Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

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Hegemon
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Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Hegemon » Sat Nov 04, 2006 11:12 pm

Ela found a post of Taalcon's in a PWEB cache online that gives us the history of PWEB. Here it is:

The Origins of Pweb as we know it:

My Sophomore year of high school (in 96 or 97) I saw an interview on the Sci-Fi Channel with Orson Scott Card, and he was talking about how his book 'Ender's Game' was being made into a movie ( <grin!> ). The book was described as being a 'very different' type of science fiction, and I thought it sounded interesting, so I kept it in mind. Then, one day at the library, I happened to see EG on display. I was already in the middle of another book at the time, but peeked at the first chapter. By the end of the week, the book was finished. I devoured the rest of the books in due order (Children of the Mind was then just recently out in hardcover). I went online, found Hatrack (but didn't pay attention to the forums), and did searches for any other Ender's Game comprehensive fan sites. There were none. All the other sites I saw were very slim, and most hadn't been updated in AGES.

Anyway, around this time I was already into making a comprehensive website (with encyclopedia, book synopses, etc - sound familiar?) for the movie WILLOW and it's recently published little-known sequel novels. Basically, the main reason I got into it was a bet to myself - I bet I could make the most comprehensive site about the world of WILLOW on the net. And I did. And I eventually joined with two other Willow-webmasters who focused more on the merchandising and behind the scenes info of the film to make one huge mega-site. We got attention, we got cool hints and tidbits, and even got the cover artist to send us a raw-version image (without copy type) of the cover art for one of the newest books before anyone got it.

So, I figured, why not do this for Ender's Game? (I've always been the ambitious one).

But I wanted to use tons of quotes directly from the books, and, seeing how protective Card was of copyright, I sent him an email, telling him what I wanted to do for the site, and even included a link to my first 'movie poster design' that I had just made, as an example of 'the quality of images I would have on the site'. (In hindsite, the image was HORRIBLE, and nobody but him and I have seen it. It is now LONG gone, and I hope it stays that way!). I mentioned my desire to make a comprehensive encyclopedia of all the people, places, things, events mentioned, and could I possibly use quotes? Oh, and I wanted to name the site THE PHILOTIC WEB.

Well, that NIGHT I got an email back saying that he was flatterred that someone would want to devote that much work to his characters. He gave me the legalese I'd need to include on the site, as well as his blessing.

I was totally wowed. An Author I admired actually emailed me back PERSONALLY the night I mailed him - and with permission and his blessing to boot!

SO I started work on the site - and almost immediately realized that with both maintaining my other site AND accumulating the info for this site, I was in over my head. Sadly, THE PHILOTIC WEB was put on the shelf.

Cut to a couple years later...

I now decided to visit Fresco again. Ender's Shadow had recently come out, and I had recently re-read EG, and had made a NEW movie poster design in photoshop, MUCH better than my previous one, in my mind. I created a thred called Movie Poster Design and Tagline. (the link within it to the original poster art, which you can see was from lucasfan.com/willow , is outdated, and no longer works) asking others to make their own designs.

It was in the course of this, along with (was it Adam's?) Ender's Game Movie Trailer thread that the creative juices at Fresco really began picking up. I had a ton of fun, and in the course of all this I met Nathan (idemosthenesi), Adam (lockeender), Steve (ssywak) and Ethan (Cypriat6).

Eventually in a chat, the lack of a good Ender fan site was brought up in conversation. I shared with them my original idea for The Philotic Web, and they became totally interested in wanting to work on it. We each were assigned positions, and we jumped to work!

I had a design and layout that I liked. It was kind of clunky, but it was working for me.

And then I was introduced to someone called AmkaProblemka, who told me that this wasn't going to work, that we needed to do this, to do that, and to basically revamp everything I was thinking of.

First, I was kind of angry at this 'pushy person' who just comes in and tries to take over.

Then I realized that everything she said was absolutely right, and I knew crap about html.

