Zealot Trivia

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Zealot Trivia was a Sci-Fi and Fantasy trivia game available on America Online from December 17, 1997 to January 2, 2001.

1 History
2 The teams
- 2.1 The Zsiverians
- 2.2 The Transgolians
3 External links

[edit] History

It featured four teams: The Drakulian Empire, the Praan-Blug Cartel, the Transgolian League and the Zsiverian Collective. Players would join these teams for one month stints and attempt to score more collective points than any other team for that month.

Originally Heckler's Online virtual "tokens" were given out as prizes to the highest scoring player on each team at the end of the month, but this practice was later dropped at the request of players who wanted to discourage new players from joining just for the tokens.

Zealot Trivia was shut down after Hecklers Online disappeared, sometime in 2000.

The companion forums to the trivia game developed a life of their own, far beyond the original scope of the game's designers. Several large groups of players took it upon themselves to develop characters, and so a free-for-all sort of board-based role-playing game was born. The team boards as well as a general "Roleplay forum" created all kinds of storylines and drama throughout the life of the game. America Online decided in the fall of 1999 that the boards should be moderated, and put a team of community representatives in place to do so.

[edit] The teams

[edit] The Zsiverians

The Zsiverians are the elusive mystics of the Galaxy, although they would shun this title. The Zsiverian claim is that their science has advanced to a level as to be indistinguishable from magic by the "lesser" (i.e., "other") Races, and that what others mistake for mysticism is merely a design too complex to be comprehended.

Whatever the truth, it is a fact that their bodies exist only partially in the physical realm: Their large craniums extend into an extra-dimensional "null-zone," the purpose of which is unclear. The Zsiverians maintain, of course, that it is due to the fact that their brains are too large to properly function in one dimension. However, more reliable estimations suggest that they have accomplished some method to connect every single member of their species through some sort of psychic conduit.

Rumor has it that the Zsiverians, rather than being the hyper-advanced beings they would claim to be, are rather merely a separate faction of the Transgolians that splintered off at some distant point in their past. This line of thinking holds that they simply bought the extradimensional conduit system from some more advanced race passing through the galaxy at some point in history. Perhaps it is a kernel of truth in this rumor that keeps Zsiverian-Transgolian relations chilly to this day.

The Zsiv have maintained a rather dubious position in the Galaxy, meddling on more than one occasion throughout history in the intimate and natural affairs of other species. Their intervention in the development in the Praan-blug is well known, but the actual number and details of their grand meddlings has been lost to history.

Their government is minimal, since each Zsiverian shares a considerable portion of their identity with every other citizen. A simple Science Council is convened in the event that the Zsiverians need a State presence to transact with other Races, but the members of the Council seem to be interchangeable with any other Zsiv citizen.

The Zsiverians are similar to the Transgolians in appearance, with the exception of the extra-dimensional conduit in which the majority of their craniums reside. The only form of religion anyone has been able to detect seems to be a simple daily recitation of the most basic scientific formula of the universe.

[edit] The Transgolians

The Transgolians are the merchant-fighters of the Galaxy. They have fought their way from existing as a loose band of savage space pirates known for daring raids on interstellar cargo ships to a place of Galactic prominence among the Four Races.

But the Transgolians are known more for their love of the deal than the fight (although they can be quite vicious when provoked). They are trained in the Art of the Trade before they are trained in the language on their home planet of Tressla. Tressla is considered the Center of all Galactic Commerce. In fact, it is said that in all the Galaxy there is no grander spectacle than the Great Transgoth Market located there.

To give an idea of their devotion to the deal, in the twenty-eighth century Galactica, they sold their own moon to the Drakulians in exchange for the rights to be the Drakul's exclusive financial broker.

Their government is based on a quasi-democratic oligarchy model, but in practice their leader--the so-called Grand Merchant--is chosen on the basis of wealth accumulated and the potential to add more wealth to the National Holdings.

Transgolians are humanoid in appearance except for the prominent "third-eye" characteristic. Despite it's prominence, only one in every five Transgolians actually exhibits this benign "third eye" mutation. It is the custom for those born without it to have the depiction of one ceremonially tattooed on their forehead upon completion of their first deal. This third eye not only provides enhanced sight, but--according to legend--an insight into the future of a deal as well.

The Transgolian religion is one that features a notion of a Great Reward or a Grand Punishment in the afterlife. The greater the wealth achieved by a merchant (In the Transolian language, the words "merchant" and "citizen" are synonymous.) in his life, the greater his reward in the afterlife.