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The Philidelphia Experiment transcends the Pirate/Ninja dichotomy

10:21 / 01.04.04

Under the huge psychological pressure to figure out which side of the line I fell on, I turned to my old hero, Tesla to give me some light in the darkness. And Lo! it struck me; Nikola Tesla possessed both 'ninja-like' and 'pirate-like' properties, all because of his connection to the anecdotal Philadelphia Experiment.

Here goes:

a) The Philidelphia Experiment obviously used advanced Tesla-tech.

b) The Philidelphia Experiment took place on a huge boat...a distinctly 'pirate-like' property.

c) The Philidephia Experiment attempted large scale invisibility...hallmark of the deadly ninja!

Ergo, the Philidelphia Experiment was an attempt by Nikola Tesla, in conjunction with the US Government, under the direction of the RAND Corporation, to develop a secret technology to fuse Pirates and Ninjas into an unstoppable, swashbuckling, poison-tipped, flamboyantly-masked legion of assassins!!!

(Hmmm..."assassins", eh? Can it be that the Old Man of the Mountain is involved as well...?)

You heard it here first people.

11:39 / 01.04.04

That would make you.. Ninjate? Piraja...? Piraya! Sweet mother of jeezezz.. im onto something!

11:45 / 01.04.04

Well exactly!

To quote some old bastard talking about something or other "This isn't a war, it's a rescue mission." It's seems obvious to me that this dualistic seperation between Pirates and Ninjas is just auto-destructive. To make matters worse, I've even seen some people on here viewing Vikings with suspicion.

If there's one thing we know about Tesla, it's that he was ahead of his time, no less so on this question than on anything else. Let's be honest, it's only really fear and jealousy that keeps our camps apart. As a Pirate, I can quite happily admit that I'd love to have the ability to flip out, along the mastery of stealth and the element of surprise. Conversely, I can't thing of a single Ninja who wouldn't be improved by a hearty laugh, several pints of rum and some incredibly dangerous prosthetic limbs. I also think Ninjas get pissed off because they wouldn't be able to sneak about so silently if they were wearing/carrying as much booty as we do.

But really, we're not so different: we're all outsiders, we have codes of honour, we use cool looking swords, we hang around in tightly knit groups. We both have the capacity for insane violence. What's the real issue here? Why ARE Pirates and Ninjas at war? Is it one of those old legends, lost in the mists of time, and now no-one can remember what we were fighting for, but we carry on killing each other anyway? Did it have something to do with pie?

I think it may be worth adressing exactly what Tesla thought he was doing with the Philidelphia Experiment and why (although as you seem to suggest in the original post, I suspect the answer will turn out to be "He was trying to create some crazy freakish Pirate/Ninja hybrids. Because it would be fucking cool"), but I'm also interested in what the future holds if/when Tesla's dreams are finally realised. What would be the purpose of a Ninja/Pirate coalition? What could we achieve? Who would be our enemies? (Would we even HAVE any enemies)? Or would we just steal everyone else's booty very very quietly?

Ninjas make great pets

12:10 / 01.04.04

Ninjas? mix their honourable blood with filthy pirates?!?!?!?!?!

NEVER!!!!

...what is that you have there?.. look how it sparkles.. sooooo pretty.. and comes with pie you say?

well shiver me nunchucks and call me Samurai Pete Yaaaar!!

12:35 / 01.04.04

Wasn't the lugubrious but undeniably sexy Michael Paré the star of John Carpenter film: The Philadelphia Experiment ?

He always looked so miserable that he could only be a ninja. Pirates are too happy and ramshackle anyway for calculation of big numbers and such. They're better at rum, sodomy and lashing the parrot.

I conclude that you are a ninja therefore.

12:56 / 01.04.04

Pirate or Ninja?

Neither!

I am TESLA!

13:04 / 01.04.04

Hang on!

The calculation of big numbers is an essential part of any Pirate Capn's amoury. Counting your Booty; balancing how many crew you'll need against how much you can afford to pay them in order to make a potential raid both possible and profitable; calculating the range and angle of your cannon; working out how many provisions you can throw overboard from a nely commandeered vessel (you don't want to starve/catch scurvy, but you need to save as much space as possible for booty), etc. It all requires a fine grasp of maths.

Ninjas (Ninja? Ninji?) tend to work alone, rely on instint/training, and are able to subsist off the land by eating berries and twigs. Therefore having no use for complex maths.

15:52 / 01.04.04

Good God, chimpo, I'm sorry your experience of pirates has only been on the Good Ship Anal Retentive. Rest assured we just fire off cannons and hope for the best. Means they'll hove to and you can buckle them with some fabulous swash. Infinitely preferable and much more fun. Shock and awe at a distance isn't very piratical. We're usually too pissed to count on the Salty Xoc anyway.

16:19 / 01.04.04

If I was that anal I wouldn't have made so many typos.