Working together, we all made a site we were, in fact, incredibly proud of. Each of us was an incredibly important member of the team, and the site wouldn't have been what it was without each and every one of us working on it. MY dream had become OUR dream. We joked about the unrealistic goals we wanted from this site. "Maybe we'll get an early copy of his next book!" we said, and laughed at. "Maybe we'll get IN one of his books!" said another. "He'll take us out to dinner sometime." We all laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Now, before we went public, we sent an email to Card asking him to check out the site. We wanted his approval. Eventually, after long waiting, we got it. Ami noticed a new registration on the boards, and looked, and saw that it was OSC. We also got a series of emails from him pointing out some things, and praising others. He then proceeded to offer us electronic manuscript copies of Shadow of the Hegemon.

We were all, of course, piddling our pants with glee.

Then, after our little 'publicity stunt' of a countdown on Hatrack, The Philotic Web was first made public.

During the course of the next year, I met Kenn on the boards, and Ollie (Rahl22)and I (who had originally met online, and befriended each other through a bit of a writing project) would be driving to Greensboro to catch a signing where we'd meet Kenn in person as well. It was great fun, and we even ended up being taken to dinner by OSC.

Now, around this time, we were revamping out encyclopedia to be searchable, and requested that anyone with other entries NOT already in please submit them. Well, Kenn submitted BOOKLOADS of new terms we had somehow passed by, and had even gone thorugh a lot of work cross-linking them. Within a short amount of time, Kenn was now a full member of the PWEB team.

However, soon His Nation called, and Kenn had to leave for an anknown amount of time for military duty, on a 'secret mission'. A new mod being made necessary, Ollie became our first and best choice to fill the hole that Kenn left.

Oh, and Ami spotted an error in the SotH manuscript, and (eventually) had both her name, AND Pweb's address printed in the paperback edition of that book.

The first EnderCon came around, and PWEB was now an undeniable presence (you couldn't look around without seeing one of us either there, walking around, videotaping, or running a Panel!)

So The Philotic Web, -our PWEB- is here. And we aint goin' anywhere.

Oyr tagline should be: "The Philotic Web: Where Dreams Become Reality" - because man, they really do.

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Postby Gravity Defier » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:04 pm

Because I like these stories, don't want it lost for good, and didn't see it here before.

IdemosthenesI:
I think my inclusion in the group was a fluke from the beginning. You see, there was a group of ver creative people at the Fresco Pictures Forum, which was hopping at the time, who spent their free time devising wonderful and glorious fan art in the form of Movie Posters for the artistically inclined and Photshop enabled, Movie trailer scripts for people more like me, and in the case of Steve and Ethan, ungodly detailed ideas of the pragmatic construction of a physical Battle School. I had been casting about for an outlet formy fairly young OSC obsession, spending a few days at the Battle School section of Hatrack before realizing how stupid it was, lurking for a while in Hatrack proper and Fresco, when I found that first movie trailer thread, begun by a poster with the unorthodox moniker "jdcyl20" if I remember it correctly. Of course, today he just goes by "locke." I posted a trailer that garnered a compliment or two, but my main asset was my terrible persistance and lack of consideration:tongue for when I realized what was going on in the POSTER thread (ethan, or Cypriat6 as he was known then had set up a folder where he uploaded all his new posters) I began making a general nuisance of myself by trying to srike up conversations with him.

