referring to Orz in singular in the article, I'm just pointing out that they don't always refer to themselves singularly. Although I haven't seen them refer to themselves as "the Orz" (like a species), only "Orz" (like a name for a person).

I'd say that only one thing is really known about Orz: it's very difficult to understand them :) And this music is totally bonkers! --Jacius 03:50, 25 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Looking again, it seems the Orz only occasionaly refer to themselves in the singular (ie, "Orz is go with you same place for *party*"), or at least not very often at all. Although, they refer to lots of other singular things in the plural... --Jacius 04:45, 25 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Not wanting to throw a new spanner in all of this or anything, but one of the quotes made me a little curious; "Aha! I am told other Orz cousins you are connected for camping! I am so right!" I'm kind of intrigued by this. If the Orz are all one entity, who are the "cousins"? Other IDF races? Luminar 3:02, 22 Feb 2006 (CEST)

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Whoever 147.72.117.19 is, that last edit for Orz was awesome! Much clearer. It's they way I was going to make it if I had had the time.

Mmrnmhrm 17:04, 7 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Evidence

I moved the Evidence section to my own User page.

I added a bit about how Orz enjoy TrueSpace more than where they came from. My evidence for this is on my User page. (Conversations 1 and 2) --Jacius 04:45, 25 Oct 2004 (CEST)

The Orz only occasionally refer to "Orz" in the third person singular. Moreover, the accepted usage in *all the rest* of the game is to call the Orz "the Orz" and refer to them in the plural. Since we're not writing the whole article in Orzese, there's no point in using an occasional Orzese usage exclusively for the Orz, and it's really a pretty annoying way to write. Even though I accept the "hivemind" theories tentatively, I still feel like the fact that the Orz *appear* as a race of separate life forms means we should do what the other characters in the game do and call them "the Orz". I also think that the most interesting explanations go beyond the naive idea of a hivemind -- that there's one individual Orz whose mind works the way an individual Human mind works, and that it manipulates the Orz bodies as puppets. I think it's more interesting to think that the individual Orz somehow *are* equivalent to individual Humans, only all jacked in to some higher-level being we Human individuals can't imagine (the way we're made of lots and lots of individual cells that all work together in a way an amoeba couldn't imagine, rather than really being one single cell that controls a lot of other cells.)

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Look, people. This is a wiki, not a discussion forum. If you want to add something, integrate it into the existing article or if necessary do a full rewrite of the article. But don't just drop in your own comments in a conversational style, as comments. We *don't have* threaded posting here; can you imagine what a royal mess each article would look like if everyone just posted all the comments they had on that topic there separately? If you must do that the proper place for it is these talk pages, but even here it should be at a minimum -- there are plenty of actual bulletin boards and forums and such for this kind of discussion.

This entire theories section is a mess. I'll try to clean it up a bit. Btw, judging by the IP number, this "people" is actually one person, on whom you commented in the Juffo-Wup article before. Yeah, I know, it can be annoying when people refuse to create an account. -- SvdB 16:56, 31 Mar 2005 (CEST)

The Orz are the Androsynth

By a conversation with the Arilou it's achieved that actually the Orz were Androsynth in the past: "They have names, but you do not know them. They are blind to your presence, unless you show yourself. The Androsynth showed themselves, and something noticed them. There are no Androsynth now, only Orz." Zoltan

- I suppose assimilation could be one of the reasons for the Androsynth's disappearance, as opposed to consumption or disintegration. This could possibly apply to the Taalo too, if we knew how long a *piece* is to humans. But whereas the Androsynth brought the Orz to us, the Taalo might have accidentally brought themselves to the Orz. (As a friendly aside, an easy way to do a signature is to type four tilde(~) at the end of your post) Luminar 16:57, 5 March 2006 (CET)

The Orz are "them" (edit of April 21)

I was responsible for the edit claiming that the Orz were confirmed as "them," based on this bit from the October 18 chat:

<LordR-man> Fwiffo- What really happened to the Androsynth in sc2?
<Fwiffo> In regards to the Androsynth: They were snagged by the entity who/which projected its fingers into our dimension (which looked to us as the Orz.)

It's pretty clear to me that this is saying that the Orz are how we perceive the "fingers" of the entity that snagged the Androsynth, i.e. the Orz are "them." What do you think it means? Peejaybee 04:44, 25 April 2006 (CEST)

What I think is irrelevant. What's only relevant is what is said. "Them/They" does not necessarilly refer to "whoever snagged the Androsynth". These are the phrases that refer to "Them":

There are parasites. Creatures who dwell Beyond. They have names, but you do not know them. They would like to find you but they are blind to your presence... unless you show yourselves.

and

They cannot see you now. They cannot smell you.

That's all that is said about them. These sentences are mentioned in close proximity to sentences about the Orz ("The Androsynth showed themselves, and something noticed them. There are no more Androsynth now. Only Orz."), but it does not actually say that they are the same. In fact, it reads to me like TFB have taken care *not* to say that.

The question is not whether "whoever snagged the Androsynth" is the "Orz" — the chat was unambigous about that — but whether They are "whoever snagged the Androsynth", which is the as the question whether They are the Orz. And that's what this whole section of the article is about. — SvdB 11:52, 25 April 2006 (CEST)

I agree with SvdB on this one. If anything, TFB's comments would belong on the next section "Orz killed the Androsynth". Also, there is one other mention of a "Them", from the reports for the Androsynth ruins:

...HE SAID THAT NO ONE COULD EVER KNOW WHAT HE HAD LEARNED. THAT JUST KNOWING WAS ENOUGH TO ALERT `THEM'

HE KEPT TALKING ABOUT `THEM', CRAZY STUFF, SIR, ABOUT HOW `THEY' COULD SEE HIM NOW, AND `THEY' WERE MOVING TOWARD HIM. THEN BUKOWSKI STARTED THRASHING AROUND THE ROOM, SCREAMING THAT HE HAD TO DESTROY EVERYTHING BEFORE `THEY' SAW US TOO.

This still doesn't claim that "They" killed the Androsynth, but is very similar to the Arilou's comments previously mentioned. --Fyzixfighter 17:13, 25 April 2006 (CEST)

Oh right, that is the real source of "Them". The Bukowski Them don't even have to be the Arilou Them. — SvdB 09:37, 26 April 2006 (CEST)

Any likelyness that the "Them" and the spathi "Ultimate Evil" are the same? --Keybounce 06:09, 12 May 2006 (CEST)

There are no clues that point to that. In fact, the "Ultimate Evil" sounds like the Spathi version of the bogeyman. There's no evidence that there actually exists such a thing. — SvdB 17:25, 13 May 2006 (CEST)

Four-Demensional Orz / Flatland

The Orz may be an allusion to Edwin A. Abbot's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, which features the adventures of a two-dimensional (a square) being living in a two dimensional world who is pulled into our three-dimensional "Spaceland". Imagine letting your fingers dangle in a pool of water. A two-dimensional being who lived in the surface of the water would be unaware of the space below or above, and would percive your fingers as circles or *bubbles* inside his two-dimensional space. The Orz may be similar - a four-dimensional being pushing its *fingers* through our three-dimensional space. Our three-space would have other three-spaces adjacent to it (possibly including hyperspace and quasispace) in a larger four-space, both *above* and *below*, the same as the surface of a pool of water has air above, and water below.

This would explain many of the things that both the Arilou and the Orz say. Even the Orz aquatic nature could be explained by the fact that they come from *below*.