And yeah, I take your point, but think how cool a fuck off big Tesla coil would look on the prow of me ship, striking fear and terror into the hearts of all 'pon the high seas. We all know electricty and water don't mix, and are VERY DANGEROUS. Just like Pirates.

And of course, we all want everyone to THINK we're too drunk to count, Xoc, but you'd never have evaded Davy Jones for this long without some idea of how your cannon work (whoops! Sorry if I just gave the game away!)

The point was, I didn't want to see the Ninjas ending up with all the good underground science just because of some offhand assesment that they're better at maths than we are. Or for that matter, to see Tesla recognised as a ninja because of same. His being forced to work outside the system, crazy schemes, wooden leg and documented lack of ability with a shuriken put him squarely on our side of the fence, I reckon.

Phex: Dorset Doom

19:03 / 01.04.04

Your arguments are based on faulty data and a clear desire on the part of the Bucaneer-American community to appropriate this clearly Ninja experiment.
As stated previously, the Philedelphia experiment employs stealth, the hallmark of the honorable Ninja. As for the use of boats, the documentary 'Ninja Scroll' clearly depicts Ninja using maritime transport and instantaeneous transportation.
Case closed.

19:29 / 01.04.04

Go Tesla and all, but you know I gotta say...

it's spelled Philadelphia

20:03 / 01.04.04

Who says pirates dont have stealth? how many pirate boarding parties used the cover of night to swarm enemy ships unawares. Pirates aren't averse to slitting one's throat from behind, or the odd bit of double-crossing, all of which require certain elements of stealth. I say the war between ninjas and pirates started because the ninja factions couldn't handle the competition. Pirates have more fun besides.

Phex: Dorset Doom

20:39 / 01.04.04

But Ninjas have all the fun of being quiet, sitting still and following orders.

lonely as a cloud...

06:52 / 02.04.04

I'd rather be a pirate myself.
Just imagine, all that rum...and booty...and screaming Yaaaar! at people...
I dunno, seems more fun that worrying about honor all the time, y'know?

07:46 / 02.04.04

Ninjas are a bunch of arse anyway. They're just glorified mercenaries. Blood oaths and all that aside, who doesn't want to have a bit of fun. At least pirates have an official "Talk like a pirate day". Its in september sometime if i re-collect rightly.

anyway, . . . Ninjas are short as well. Who wants to be physically challenged like that.

Oh, and just for the record, . . . Tesla you rock!!

lonely as a cloud...

07:50 / 02.04.04

Yaaaar! September 19th is Talk Like A Pirate day.
And I dunno about ninjas being short, I think it's just 'cos the majority of them are Japanese or Chinese or summat, who are generally short.

07:57 / 02.04.04

Yaaaaar! back at ya bro! and "pieces of 8!!" to boot.
I was told that to qualify as a legitimate Ninja you had to be short by proxy?

Pirates however have no such requirements, and will take on anyone willing to be a drunkard whilst liking a bit of the old "biff" as it were. They dont discriminate.

lonely as a cloud...

07:59 / 02.04.04

Short by proxy? How's that work - you have to have a short person apply for you...? How does one apply to become a ninja, anyway?
I think piracy is easier to get into, and probably more lucrative too. Plus rum is nicer than sake, if ninjas are even allowed drink.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:17 / 02.04.04

Tesla may rock.

But pirates are pirates, and ninja are ninja.

And never the twain shall meet.

Stop this madness, I beg you!

lonely as a cloud...

08:20 / 02.04.04

Yaaarrrr! The twain did meet, kinda...read on...
PIRATE VS NINJA

08:32 / 02.04.04

But Pirate is only Pirate by virtue of its potential becoming-Ninja, and Ninja only Ninja by virtue of its potential becoming-Pirate? Like Yin and Yang. Y'know.

It's not a war, it's a rescue mission; it's not a binary, it's a Mobius strip.

(Or Mobius ship...?)

13:51 / 02.04.04

Yaarrr!

Come Ninja! Come Pirate! Come one, come all!

Come sail under cover of invisibilty on me mobius ship, The Jolly Tesla. We shall live by codes of honour, and live off all the booty and grog we can eat. No longer Pirates vs. Ninjas, but Deadly Pirate Ninjas vs. The World! Come on you stealthy, scurvy ridden, black-pyjama wearing, rum swilling glorious bastards! We can take them!

Anyone still clinging some either/or binary status of Pirate or Ninja will miss out on all the fun. But before you go, please explain - why must Pirates & Ninjas be mutually exclusive? I know rum is detrimental to your sense of stealth, and plain functional black lacks the necessary flamboyance demanded by a life at sea, but that's just superficial stuff. Let's get down to brass tacks, what's the real conflict here? I'm a Pirate, I can't be bothered signing up for someone else's war. What's in it for me and my crew? Some of my best friends are Ninjas.

