INWO Concordance
Assassins Plots
The INWO Concordance
was originally created by Colin Roald, expanded by Alan de Smet,
and is currently
maintained and edited by Steve Brinich.
Illuminati, Illuminati: New World Order,
INWO, and Assassins are registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games for its trading card game of conspiracy
theory. SubGenius is a registered
trademark of the SubGenius Foundation, Inc. This Concordance quotes a very
limited amount of material from INWO (card titles, mostly) in order to stay
within the limits of fair use.
A Brief Attack
of Conscience
Possibly a reference to the concern that nuclear missile
launch crews might be swayed by "a brief attack of conscience" and refuse
to carry out their final orders. [SDO]
Alien Abduction
Once considered questionable even by UFO believers,
alien abduction stories are now fairly common. Standard elements of the story
are medical examination and memory-wiping (which is overcome by hypnosis).
One theory is it's caused by a physiological state
-- when you sleep, the brain is cut off from the body (so that you don't
injure yourself dreaming). Apparently on occasion people wake up still paralzyed,
and this also (for some reason) causes hallucinations, often involving sex
(hence aliens having sex and giving anal probes). This doesn't last long,
but you can guess the results.... People in earlier centuries reported encounters
with angels (complete with the sex). [SMB,SDO]
Anarchists Unite!
A somewhat ironic slogan, reflecting the fact that
getting individualsts to agree is like herding cats (see also the Libertarians artwork). [SMB]
Anything Worth
Doing Is Worth Overdoing
A humorous bumper-sticker slogan; a play on "Anything
worth doing is worth doing right."
Note the Hoax
card in the card art. [RLM,SMB]
Back to the Drawing
Board
A common expression meaning that the entire line of
work has turned out to be useless, and must be reworked from scratch. The
phrase originated in a New Yorker cartoon from the 1940s, picturing
an aircraft designer turning away from the fiery crash of his latest design.
[SMB,JW]
Back to the Salt Mines
There are people with high levels of paranoia and
low levels of knowledge about military logistics who believe that there are
secret underground bases full of foreign troops and hardware hidden around
the United States. Supposedly, these troops will one day appear to round
up American patriots and place the US under the control of the United Nations.
The phrase "back to the salt mines" is sometimes used
as an idiom for going back to work. [SMB,SDO].
Backfire
A "backfire" in an internal combustion engine or a
firearm is an explosion that directs its force in the wrong direction, back
along the fuel path or barrel. The card art presumably depicts the fate of
some unlucky magic users who were blasted by a similar "backfire" of mystical
forces.
More generally, any attempt to make trouble for somebody
else can "backfire" upon the perpetrator.
Note that "Mason jar" (a type of sealing jar commonly
used to store home-made preserves) includes the name "Mason" (one of the
most famous of the Fraternal
Orders, often mentioned in conspiracy theory). Note also the pun on "hermetically"
(airtight) sealed with the Adepts of Hermes name. [SMB,SDO]
Backmasquerade
Supposedly, certain rock music recordings have hidden
messages recorded backwards in them (this is called "backmasking"); these
messages allegedly have the effect of subliminally brainwashing the listener
into using drugs, committing suicide, etc. So far as I know, no one claims
to have discovered hidden backwards messages designed to brainwash the listener
into buying more of the band's albums.
In 1985, two teenagers tried to kill themselves with
a shotgun (one, Raymond Belknap, succeeded; the other, James Vance, survived
the attempt). Their parents blamed the Judas Priest album "Stained Glass,"
to which the two had been listening that night, claiming that the album contained
backwards messages that forced them to attempt suicide. (Presumably, their
abuse of alcohol and other drugs, poor relationships with their families,
and difficulties in school had no bearing on the matter.) The band showed
that the supposed messages were just random collections of sounds, and the
parents lost the suit.
In fact, a few songs do have backmasked messages
-- mostly meaningless or comical, probably intended to mock the whole notion
of backmasking or simply as an amusing techie hack.
"Masquerade" may be a reference to White Wolf's World of Darkness.