The turning point came when, by some magical bolt of lightning, the right group of people all got together in an AIM chat one night. You must understand that at this point the excitement about the possibilities of the Ender's Game movie still shimmered in our minds. And that group, which happened to contain the best of the trailer writers (jdcyl20) the best of the poster makers (Cypriat6 and Taalcon) two brilliant physicists (Cypriat6 and SSYWAK) and someone who just happened to know how to write kick-ass HTML (AmkaProblemka), decided that when the Ender's Game movie kicked into high gear, a website boom would follow. So what better plan than to beat the crowd and obtain the right format and the right sort of cult status to be the onering.net of Ender's Game? Now, again, since I was really good at making of a nuisance of myself, I happened to be in the chat that night (it didn't start out as a planning meeting) so the ride of my life began.
The very first raft of code came to us by e-mail only a few days after that meeting. Ethan was the one to draft it, in fact. At that point I don't think anybody's role in the site construction was very clear. Ami offered to "see if she could maybe clean it up a bit." What she sent back was, in a word, amazing. I don't know how many of you remember the first Pweb design, but while it wasn't nearly as functional as the current one, it had some really nifty tricks to it, like rollover graphics in a viewscreen off to the left, a very futuristic looking interface, and basically an amazing piece of work. At that point, it was really just a shell of what it would become, but that was when I started to get really excited about the project. At that point I don't even know if the name "Philotic Web" had been chosen, but the one thing I remember contributing to those early meetings was a stress on content. I believe Taalcon, as he was called even then, and myself came up with the idea of the encyclopedia entirely independent of one another, but I started reading through Xenocide, I believe it was, looking for all the characters, unique events, and etc that would need to be defined for it. The other idea, that which was purely mine from start to (nearly) finish, was the timelines. I actually finished five timelines, only two of which ever actually made it onto the site. I remember the day I started them, in fact. I was sitting in a classroom, taking part in George W. Bush's much vaunted Texas standardized testing. The first day, when I finished the test early (which wasn't difficult, considering if asked silly questions like: 'Is a dinosaur a) a political party b)a reptile c)a container or d)Regis Philbin) I pulled out Ender's Game and went to work.

Of course, the proctor insisted I put the book away because I could be cheating. The next day, I sat in the back corner next to a bookcase, deposited EG in the bookcase, and when I finished that day's test, surreptitiously continued. Down the left side of the page I recorded every major event in the book, as well as every mention of a time interval (i.e. when we come back to Battle School after the chapter 'Locke and Demosthenes' it says Ender was now a toon leader in Phoenix blah blah blah and it is now a year later.) Down the right side I wrote terms for the encyclopedia.

All during this time, the rest of the content was being compiled. I remember this as an exhilarating time. We all had some pretty fun ideas you can still see browsing through P-web.net. For example, I don't remember who came up with it, but the international cover index was a big one. If you go to P-web/The Books/Ender's Game you will see all the variations and publisher info we could find along with art. I believe Taalcon was the one to contact all the movie trailer and poster creators for permission to include their work. Darian Robbins, who went on to design the T-shirts for Endercon, contributed a little bit. On a lucky day searching Napster, I believe it was me who found a song by the Ash Can Painters called Ender, which you can still hear in our music section, while Adam wrote alternate SftD lyrics to "Tom Dooley." Finally, things were ready to go. I say finally, because from beginning to end, this whole birthing process took about a full year, in which I dodn't particularly do a lot to help, I must admit. Adam and I were in the awkward position of knowing absolutely nothing useful about webcode, so once we finished our work, we got to do a whole lot of IMing, but not much else.
Se paciente y duro; algún día este dolor te será útil.

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Postby Gravity Defier » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:08 pm

cont IdemosthenesI:
Of course, during all of this, our highest priority was getting permission from OSC to actually do all of this. Most of you know that he can be particularly protectie of his trademarks and coptrights. Now, fairly early on, I believe it was Ethan who had actually gone to a speech OSC gave at a Mormon church specifically to hand him a hard copy of a letter describing our projecct and asking for permission to continue. I can tell you that the night he did that, we were all jazzed to the max. I remember that the title of that night's AIM chat was "I DID IT!!!!!!" Now since we were on the move and cooking with gas, it wasn't long before we started talking about site promotion.

(aside: this is a really one sided history, by the way. There was a vast majority of work being done by the rest of the team. Far more than was actually done by me. Still, I can only remember what I actually was there for."

