A Serpent's Tale

[sierra]

One particularly rainy evening in Rome not many moons ago, Pope Benedict XVI was shown the Labyrinth Pro world record replay by an eager and excitable young choir boy by the name of Charles. A keen user of internet chat rooms already, the Pope was doggedly determined to excel at a computer game, so that he may better understand the elusive nature of today's young Christians. What he experienced when he laid eyes upon TorInge's replay, however, he was remarkably ill-prepared for. The grace! he nearly exclaimed. How refined, how sublime, how much poetry in the wheels' dance, how much music in the bike's twists and how much sheer magic in its complexity!

He immediately crossed himself. "Young man", he at last croaked to the handsome apprentice. "In the soul of this kuski I have glimpsed at heaven itself. Behold with misty eyes this seraph in flight, this Holy Spirit incarnate. What you witness before you is the creation of your Father, God Almighty himself, for no brute of this world could construct such an inhuman of perfections".

Charles swallowed uneasily, and cast his eyes once more to the replay's hypnotic supremacy. It was most certainly a fast ride, he thought. If there were any mistakes in its execution, they were at least far too intangible for his feeble, human eye to register. "I too, Father, see reason to love God in its magic. I know that God created it, as surely as God created you and I, and our world, and indeed all of the Universe. For the improbability of our Universe compiling itself by mere chance is akin to a monkey pressing keys on the keyboard at random and completing Labyrinth Pro in 2 minutes, 16 seconds and 23 hundredths." Charles beamed proudly at Pope Benedict XVI, and His Holiness returned the gaze affectionately.

"Your intellect horrifically betrays your fresh-faced, naiive visage, young Charles", he purred. "Of course God Almighty is the creator of all entities, both physical and spiritual, and in his omnipotence and omniscience he is limited neither by knowledge nor ability. In the case of this most astonishing Elasto Mania replay, it is perfectly clear that only one as brilliant as he, of which there are no humans, could have conceived it".

Charles left his encounter with the Pope feeling very touched. Divine revelations of this magnitude are intensely overwhelming, and one undergoes an extreme emancipation when one knows one is truly, vividly and quite literally in the epic presence of God. His heart was truly conquered.

But in his head, there remained questions. It did of course seem improbable that a man could drive such a fantastic time. Of all his acquaintances who had tried Elma, he was by far the most proficient, and yet even he had never finished Labyrinth Pro. To suppose that a mere human could not only finish the level, but do so with such unfathomable speed and control of the bike, seemed foolhardy at the very least. Yet of all its improbability, all the myriad compounds of virtually impossible button pressing sequences which had to succeed one another without flag nor fail in one single ride, was it not still more improbable that there could come to be a creator of sufficient sophistication and genius to perform it himself? Did not the very premise of the argument from improbability defeat its conclusion, by concocting a larger problem than it solved?

This contradiction staggered Charles, and drove him to leave the Vatican in order that he might find the answer in Scandinavia, where he had heard almost 95% of the population played Elasto Mania for 15 hours a day. What he experienced when he bore witness to the Finnish Elma Meeting, however, he was remarkably ill-prepared for. No-lifers, as far as the eye could see, were each playing the game with a mastery almost comparable to the Labyrinth Pro replay he had watched so many times in his chapel. He perspired uncontrollably as he observed Markku cruising Apple Harvest, and he shuddered grotesquely behind AxxU testing some Enigma bounces, and he suffered a full-blown anxiety attack when he discovered TorInge, a slender Norwegian gentleman of particular introversion, had just driven a world record. How wrong Pope Benedict had been! he thought, now manic. How perfectly astray he was lead, how cunningly deceived! He fell to his knees in angst and cast his pained face to the skies, apocalyptically cursing the heavens for his ignorance.

