Talk:Faz

An interesting theory about the Utwig. Still though, didn't it say somewhere that the only member of the milieu to live in our quadrant were the Taalo? -Fadookie 15:47, 16 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Our "area of space". There isn't any evidence that the SC2 galaxy is formally divided into "quadrants", or that the Starmap in SC2 comprises one particular quadrant. Fahz is all the way on the other side of the map from both Sol and from Vulpeculae.

A load of crap

"A few theorists contend"... only one so far. Just because one person has one far-off theory, that doesn't make it worth a mention in an encyclopedia article. I'm waiting for someone to claim the Mycon have descended from the Spathi, because the Spathi call their home star "Yuffo". Or that the Vux are actually "fingers" of another Orz-like creature, because there's a VUX captain called ORZ. -- SvdB

Only one? Really? ISTR I've heard this more than once. It's one of those things where the fact that this is a game written by two people rather than an actual collection of data from real life means that a lot fewer things may be coincidences. The thing that makes me think there's an intentional link here is the explicit weirdness and vagueness of the Utwig's description of the "veils of Fahz" or "sky-canopies" floating in the atmosphere. It's *at least* as compelling as the theory that "Mael-Num" and "Melnorme" are the same (especially given that that one was finally independently confirmed by the creators long after it'd become fanlore.)

I've encountered only one, including you. As for explicit weirdness and vagueness, the reference to Fahz is just a short remark in a longer text which is even weirder and vaguer. And there connection between the Mael-Num and Melnorme is much greater. Where do I start...

• "The one-eyed creatures, the Mael-Num, asked so simply, [...]" (Kohr-Ah speech). Appearantly the one-eyedness is a defining feature.
• "[...] the Melnorme are an old and widely traveled race." (resource guide)
• They make a point of pointing out that the Mael-Num could be alive: "While we fought, the Mael-Num escaped. We never found them again." (Kohr-Ah speech). "the Mael-Num fled their planet in a huge fleet of interstellar vessels, and vanished" (resource guide).
• They make a point of pointing out that the origins of the Melnorme are unknown: "The history of the Melnorme is poorly understood, [...]" (resource guide).
• Both the Melnorme and the Mael-Num likely came from outside this region of space: "Though we Melnorme have just recently arrived in this region of space" (Melnorme speech), "[the Taalo home planet] was one of the few Milieu worlds located in this region of space." (Melnorme speech)

Of course these are far from conclusive (Why didn't the Kohr-Ah recognise the Melnorme as the Mael-Num? Why didn't the Slylandro mention the similarity (maybe they never saw them?)), but it's a lot stronger than "Fahz and Faz sound alike". -- SvdB

Well, I didn't invent it -- I heard about it on the SC2 forums for UQM multiple times a while ago. And the evidence isn't that "Fahz" and "Faz" sound alike, it's that the Utwig have super-advanced shield technology -- that, as others have pointed out, is red and glowing -- and in general have an obsession with covering up, hiding, masking, maintaining order that's linked to their mythology of "the sky-canopies of Fahz" which fell down. The link with the idea of a slave shield sounds pretty strong, given all the symbolic value the Kzer-Za give the slave shield in their speeches about order and security and such. And since the Faz are said to have been the very first race to have been slave-shielded eons ago, it's a logical twist that their slave shield might've been the first to fall on its own.

I don't think the "sky-canopies of Fahz" are *that* weird and vague -- they're just a piece in a speech that mostly makes a lot of sense. The one mystery in it, what the sky-canopies actually are, reads more to me like a mystery meant to be solved than just garbled nonsense.

Anyway, most of your points are themselves pretty weak. The only *real* connection is that the Mael-Num are one-eyed and so are the Melnorme. Otherwise, all of your points are very general points about the lack of evidence *against* a theory. The Mael-Num weren't ever genocided, and neither were the Faz. The Mael-Num home planet is far away from Sol, and so is Fahz -- by the way, I don't think it's a valid assumption that there's some sort of natural "sector" that the starmap comprises, and that anything not in "this region of space" is off the map. That's something SC3 invented. The history of the Melnorme is mysterious, and so is the history of the Utwig. The only *real* link is one single line, "one-eyed creatures", and one name similarity, "Melnorme" to "Mael-Num". You have exactly the same thing for Utwig, even though it's less emphasized -- one line, "sky-canopies", and one name similarty, "Fahz" and "Faz".

I agree that most of the points I made were very weak. I was trying to point out that even though the evidence was kind of weak, it was still stronger than for the Fahz-Faz link. But I missed your real point, the analogy of the veils and the slave shield. I have to concede that it could be interpreted that way. (I don't agree that most of the points I made were about the lack of evidence *against* a theory, but I'll leave that for what it is now).

I do have an alternative theory to propose: The Utwig story is a slight adaptation of the story of the garden of Eden.

• Initially, the Utwig "cavorted about our world oblivious to any sort of higher purpose we took everything at face value.", just like Adam and Eve in the garden.
• Then, the "Chimt [which rose from the Murky Bog] infiltrated the vast sky canopies of Fahz", like the serpent talked into Eve.
• "and then the veils fell!!! Suddenly, the Utwig were stunned by a collective realization!". "And the eyes of them both were opened" (as they ate the forbidden fruit)
• "All immediately and urgently donned veils of every description!". "and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."
• "Now rid of constant reminders of greed, rage, hatred, and lust, the wisdom of the Utwig was no longer hampered by constant reminders of the primitive urge.". "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil"

-- SvdB 15:03, 4 Nov 2004 (CET)

That's very nice, but you seem to be confusing the attempt to explain this story *in the game* with attempting to explain how the creators made up the story in real life. It certainly does bear parallels to the Garden of Eden and to various other well-known fall-from-grace myths, but unless you're saying that in the game world the Utwig somehow learned about human religious concepts of temptation and fall and incorporated them into their own history, it's not relevant to this discussion, any more than it would be to say that the Ilwrath's name came from singer Steven McIlwraith. This theory certainly doesn't preclude or even have any bearing on the Fahz/Faz idea.