We decided that a contest was in order. Since the preview chapters of Shadow of the Hegemon had JUST been released at the time and they included the bit with Petra and the good luck dragon, Ami designed a very small page and placed it at the url www.philoticweb.net/jeesh.html (don't bother clicking the link, it's gone now) which contained a message something like this. "If you are reading this, you have solved the dragon code. Send an e-mail with the following subject line to our e-mail address." We then gave specific instruction. Then I went out and found a clipart picture of a dragon, to which I added the following string of text "jeeshhtml" encoded into first the letters' corresponding numbers, then into binary, and finally into white dots on the dragon's spine. The thing created quite a bit of excitement over at Hatrack, with many people working really hard to figure out what the code was. Since the link to the picture was on the philoticweb server, it was assumed that the solver of the code would know what the first part of the url was. Nevertheless, the code was never actually solved, so we didn't have to follow through on our plan to buy a copy of Shadow of the Hegemon for the winner. Similarly, OSC never contacted us. This was when, despite the fact that the site had never even gone public, with only a placeholder graphic on the front page, the doldrums set in. Everyone seemed to have more important things to do. Chats came farther between. Fairly quickly, since the major projects like the encyclopedia and compendium were done, little progress was being made.
I think the thing that finally made us decide to go public despite the incomplete content (like lacking character profiles in the compendium, etc.) was OSC's 49th birthday. I may be wrong on that detail, but I know that we picked a deadline when we didn't hear back from OSC in several months. Near the end, we decided on an unveiling procedure. I went through the text of the enderverse and found ten quotes that dealt with the computer, fantasy game, mothertree network, or any other network that was acting differently than normal. I then arranged them from the most ordinary to the most extreme unexpectedness of the behavior. Finally I registered three new profiles at Hatrack and Fresco, which by this time was already on its last legs. They were [human] [hivequeen] and [jane]. You can still see them if you look in user profiles. In fact, ]here is one. Each day,at exactly 12:05 in the morning (it was supposed to be midnight, but since we messed up once it had to do for all) we would post the quote of the day along with a number, starting with 10 the first day and counting down. I vividly rmember the excitement the day we were to go live. There were respected hatrackers and Frescoers talking about how they were going to stay up until midnight to see what it was. I was jazzed. In fact we all were. Of course, the actual time the site went live was earlier that day, but we first linked to it at 12:05 on the button. Our very first forum post was a glowing review from OSC himself.

Now a lot has happened since then. Our team has changed to include those who weren't there before while some who were there in the beginning (like myself) have drifted away, and in retrospect most of the work we did ended up playing second fiddle to the forum after all, but that was a huge chapter in my life. I had just moved to a new state, and as a pretentious ass, I do not make friends well. P-web got me through a hard time, and I don't think I'll ever forget that.
You have been around entirely too long if:

You have any idea who caliginous is.
You actually remember anything that happened in the above story.
You have ever seen Slash the Berserker or Tom Davidson post on Pweb.
You actually miss the pre-avatar days.
Se paciente y duro; algún día este dolor te será útil.

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Postby Gravity Defier » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:09 pm

And....I know locke still comes around, so he can delete this and post it himself if he wants:

locke:
I remember lurking at Fresco for quite a long time before I began actively posting in the trailer thread. I remember posting my first trailer and being horribly anxious at how much it would be ripped to shreds. At the time (this must have been about August 1999, pre trailer thread) I began posting at Fresco, the Jake Lloyd debate was still fresh, fervant, and ongoing (okay I've been around WAY too long) within two months or so, (by the time demos here showed up) it was already considered a dead horse, beaten into a pulp. I was on the pro Jake Lloyd side. Right around August, of course, all the Jake Lloyd versus HJO threads/discussions began taking place, which revived things just enough for demos to join in on. I remember arguing quite fervantly and repeatedly that JL didn't get a chance in TPM and that OSC made his decision based on an in person interview with JL two months before TPM proved conclusively that GL can't direct people, things yes, people, no. We were all (pretty much) of course pro HJO as well, but that never was going to happen since OSC didn't see the film until video, because the advertising convinced him they ripped off his novel Lost Boys.

