SMBC Comics Forum

Brother Dysk wrote:In the beginning, before The Forum came into existence, yea, even before <<S M B C>> as we now know it existed, there was the Classical Age of SMBC. The Classical Age of SMBC began not on January 28th, 2002 as Zach and the Wikitron would have you believe, but on September 5th, 2001. It ended just two days shy of a year later, on September 3rd, 2002. Indeed, during the early part of the Classical Age, our world (whose address is http://smbc-comics.com) did not even exist. Instead, Zach was located in an entirely different part of the Cyber Space Universe, which, according to the early scriptures Zach brought over with him from this location, was dubbed Keen Space (whose address was http://smbc.keenspace.com).

Below, you'll see the earliest known depiction of Zach the Magnificent with an unknown figure discussing the creation of our world.
Fig. 1

The precursor to The Forum, also known as "The Crappy Precursor To The Forum" can also be found in the so called Keen Space.
Fig. 2

Little is known about this age up until January 28th, 2002. Many of the early scriptures have been lost. Luckily, from Jan. 28 onward, all of the holy icons were preserved in The Archive. In it, we discover a fount of knowledge such as early depictions of Martholomew the Maleficent and Chason the Obstreperous, seen below:

Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Back then, Zach did not always have the funds to use the precious element known as "Color" but was still able to gather large amounts of followers (at least, after the move to the present world).

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Author's Commentary:
In attempting research into the so-called Classical Age of the Forum, I stumbled upon this religious text. Apparently commisioned by the <<Decarnate Brotherhood>>, it actually does a fairly good job of explaining the Origins of the Forum (all religious symbolism aside). Unfortunately, this is also the only surviving record of the Classical Age that I could pull any intelligible data from, as the Triumvirate of Order destroyed many records that it deemed 'heretical' during the Apostasy Trials.

Until it's completed, I'm treating this entry as 'non-canon'. Any objections?

I object.

I object, in part.
I believe the findings here are important and should not be ignored out-of-hand.
Brother Mage has asserted he will complete his findings and will accept the half-points for his overdue contributions.
I believe that he should be given the benefit-of-the-doubt in this instance, with future non-complete articles (by all contributors) listed as non-canonical until such time that they are finished.

Also - should facts presented within a non-canonical article be disputed by another contributing author in their next article, it should be disputed before the completion of either article with the Symposium acting as Arbiter for the period of discussion, until such time as a resolution is reached.

((The reasons that I wish to treat it as non-canonical few, but valid nonetheless. First, I claim it as non-canonical because it makes the assumption that SMBC kept the same web address after the Classical age, when it is quite clear that it was destroyed at the end of the First Age as a consequence of the Blogosphere Offensive. I do admit that it's possible that the site kept the same address for the Restart, but I figured that the United interNetions would prevent that.

Further, the Article assumes that the Project and indeed the entire universe exists solely on-line, when all other entries posit that civilisation exists simultaneously on the physical and digital realm. So while the site http://www.frederick.com tells you where Frederick is, it is not located solely there. While the destruction of the Website leads to the destruction of it's physical location(and vice-versa), they are still on different planes of existence.

While I respect the fact that mage really likes his idea of strictly-web existence, it contradicts the rest of the 'Cyclopedia. So it kind of misses the 'consistency' point of this entire project. While it is okay to argue about the finer points, flat denial of the facts that are presented is right out. There is enough evidence spread implicitly throughout the rest of the 'Cyclopedia to prevent Mage's current article to be accepted.

That being said, the important dates don't contradict anything, so I am more than happy to accept those as canon. Unfortunately, because the Inter-Net was not considered 'habitable' until well past the Blogosphere Offensive, the rest of this article must reference the Forum as it actually was: a message board.

An interesting thought crossed my mind whilst attempting to figure out a way to reconcile this entry with the rest of the 'Cyclopedia: Could this entry be from an earlier attempt at cataloguing the Forum? If so, a proper disclaimer would need to be placed at the start of the article, but it could remain largely unchanged without modifying the 'real' 'Cyclopedia universe.))

Thanks for the clarification on your decision - I concede to the wisdom of the Symposium.

((@Ed's idea, that might work. You could write a "current' article, containing the "old" article. The only problem is that seems like a roundabout to the citation/phantom citation concept. Although MM says he's going to edit it later, so we'll see what happens ultimately.))

((There is no roundabout to the Phantom Citation requisite. Articles that are from a previous edition simply have the added restriction of only being able to reference things that have happened before it, which just adds an addditional layer of complexity. Luckily we have the Chronology, so it's slightly easier to keep track of what happened when.))

((Ah I don't care anymore. Make it canon or non-canon.))

((Yes! I get to fit this contradictory puzzle-piece into the Lexicon! This is gonna be fun...))

((I'm not 100% happy with it, but I think I've managed to make it Canon. I've also provided people with another entry for turn 'D' which should pique the interest of somebody.))

((I like it. The article is of itself the reporting of someone else's work, which we all know you can get away with in the academic community if you do it right.))