The Slylandro propably didn't ever meet with the Mael-Num, although they knew they were members of the sentient milieu. They met the Yuli, Drall and Ur-Quan at least.

IIRC the Slylandro actually said they only ever *met* the Ur-Quan, the Milieu's long-range scouts, and *learned* of the other Milieu members from the Ur-Quan -- hence why they weren't able to give you any details about the Yuli and Drall but their names. Also, it's pretty clear that the Melnorme never revealed their presence to either of the Ur-Quan races, and that in general they don't seem to be known by anyone they don't want to be known by, so the Kzer-Za or Kohr-Ah recognizing the Melnorme is not really a factor.

More fact, less theory

There are all kinds of things that we can guess about and make vague connections to possibly support. Not all of them are worthy on inclusion to an ecyclopedic source. Everything that goes in here should be widely accepted and pretty well documented. Equating Faz to Fahz seems like a bit of a stretch.

On the other hand, the Jugger's shields are impenetrable and red... Did they perhaps borrow this technology from somewhere?

Humanity was shielded for 20 years. That must have sucked; can you imagine? And the Ur-Quan destroyed every historical site on the surface (and a few even deeper). What might they have done to the first race they defeated? 20,000 years can do a lot to a species.

Still, stronger notes that this unsubstantiated would be in order.

Mmrnmhrm 15:40, 18 Oct 2004 (CEST)

"A few theorists contend" is stronger than "it is possible" -- theorists do contend things that aren't always actually possible, after all.

"Humanity was shielded for 20 years. That must have sucked; can you imagine?" Actually, I don't think it would be as bad to be confined to a single world as the game makes it out to be. When was the last time you left earth? ;) Yes, the red sky would be weird, but I'd imagine you'd get used to it after a while. What I think would be worse is the destruction of our ancient history. That would hit much closer to home for me, as the conception we humans have of what we are hinges largely on what we were. -Fadookie 09:24, 1 Nov 2004 (CET)

The big deal isn't the initial reboot of the species' history, though that's the setup for everything that happens afterwards. The big deal is living under the red shield for millennia, perhaps with the memory of the Kzer-Za telling you that the shield symbolizes your safety and that without the shield you would be destroyed by the Kohr-Ah, and then suddenly waking up one day and finding the shield *gone* and the stars coming out. Isaac Asimov wrote about such a scenario in "Nightfall" -- presumably some similar huge shock would happen to a long-slave-shielded species whose shield vanished. It does sound a lot like the Utwig's description of what happened to their culture when the sky-canopies fell -- their sudden fear and torment at being exposed, and deep need to cover themselves up again.

A very interesting point. I was thinking more about what it would be like to be shielded on earth for 20 years. I'm starting to think that perhaps the Utwig were swamp creatures back in the days of the Milieu, and later evolved to sentience after the Faz had died out on their homeworld. Still though, there is almost no support for it, and the Taalo are still supposed to be the only ones who lived in our quadrant. You've won me over, but this kind of unbased speculation is inappropriate for inclusion in the Ultronomicon. -Fadookie 23:08, 3 Nov 2004 (CET)

I just read the other arguments above, and I guess that if we have the Mael-Num/Melnorme link, we may as well keep the Faz/Fahz. -Fadookie 23:12, 3 Nov 2004 (CET)

I would consider the Melnorme/Mael-Num connection too weak to mention if it weren't for the fact that TFB have confirmed it. Now if there is a lot of recurring talk about a subject (like what happened to the Androsynth), then it would make sense to mention it after all, in a separate paragraph, while emphasising that it is just a theory. In the Androsynth case there are so many theories it would imho even justify a separate page where the various theories are explained and categorised. -- SvdB 15:03, 4 Nov 2004 (CET)

I actually disagree on both points. The point of the Ultronomicon is to let newcomers know what's "out there" in terms of what's been discovered and commented on by players of SC2. The Faz/Fahz connection, like the Melnorme/Mael-Num connection, is something that's there in the game on the surface level and should be pointed out so people know about it. In contrast, all the raging theories about the Androsynth and Orz are primarily working from the same set of factual data and imposing people's own preconceptions on them -- the Ultronomicon in that case should just put out the data that exist and let the long-running discussion about what those data mean take place somewhere else, like on the forums.

This discussion we're having here, for instance, about *why* we might think Fahz is linked with the Faz, belongs on a discussion page or in a forum, not on the Ultronomicon itself -- what belongs there is the assertion that such a connection is possible and that people are talking about it.

By the way, the fact that TfB have confirmed something you think is "too weak to mention" might be a sign that the way you're looking at the game is substantially different from the way the creators looked at it. It's not a simulationistic, "realistic" portrayal of a deep world, as some people seem to think -- it's deliberate pastiche, chock-full of sly references we're *meant* to get and random connections between things we're meant to pick up on. I would hold that if there is some interesting-looking pun in SC2 it's a lot more likely that the creators meant for it to be there than not. (This does, in fact, go for the Orz/ORZ connection as well.)