Oh ****, I remember the first time I ran into thor, it was on the second (tiny) forum for movie discussion on fresco. He posted some bizarre rants in a vegetarian or a chicken thread or something (maybe it was vegetarian chickens?). We all loathed this guy, and I remember Caliginous gave him a hell of a smack down and he didn't say anything again until OSC posted his "why I walked out of American Beauty" rant on the same forum--then he migrated to hatrack.

Anyway where was I? Oh yeah. I loved Dave's posters, and I forced a friend to burn me an elicit copy of photoshop 5.5 that his older brother had downloaded at college and burned for him. I actually still have that cd I think :p and I tried to make a poster, and failed miserably. so I went into trailers instead. I first remember getting interested in trailers back several years prior when I went on a religious fiction kick and read the first left behind and a few frank peretti books, it was a change from scifi and pretty much just as far fetched... but I remember being able to visualize how these movies could be made, and then sold to convince people to come and see a 'good, christain movie'. gah. So that lies dormant for a while, and I discover Ender's game while browsing my highschool's stacks looking for tor and bantam spectra logos on the spines of books. I almost picked up CLan of the Cave Bear, but browsed a little further down and discovered three copies of a tor book Enders' Game, and one copy each of hart's hope and seventh son, they all looked interesting, but I took EG and SS (still haven't read HH). I began reading the introduction there as I finished up my lunch break (this would be fall of 1998 and I had no friends as I was a freshman in a new city/new school). I was about 3/4 of the way through the introduction and I'd already fallen in love with OSC's writing style. I snuck as much as I could in my final period and then read all the way home on the bus, crammed against the side, knees up agains the seat in front of me. I either ran home or read/walked home. Left the TV off and slouched about the living room for the next few hours lolling about reading the book. mom and sisters come home around five and I'm still reading, I retreat from noise and evil TV sounds to my room and emerge (blinking slightly) having finished the book. Then the next day, saturday, I picked it up and read up to the point where Ender leaves for command school, skipping the Peter val chapters. I came out of that experience wanting to make movies. A year later I discovered hatrack and then fresco while doing an idiotic project for language arts. Hatrack intimidated me (and it was TINY in those days) and they talked about movies at fresco. Fresco it was. Three months later first trailer, two months after that, the intimations begin going about setting up a new site. I believe it was March 2000 that we set up the first proxy site and or registered the domain name. It was under construction for more than a year, stop and go as Demos outlined. But it eventually came together.

I remember feeling much more useless than demos. because I wasn't even contributing content the way he was. in fact we launched June 30, 2000. I know cause I was at a summer program at a college, throwing gasoline on my burgeoning appreciation for film. So I was even less help, because I had very little time to help in the launch and I was running an ill fated book club at hatrack at the time (we were reading Dan Simmon's Hyperion).

Anyways I need to get to work on my project! damn now I"ve wasted tons of time, and won't get to bed by four! crap! :(
Se paciente y duro; algún día este dolor te será útil.

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Postby Peterlover14 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:58 pm

Oh.

What was on the old Pweb?
"I'm drowning in FOOTWEAR!"

-Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Season 7

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Postby PwebArchivist » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:57 pm

What was on the old Pweb?
In a word: Awesomeness. A brief history of Pweb:

Check out the homepage it had, back in 2000:
Image

Technology, The Books, The Forum, The Author, Multimedia, Encyclopedia, The Movie.

But there was a crash in 2001 and the homepage changed some:

Image

That is how it stayed until 2006, when the board crashed yet again. We temporarily had a homepage that looked like this:

Image

We had some so-so artwork but we also had some that was very impressive:

Image

Fanworks from some non-Pwebbers:

Image

Contests, with OSC himself as a judge:

Image

(A certain Jan and Ali won 2nd and 3rd.)