For revelations of this magnitude are intensely overwhelming, and one undergoes extreme emancipation when one knows one is truly, vividly and quite literally free from the restrictive shackles of blind faith, and dining at the exquisite table of reason and evidence. The Universe was not created by an omnipotent and omniscient supernatural being any more than the Labyrinth Pro replay was driven by anyone other than TorInge. Indeed; for an ape to press keys at random and achieve such a brilliant ride would be a colossal improbability, but TorInge was certainly not controlling the bike at random. The road to such a magnificent world record is very long, and each improvement in the probability of achieving it is consistently slow and steady. The hours of training, the resources exhausted in preparation, the accumulation of massive data libraries in the brain's hemispheres, mentoring the hands and honing the reflexes bit by bit is no weak analogy to the evolution of life by natural selection. In both cases a long period of time is the single most essential factor. This is not to say that it necessarily took a lot of time for TorInge to drive that particular time per se; rather, that the length of time between TorInge being an unknown n00b, opening Elasto Mania for the very first time, and driving 2:16:23 on level 35, was most certainly considerable (in the order of years). Concordantly evolution takes millions of years, and the improvements and alterations to species happen not as discrete, overnight events but as miniscule developments unnoticeable to anybody of any intelligence, ability or life expectancy.

Charles went on to write a book detailing these concepts, and nowadays The Origin of Species is a bestseller. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

[zworqy]

What the FUCK

[A.K.B.]

lol, the pope isn't Christian.

[The_BoneLESS]

i'm always amazed by Sierra's story telling talent.

[milagros]

SICK
more than t0r's 2.16.23

[Luther]

<3

[teajay]

Pretentious as this story may seem, I am compelled by the mighty use of vocabulairy by sierra. Albeit that english is his mother tounge, he still impresses me with his probably very artificial, nevertheless powerful combination of words, which might be a very good throw at literature in vein of times past away.

And eventhough his wordplay can easily be called pretentious, the story itself concerns such a mighty subject and a very surprising conclusion, that that alone made me exclamate in a loud fashion with heavy convulsions out of pure joy.

It really cracked me up when you repeated that motive of extreme emancipation in a quite daring twist, alex!

[jaytea]

Pretentious as this story may seem, I am compelled by the mighty use of vocabulairy by sierra. Albeit that english is his mother tounge, he still impresses me with his probably very artificial, nevertheless powerful combination of words, which might be a very good throw at literature in vein of times past away.

And eventhough his wordplay can easily be called pretentious, the story itself concerns such a mighty subject and a very surprising conclusion, that that alone made me exclamate in a loud fashion with heavy convulsions out of pure joy.

It really cracked me up when you repeated that motive of extreme emancipation in a quite daring twist, alex!

why do you try to type like this?
it sounds terrible

very nice news bulletin sierra, compelling and rich.

[Crazy]

words

sierra for newswriter \o

[A.K.B.]

actually I find it interesting because it mentions two things that are mutually exclusive, and the fact that it took intelligence to drive the rec to perfection in the first place. I like some analogies of this sort put out of context, because it should really be, the more t0r played lab pro, the moar the level turned into warmup, if you were looking for an analogy connected with ns.

EDIT: it was quite an excellent story as well, I enjoyed reading it nonetheless of the controversy I may have received from it, I dearly encourage you to continue writing your epic novels. plz publish one day. <3

[teajay]

why do you try to type like this?
it sounds terrible

You better had not skipped the notion that read "skip first 2 columns". Besides, you better had not joined this forum altogether if you were expecting better stuff from us.

[milagros]

You better had not skipped the notion that read "skip first 2 columns". Besides, you better had not joined this forum altogether if you were expecting better stuff from us.

well, it really saxed

[teajay]

No. I simply disagree with that.

[kinghias]

you're a pseudo-intellectual, that's it.

but yeah, sierra's story was worth a read. even though he might be a pseudo as well.

[teajay]

I'm an intellectual person, and that piece of reply I wrote was only half meant as pseudo-intellectual as to stay in the style of sierra; the other half of it, the context, was seriously meant as a review.

As far as jaytea was concerned, I didn't feel adressed as that is just the way he communicates. But to read that it saxed or to find out I am qualified as pseudo-intellectual based on one mere little post irritates me; it's easier to write one line critique than to make a multiple line review.

What's more, I thought it was a humourous post, but I guess we don't share the same taste of that (humour). I think I can expect some replies now that question my taste of humour, right? Seriously, if you want to make a strong point, elaborate your posts a bit then.

In conclusion, when I reread your post, I think you might've meant pseudo in a less negative way. If it's like that, I take back what I said here above.