15:05 / 02.04.04

The reason the experiment failed, is that a pirate-ninja would be an abomonation. Possessing the grog swilling luster and prostechic limbs of pirates with the stealthy skill and flipping out of a ninja would create the Truely True Ultimate Power, and it would take all the pie. So naturally, the Philadelphia Experiment failed because it was the one time in history Pirates and Ninjas laid down their differences to bring down a common threat - Tesla!

15:23 / 02.04.04

You say 'abomination', I say 'quantum leap in evolutionary history'.

But are you really suggesting that our common enemy is Tesla? Wow. I heard PX was meant to involve time travel too. Maybe Tesla went back in time and actually caused the Pirate/Ninja schism? It would certainly answer a lot of questions.

20:29 / 02.04.04

The Jolly Tesla is wicked-awesome.

I want one...bristling with railguns to lob salvos of chain shot and poison darts, and the giant coil ram on the prow to kill all oncoming silly Vikings (they hurl themsleves from their burning dragon mast with shrieked prayers for Odin to spare them when they see the Jolly Tesla slicing through the fog like Nagglfar...).

Ninrates & Pirjas truly Rule All Pie.

20:57 / 02.04.04

You know, it occurs to me that Vikings must be a sort of ninja-pirate. They drink! They pillage and loot! And they're right sneaky bastards what with those long boats that could roll up where you least expected, with a code of honor that flip out and kill everyone! And they have Sekret Rune Magics. Surely, ninja like traits in pirating professionals.

The results of the experiment must have slipped back in time, using Tesla's technology, to launch a reign of terror on an unsuspecting Europe! Surely, it all makes sense now.

21:40 / 02.04.04

Of course cusm. In fact, you can see the full sinister implications of this event when you realize that the Viking House of Rus founded Russia...later to become the Soviet Union...that's right, time-traveling Pirjas trapped in the ancient past are directly behind the Commie threat. Why the modern Jolly Tesla targets their feeble technology-bereft descendants is unclear, but totally wicked-awesome.

Tesla did a lot of wild things that you won't see even in crackpot conspiracy circles: for example, ever notice that Samuel Clemens and Nietzche look an awful lot alike? Tesla used to be in the habit of taking ultra high frequency electric baths, and of recommending them to visitors. Bathed in such a field, the young Clemens found himself the victim of a freak accident as he splintered apart into a humourist and a humourless bastard. The latter earnest self fled to Europe and went crazy before it could be captured, while the former took up writing and under the code name 'Mark Twain' to represent his origin, while fighting an underground war against his shadow self. This is kind of thing they never teach kids anymore! Public education's gone straight to hell.

Granted, I'm not certain of any specific connexxion between the Pirja fusion and the Clemens fission except that the technology involved may have been related. Prolly had a magnet in it, but I can't be sure.

Stick that in your League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and smoke it.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:26 / 03.04.04

This is pirate and ninja married in one person.

11:04 / 03.04.04

I'm surprised that Chris The Ninja Pirate in particular, and Weebl and Bob in general, don't get more attention here. I mean, you've got a synthesis of Pirate and Ninja in one perfect mushroom body, and there's all the stuff about pie.

piepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepie!

Want pie now!

etc.

I suppose Chris doesn't present the best role model for a pija/ninrate, what with his donkey-girlfriend stealing ways, but he is shown acting with honour in some of the later episodes.

VonKobra,Scuttling&Slithering

11:40 / 03.04.04

My Unterseboot crew well know the finer points of stealth.

Slowly stealthily and Denimly cruising the UNDERSEA RAVINES...

Yet we do say "JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" a lot.

Particularly when raiding Industrial Complexes for Swarfega.

lonely as a cloud...

21:10 / 04.04.04

Funny thing happened on friday...met a couple of guys outside a pub, wearing t-shirts with skulls and crossbones on 'em, screaming "Yaaaaaaar!" and "Every day is September the 19th!". We conversed briefly about keelhauling mainbraces and booty and suchlike. 'Twas bizarrely synchronicitous.
I told them I was a pirate in disguise - a spyrate. They enjoyed that.

Ninjas make great pets

06:38 / 05.04.04

and you only met the guys outside.. inside the pub there was a whole table of scruvy dogs! an odd bunch (friendly though.. smiles like a shark).. mad hair, odd clothes, jolly rodgers and dozens of pieces of metal in various places.. defiantly pirates..
also looked suspiciously like cycle couriers.

could it be? hummm.. camels are ships of the dessert.. bicycles are.. ummmm.. kayaks of the highway?

lonely as a cloud...

07:37 / 05.04.04

Yeah, there's definitely something kinda piratical about bicycle couriers. I guess they're just too scruffy to be admitted to ninja school...

08:23 / 05.04.04

scruvy = groovy in pirate?