Shirts were sold:

Image

As were other, limier things:

Image

There was movie news, dating back to February 27, 2001. Here's the latest entry:

Image

And of course, book news (I put that together wrong; the Volumes on the left should be to the right):

Image
Last edited by PwebArchivist on Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby PwebArchivist » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:58 pm

We had Epics:

Ender's Epic : Part 1 - Ender's Game
Author: KennEnder
Sparky Adams
Valentine Wiggin
from the forum

KE

Andrew Wiggin was a third child -
He was not too mean, and not too mild!
They watched his days and even his nights,
They knew his dreams and brotherly fights.
His genius was clear, he’d passed the test -
With proper training he’d be the best.

He loved his sister, dear Valentine!
Hated his brother, the asinine!
Peter was evil, he’d been denied,
Hurting poor Ender while Val just cried.
But even so young, he volunteered
It’s why he was born! But no one cheered.

The shuttle was cool, and Ender sat
He was all alone, and that was that.
He wouldn’t see Val, if Graff was right
For at least six years! Stupid space flight!
The kids were rowdy, couldn’t sit still.
No food for a day... no bile to spill!

The rules were explained, and none were hard
Plus each kid was smart... except Bernard?
He couldn’t be still, and wasn’t nice
Hit Ender on the head! Not once, not twice…
On the ninth straight hit, Ender reached back He pulled down quickly, before the smack

Bernard went flying - they were in SPACE!
He’d broken his arm. Why not his face?
Now he’s like Peter, cruel to the heart!
He didn’t want this, not from the start.
Why Graff betrayed him, he’d never know,
He’d often wonder "Why did I go?"

SA

Soon Bernard had his own little gang.
But, thought Ender, two can play this game.
The war of the desk would soon begin.
But this was one, Ender knew he could win.
Cover your butt, Bernard is watching,
Bernard’s attempt at ruling was over, everyone was laughing.

With Bernard, only the most loyal or mean would stay,
But Ender and Alai became friends that day,
Alai was the bridge that was made,
to cover the chasm Graff had made.
Everyone was friends from that day on.
And it seemed that nothing could go wrong...

But good things don’t last,
Ender was transferred way to fast.
"Salaam." Alai whispered in his ear.
Whispered only so loud that Ender could hear.
The mind game was telling the teachers Ender’s Fate.
Hurry up, Green Green Brown, you are late!

As Ender dug through the giant’s eye,
Ender felt as though he would cry.
His hands came away red,
Soon all the wolf children would be dead.
Ender felt as though he could have hurled.
Welcome to the End of the World.

So, Bonzo, was to be his new commander,
And he was now part of Salamander.
To Ender, there was no way Bonzo would be nice.
But he would soon pay the price.
He would be a good soldier, maybe not right off the bat.
But when he went to rat.

Soon Ender had a new friend,
Petra told him, that free time, they would spend,
Improving his shot.
For this chance he never forgot.
He practiced with his launch group every day.
Bonzo didn’t like this, and had much to say.

When you are in my army, you will listen to me.
Or I will squash you like a flee.
A good commander does not make stupid threats, Ender thought.
I will do what I want.
Bonzo hated him all the more.
Hated him all the way to the core.

(Heavily edited --> shortened)
Last edited by PwebArchivist on Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Postby PwebArchivist » Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:59 pm

Ender's Epic
Part Two: Speaker for the Dead.

VW

The Starways Congress sent a robot scout
to examine planets they wished to learn about.
Soon a report was sent by ansible
a nearby planet seemed habitable
To see if the planet would meet human need
people were sent; they were Catholic by creed

Portuguese by language, Brazilian by culture
they went to see if they could colonize in the future
Lusitania, that was the planet's name
in honor of ancient Portugal, the very same.
They soon found an animal they decided to call
porquinhos, but the piggies weren't animal at all

An alien species! And they were intelligent!
People could scarcely believe what that meant.
"God's given us a chance of which we never dreamed!"
For the destruction of the Buggers, they could be redeemed.
Whether Congress worshipped many gods or none
the new colonization was quickly begun

So Lusitania became a colony
They started the science of Xenology
which was the study of an alien race
the study of the porquinhos - the very first case!
but the power of the Xenologers was curbed,
the piggies were not to be disturbed.

