|
|
|
|
|
This glossary is a gradual project. More things will be added, and it will eventually replace the Character Info page. We hope to have terms from CTU, WYV, CTUniverse, and eventually MGS. The purpose of this glossary is to provide background information on each of these subjects, or to provide vital details that a reader may have missed while reading.
Ba-ing-go: any metal that has been exposed to the purple gas of the Dimension of Stupidity. Excessive heating causes it to deflect heat and cool down. Used primarily for its strength, but is also highly conductive. The name is a Peg term. Authors got its name from an elongated pronunciation of the word “Bingo” in fifth grade.
Blasphemes: A planet Daniel created to be the site of Mr. Parrot's hunt for Loothpit and to be destroyed by Simon in Children's Tales of the Universe. To Daniel, "Blasphemes" was a catchy name, and he worked it in by saying that the planet has a reputation for ridiculous stories.
Boomwater: the highly explosive by-product of producing Ba-ing-go. Name most likely derived from its notorious “boom” sound, but it might come from some Latin term. Actually, the name is older than the substance by a half an hour or so, since it took time for the authors to come up with something that went with the cool-sounding name.
Boxer Revolts: Two revolts lead by the Boxers, a radical group that favored cubing everyone (hence their name) to enlarging the planet (which is what the Gotithians would do later, with disastrous results) to solve their overpopulation problem. The first revolt failed, and was crushed by the Peg General Shish Kay Bob. The second revolt succeeded in turning Planet Peg into Cube Planet and the Pegs into the Cube People. The authors had no idea that in the early 1900's there had actually been an anti-imperialist uprising in China known as the Boxer Rebellion. It is an interesting coincedence not only becuase of the name, but because China is so close to Japan, which the Cube People were largely modeled off of.
Cube Planet: The planet of the Cube People. It was known as the Peg Planet until it was cubed by the second Boxer revolt.
Diarama: The planet of the Space Monkeys, and the capital of the Universe during Mr. Parrot's rule. The authors named by a "unique spelling" of the word "Diorama", a name that sounded appropriate for the name of a planet of Space Monkeys because of the infinite monkeys on typewriters saying. Its economy is based almost entirely on its paper and gold goods industry, and is robust even though most of the produce never is exported. A secret society ensures that a string of companies consumes and produces all of Diarama's industry, thereby creating a debt that is converted into money and used to fuel the economy.
Dimension of Tuna: The first strange universe created by the authors. The Dimension of Tuna was created when Jack filed a restraining order against Daniel, threatening to put him in a moose cage if he violated it (it was also signed by a real judge, his grandfather). Daniel said that though he may violating it in the Universe, he wasn't violated it in the Dimension of Tuna, and so the Dimension of Tuna got its name. The Cube People are the only living beings in the Dimension of Tuna, living on the Cube Planet. Everything else is too tunamatic to support life.
Earthland: A popular destination for tourists in the Universe. Located underground on Earth itself, Earthland includes a zoo of Earth animals, tours of the main bathroom products factory of Earth and Earthland's parent company, Dave's Bathroom and Tourism Corp, an amusement park, and luxury homes designed to look like the homes of Earth. A fake atmosphere designed to mimic that of the surface of the planet makes a visit very enjoyable.
El Tuna Cafe: A restaraunt started by Roy that serves tuna from the Dimension of Tuna with drugs added in order to conceal its taste and keep customers coming back. The El Tuna Cafe started in fifth grade as something independent from CTU, but CTU 1.0 incorporated it into the story by having Roy be the ruler of the Universe and therefore making the El Tuna Cafe the capital of the Universe. The El Tuna Cafe has the same volume as Earth, but most of that space is taken up by Ba-ing-go support beams meant to support the enormous gravity of the structure. At the end of the Battle at the El Tuna Cafe the El Tuna Cafe was sucked up in a vortex and became a dark void in the shape of a cone. However, the El Tuna Cafe remains the standardizer of all universal measurements.
Gold: A substance that is used primarily for cheap items, such as goods that would be otherwise made with plastic, and the Universe's paper. Gold was quite valuable in the Universe until gold synthesizing became easy. Since gold does not have much pratical value, its price plunged to a point when it could be used for cheap goods.
Gotithian: a half-humanoid, half-goat creature based off of the satyr of Greek myths. Their main planet is Gotithia, although they are dominant in much of the rest of the Universe. Created by Mr. Parrot for the Cube People’s use. Gotithians raised on Gotithia tend to be short because of the high gravity there, but Gotithians are naturally tall. "Gotithian" may also apply to anything from Gotithia.
Gotithia: The planet of the Gotithians. In response to an increasingly crowded planet, the Gotithian government used its advanced technology to enlarge the planet, but unfortunately that increased its gravity enough to stunt the growth of Gotithians and caused Gotithians growing up on Gotithia to be unnaturally short.
Graceland: The holy pilgramage site for humans and Presleytarians alike. It is believed to be one of the key things necessary to restore The King to his proper place in the Universe upon his return, and so was stolen from Earth.
Mr. Parrot's Notebook: records and notes by Mr. Parrot of his life's work. More pages are contained in the notebook than are present in the physical notebook, as the pages have fractional quantum-spin, and it takes a certain number of page-turning to get to the same page again.
PickleNet: a network of connected pickle juices that serves as the Universe's internet, as conventional internet cannot connect different planets.