[GB,OS,SMB,SDO]
Bait and Switch
The unethical (and in many places illegal) business
practice of attracting customers by advertising a really good bargain
("bait") which is in very limited (if any) supply, then pitching some not-so-good
offer to them ("switch"). [SMB]
Bar Codes
"This little footprint has built a gigantic
structure of improvements — of size and speed, of service, of less waste,
of increased efficiency. This lousy little footprint is like the tip of an
inverted pyramid, and everything spreads out from it. It's a very dramatic
story."
— Alan Haberman, Committee Chairman for the Symbol
Selection Committee
"Bar Codes: Reading Between the Lines", Feb
1999 Smithsonian
Bar codes are sometimes accused of encoding the Number of the Beast
(666) from Revelation 13:16-18. A standard bar code includes a three pairs
of bars: one at each end and one in the middle. In certain positions, a similar
pair of bars also represents the digit "6". Fnord. [SAC,SMB,MIB,MS,PB]
Beach Party
A common subject of movies and TV shows looking for
an excuse to show long scenes of scantily clad people jumping around.
The sign (mostly cropped off on the card) says "NO
FNORDING". [ACu,SMB]
Bite the Wax Tadpole
The name "Coca-Cola" (with the usual American pronunciation)
may sound like the a Chinese phrase that means "bite the wax tadpole", depending
on dialect and intonation (some versions interpret it as "female horse stuffed
with wax"). [SMB]
Brushfire War
A term commonly used to describe a small-scale Third
World conflict. [SMB]
Cat Juggling
A reference from the movie The Jerk. Steve
Martin's character, Navin Johnson, becomes improbably wealthy in the movie,
and is approached by hordes of people wanting money for one project or another.
One such person is a man from a Latin American country who wants help overcoming
the horrifying scourge that is overwhelming his country. He then shows Navin
a grainy, black and white film showing the horror. It shows a scene reminiscent
of a cockfight, but the center attraction is the cat juggler shown in the
illustration. Navin immediately writes out a big fat check.... [DC]
Cease-Fire
Sometimes, both sides of a war will agree to a cease-fire
(a suspension of attacks on each other) in order to facilitate negotiations.
[SMB]
Chain
Letter
A classic pyramid scam, in which each person is asked
to send some small amount of money to the person who sent the letter and
then send similar letters to several other people.
This concept has infected the Net, usually in the
form of some variation on the classic Dave Rhodes
"MAKE MONEY FAST" message. People who post these messages are subjected to merciless ridicule, and the message
itself has spawned numerous spoofs
and parodies.
Ponzi schemes are related to pyramid
scams, but they are not quite the same -- a pyramid scam explicitly requires
each participant to recruit additional participants, while a Ponzi scheme
pays early participants with money obtained from later joiners without necessarily
requiring anyone other than the core promoters to do the recruiting. The
distinction tends to blur because early participants in Ponzi schemes usually
do recruit others, either directly or by example. [SMB]
Contract on America
The "Contract With America", a list of legislative
initiatives to be brought to the floor of Congress for a vote, was popularized
by Newt Gingrich as a centerpiece
of the Republican campaign in the 1994 US Congressional elections. Detractors
quickly dubbed it the "Contract On America (a "contract on (name)"
refers to the hiring of a hit man to assassinate the person named).
Foreign Edition Note: The German edition of
INWO replaces Hitler's Brain
with "Jack the Ripper's Diary" (for obvious reasons, direct references to
Adolf Hitler are a sore point in Germany), with the artwork that appears
on this card. The German edition does include the South American Nazis -- that
B-movie concept is considered to be more silly than offensive. [SMB]
Crackdown on Crime
A common campaign promise. Note that the target's
"crime" is removing a mattress tag, which presumably bears a standard "Do
Not Remove Under Penalty Of Law" warning. In fact, this warning applies only
to the mattress merchant, not the final customer; recent versions of the
warning attempt to clarify this point. [SMB]
Crusade
The original "Crusades" were a series of wars launched
in the eleventh century by Western Christians to take the Holy Land from
the Moslems. The first few had some success, but the enterprise quickly went
downhill and the Moslems eventually reconquered the territory. The term has
now come to mean just about any major enterprise, particularly of a religious
nature (e.g. "Campus Crusade For Christ"). [SMB]
Death To All Fanatics
A comically self-condemning slogan. [SMB]
Defection
Defectors are useful intelligence assets, though one
has to watch out for enemy infiltrators pretending to defect. [SMB]
Dolphins
One of the concerns of the environmentalist movement
has been to prevent harm to dolphins as a byproduct of tuna fishing (since
dolphins are air breathers, they drown if they get caught in nets).