*note* in the introduction, which is what i have written about above, the term "porquinhos" is used. throughout the remainder of the novel "pequenino" is the term used to refer to the piggies. i decided to use "porquinhos" in the intro because that is what Card did. so for the rest of part two if you want to use "pequenino" that's fine, it's certainly not incorrect.

Rooter was at once the most helpful of the pequeninos
and he tried hard to answer questions of Pipo's
Rooter clowned and played, probed and tested
and despite the law, Pipo was usually bested
the piggy was climbing up trees, Father Sticks in his grip
then he got down out of the tree with a graceful flip

"So," smiled Pipo, "now you're an acrobat?"
"What I did? You have a word for that?"
Pipo sighed silently and his smile froze
i always make comments that open windows
it's lucky for Libo, my close-mouthed son
four months since his apprenticeship had begun

"you never tell us anything" Rooter complained
"why can't we study you?" his expression was pained
Pipo gave an answer as honest as he could
"you speak stark and portuguese i'd say that's good"
Rooter turned his back and dismissed Pipo
"Get back behind your fence," he said, "Go."


KE

Libo saw his father preparing to go,
so he got up, with much he didn't know.
They walked home in silence, never speaking
to better keep their secrets from leaking.
The Zenadors had a lot of work remaining,
To document their daily trek and training.

Ansibles linked the Hundred Worlds together,
Instant communications, regardless of weather.
Languages like Stark were kept more stable
Since ansibles could be found on every table.
But Xenologers only know what Pipo and Libo said,
There was no other way for the news to be fed.

But when they arrived at the office to type,
Dona Crist? was waiting... so much for the hype.
Was she there because his children were bad?
No, she assured him, it was Novihna who was sad.
"Why come to me?" wondered Pipo. "There must be another."
But Novihna was changed by the death of Father and Mother.

Her parents had made the miraculous discovery,
but too late for their own personal recovery
hundreds had died and were properly mourned,
but their death seemed celebrated, and she felt scorned.
She would never out-grow the pain of that day,
Paralyzed emotionally, she would never play.

Novihna had studied what her parents did best,
she studied Xenobiology... and she wanted the test.
she was still very young, only thirteen years old,
Pipo hoped to help her, though the thought was bold,
since Novihna's heart was cold as ice...
Would Novihna respond if Pipo were nice?

"I'll send her tomorrow," said Dona Crist? at last.
But Pipo's fear for Novihna was unsurpassed.
"She won't want help, she's studied so long,"
Pipo knew regardless, something would be wrong!
If Novihna failed, then she would be more depressed,
But if she passed, then Libo would also want to test!

When she arrived, Pipo played tough.
He didn't let her take it until the proof was enough.
"Why do you want to work for this town?
You hate us so much... we've always let you down.
So why do you dedicate the rest of your life,
To helping us survive our day to day strife?"

She said she just wanted to do her work.
What did if matter, if she were a jerk?
She wanted to learn about the piggies for real
Looking at genes, where she can reveal
All the secrets that hide, where eyes cannot see!
She could offer so much to xenobiology!




But Pipo wasn't ready for her just yet
He wanted her dreams: what did she fret?
What drove her so hard, to learn so much?
Why did she care, for piggies and such?
She was angry at Pipo, for delaying her test,
Who was he? He was no better than the rest!

He prodded her more, and soon she was pleading
To find her dreams, like those she was reading!
She wanted to know the piggies for real...
The Speaker knew buggers she wanted to feel.
She wanted to write and be part of history
She wanted to solve the pequenino mystery!