Pickle People: a species that inhabits the Pickle Universe
Pickle Universe: a universe created by the connection of pickle juices. Roy never intended to create an actual universe when he order the project. He had simply called the project the "Pickle Universe" because it is an anagram for "Recieves Linkup" but the scientists in charge misinterpreted and created a universe, complete with its own species known as Pickle People. The Pickle Universe is used for interplanetary travel, as a route through the Pickle Universe is much shorter than travel through the actual space between the two points.
Pious Presleytarianism: The other major sect of Presleytarianism. It technically split from True Presleytarianism over a disagreement on whether or not The King would have to be divine to dive into his shallow swimming pool without injury (it believes that The King would have to be divine, hence the "pious" in its name), but most assume that the true reason was political.
Power of Nothing, The: The Power of Nothing is a book by Bob Rednow explaining the theory of the Dimension of Nothing.
Presletarianism: The dominant religion in the Universe after Roy's downfall. Its deity is the human entertainer Elvis Presley, referred to as The King. Presleytarians -- as Presleytarianism's followers are known -- do not believe in an afterlife, but rather believe in a pre-life. It is divided into two major sects: True Presleytarianism, and Pious Presleytarianism. It was founded as a small cult of Gotithians including WonderClaus after observing the way humans worshipped the deity, but quickly spread after Roy's downfall allowed religion. Most people adopted Presleytarianism simply because it was available, but soon the Universe became pious believers and much of the Universe's politics is based in Presleytarianism. Its holy land is the human pilgramage site of Graceland.
PufferFish Planet: The semi-independent planet of the PufferFish
PufferFish: A species of puffer fish that lives on land on the PufferFish Planet. Some PufferFish serve as the royal guard for Roy. The PUfferFish were responsible for the explosion at the El Tuna Cafe, a terrorist act masterminded by Simon that helped begin his war against Roy.
Scarab: The currency of the Universe when unified, and the name of currency after Roy's downfall. Scarabs are similar to coins, but in the shape of the scarab beetle. After Roy's downfall different factions in the Universe adopted their own scarab currencies, and in most cases the scarab became fiat currency, not backed by wood as it had been in previous times.
Shish Kay Bob: A Peg general who unified the Universe....against him. He defeated the first Boxer revolt. The character originated from a dream of Jack's, in which a Peg general bravely fought a desperate battle against Boxer forces in a Ba-ing-go mine, with nothing but a spear to make shishkabobs out of the enemies (and that's the origin of the food's name).
Squeen: A prefix with often elusive meaning. Most dictionaries define it as "a common prefix that appears in this dictionary", but it actually comes from a random song by Jack. The Squeenburg was the first thing to use this prefix, but Squeenball did shortly afterwards, and then "Squeen" was used just for fun.
Squeenball: A combination of soccer and Formula One style racing. It is played by two teams of eight cars racing around a track with a racing barrier in the center. The barrier gives off a ball, and the objective is to make the ball unretriveable on the opponent's side of the barrier. Fans love it because of its high risks and frequent entertaining accidents.
Squeenbowl: The interplanetary tournament for Squeenball.
Squeenburg: A luxury cruise and casino ship ridiculously half as large as Earth's moon, owned by Dave. Named after the Hindenburg by the authors. CTU suggests that the Squeenbowl finals are held on the Squeenburg.
Squeenbug: A bug that infects Tony's spleen in the CTU chapter "What is a Squeen?" The name Squeenbug came just to add more things with "Squeen" in them in that chapter, but it is suggested to Tony that the acceleration in Squeenball will kill the bug.
Squeenslider: The type of racecar used in Squeenball.
True Presleytarianism: The largest sect of Presleytarianism, and widely considered the main sect. Its head is WonderClaus.
Tuna Bell: A franchise version of the El Tuna Cafe, with many stores established throughout the Universe.
Tunamatic Highway: Highways used for faster-than-light travel. They are controlled by the Cube People and work by making shortcuts through the Dimension of Tuna, which is why they are known as "tunamatic". Much commerce in the Universe relies on tunamatic highways, which gives the Cube People power.
Tunamatism (tunamatic): A fifth state of matter. Objects are only made tunamatic if they come into sufficient contact with other tunamatic objects. Most objects in the Dimension of Tuna are tunamatic. Tunamatic food is extremely harmful to the body.
Willy Lemoniod's Afterlife: A project commissioned by Willy Lemoniod to build an afterlife that would house all the intelligent species in the Universe but humans. It is powered by the Dimension of Nothing. The afterlife is divided into Hell, Heaven, and Heck. The authors came up with the afterlife when making a parody of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Wood: One of the most valuable commodities in the Universe. The Universe has always had a taste for wooden products, but deforestation of almost all planets made wood extremely scarce. One of the last reserves of growing wood is on Earth, under the ownership of Dave. During Roy's time the scarab was hard money backed by wood, and the theft of the wood reserves in the El Tuna Cafe helped bring Roy's downfall.
Yourmom: The headquarters of the True Presleytarian Church. The planet's obnoxious name was given by the winner of a raffle on the Squeenburg for the planet. While Billy and Toby travel through time history changes by chance, which the reader is able to observe due to the time travel. The name of the planet after the time travel is "Hahaiwontherafflesonowyouhavetocallyourplanetthis".
Zebus: a planet with a large pickle-producing industry, and so houses a large part of the Pickle Universe. Roy destroys the planet with Boomwater in order to stop Simon, but in doing so helps Simon. It was originally called "Zebes" because Daniel did not know that the name Jack simply chose while talking about Boomwater came from a video game. Zebus was the closest thing to the original name that wasn't actually the original name. The explosion of Zebus is what appears on the front cover of Children's Tales of the Universe and is CTUniverse's logo.