Pipo knew now where she would fit well.
She had her dream, and a story to tell.
She could test today, and she would do great,
But she had to promise: stay within the gate!
If she ever went out, she would ruin it all...
They would be disbanned, and Lustania would fall.

She passed the test, which took three days.
Better than college students in many ways!
Then she started her work in the lab,
Her words like ice, they would often stab.
Libo didn't like her when she first appeared,
Since she was condescending and often sneered.

But they worked well together, since each was smart
They confided in each other, each learning their part.
She grew to respect the work of the guys,
Accepting it as truth, rather than lies.
It wasn't always easy for them to get along,
But life felt better where she could belong.

As they studied the piggies, months passed by.
Rooter was smartest, and far from shy.
He learned about humans and wanted to know:
How do you know, when it's time to go?
Do you decide for yourself, or let women folk?
It was a very strange question, and certainly no joke!

So Libo asked Pipo... "What can we say?"
"We can't really tell them... and we can't delay!"
They couldn't keep this secret very much longer.
But their confidence was certainly not growing stronger.
Finally Pipo told Rooter, who reacted quite odd"
He hooted and hollered, and ripped up the sod!

The next day they walked up through the gate.
Novinha was there, since they didn't feel great.
Would the piggies be changed, by what they now knew?
The fear was stifling, and only grew!
What they saw, as they approached the fence,
Was worse than they feared in every sense!

(Heavily edited --> shortened)

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Postby PwebArchivist » Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:02 pm

I'd venture to say that while it was the Ender information that brought a lot of people in, sometimes the movie, most often just the book, it was the forum that held it all together.

Some of us started out at Fresco:

Image

Most of us here at Pweb itself.

It's been through some changes:

2000
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2001
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2002
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Later, 2002
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2003
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2004
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2006-2010
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The Ender boards are where most hang out until they're comfortable enough to try Milagre.

Milagre 2001
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Milagre 2002:
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The appearance of the manilla folder, Milagre 2004:
Image
Last edited by PwebArchivist on Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Postby Peterlover14 » Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:03 pm

Wow. That's brilliant. But why was it such a challenge to try out Miligre?
"I'm drowning in FOOTWEAR!"

-Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Season 7

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Postby Eddie Pinz » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:20 pm

Gotta love that Archivist :wink:

A very nice breakdown of the history of Pweb. And the Epic!! I forgot about the Epic. You don't happen to have the whole Epic do you?

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby PwebArchivist » Sun Sep 25, 2011 1:42 am

In December of 2010, after approximately a month of talks on whether or not to relocate the site to a new domain, the Article Database forum made its debut. The following image is how the board remained from December 21, 2010 until September 20, 2011, when an upgrade to PHPBB3 was made.

Image

Below is an image of Milagre Square Town the day before the forum software upgrade. Milagre appeared as such from September 26, 2006 until September 19, 2011.

Image

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Satya » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:06 pm

Awesome.

I can't remember when I first came here and Wayback has been a dud. I wish I could find my join date.
Discord ID: AJ#0001

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Taalcon
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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Taalcon » Tue Dec 27, 2011 12:29 pm

This is cool. I'm freaking old.

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Ela » Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:07 pm

Ha. You're just a spring chicken. ;)
Pweb member since 2000

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Boothby » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:03 pm

Hey!

That's my son's artwork you're calling "so-so!"

(I got it signed, BTW, by OSC...)
--Boothby

"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby Gravity Defier » Tue Jan 03, 2012 6:40 pm

Sorry! :angel: For what it's worth, I figured he might grow into a better artist with age/practice!
Se paciente y duro; algún día este dolor te será útil.

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Re: Echoes Across the Ansible - Historical Anecdotes on Pweb

Postby elfprince13 » Thu Nov 08, 2012 10:42 pm

I'm nostalgic for the old 2001-era homepage. I used to look there a couple times a week from 2002 through most of high school, naively thinking there might be new movie news some day.
"But the conversation of the mind was truer than any language, and they knew each other better than they ever could have by use of mere sight and touch."


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