Dolphins also figure prominently in the Illuminatus!
trilogy. [SMB,GB]
Don't Rock The Boat
A catchphrase intended to persuade people to go along
with the party line, regardless of individual reservations, in order to avoid
trouble. Note that this boat is already sunk, making the point moot. [SMB]
Don't Touch That
Dial!
An expression used to urge the audience not to change
the channel, from the ancient days when TVs and radios had control dials
that you turned (instead of the now-common pushbuttons) to change the channel.
[SMB,SDO]
Drought
A prolonged lack of rain, with bad effects on the
crops. [SMB]
Enough is Enough
An exasperated outburst, similar to "I'm mad as hell
and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" [SMB]
Every Year is Worse
The color quote is often seen as an example of how
every generation has feared that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
The artwork shows a variation of a Mayan calendar stone. [SMB]
Exorcism
A ritual to cast out a demon that has possessed some
person or object. If you don't pay your exorcist's bill, you are repossessed
(sorry, couldn't resist). [SMB]
Family Values
A shibboleth of cultural conservatives, who denounce
various cultural deviations as a menace to "family values". Note the Frankenfood on the table. [SMB]
Fickle Finger
of Fate
An expression to describe some unusual random event
that brings great fortune or misfortune to someone. Also a reference to the
"Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award" from the TV show Rowan & Martin's
Laugh-In. [SMB,MS]
Five-Year Plan
Various Communist countries announced a number of
"Five Year Plans" to acheive some economic goal, usually without much success.
[SMB,SDO]
Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Several cases of "flesh-eating bacteria", producing
gangrenous tissue breakdown, were reported in the early 1990s. The disease
is a type of staphylococcal infection that produces necrotizing fasciitis
(i.e. connective tissue becomes inflamed leading to tissue death). [SMB,LC]
Floating Point Error
A reference to the Intel Pentium debacle. Early versions
of this chip contained a subtle bug in the floating-point arithmetic processor,
causing errors when certain numbers were divided by certain other numbers.
After the bug was discovered, Intel declared that the errors were extremely
rare, and that debugged replacement chips would be provided only to customers
who could prove that they needed them. After being the butt of jokes and customer wrath
for a few weeks, the company changed its policy and offered to replace all
buggy Pentiums. [SMB]
Frankenfood
Genetically engineered food crops are now being developed,
amid some controversy.
The name is a play on "Frankenstein". [SMB,JW]
Go Fish
From the card game "Go Fish", in which players can
demand a card of a given rank (ace, deuce, etc) from the opponent's hand.
If the opponent has no such card, he replies, "Go fish!" (i.e. draw a card
from the deck, which is spread around the playing area). [SMB]
Go, Lemmings, Go!
According to popular legend, lemmings will follow
each other off cliffs into the ocean and drown. The computer game "Lemmings"
is inspired by this legend.
The "legend" in question is attributable to only one
source, that being a Disney documentary that shows thousands of lemmings
jumping from a cliff to their deaths below. The interesting thing here is
that lemmings do not actually exhibit such behavior, and in fact never have.
The mystery is that the film in question undeniably shows real lemmings jumping
off a real cliff to (presumably) a very real death. The obvious implication
is that the filmmakers forced the lemmings off the cliff in order to stage
the scene to match the legend (possibly out of a belief that the lemmings'
refusal to jump was atypical, and that nature simply needed to be prodded
back along its normal course); allegedly, some of the film left on the cutting
room floor shows this.
Disney refuses to comment on the scene to this day.
[OS,RWB,SMB,SDO]
Goal: Blinded by
Science
Reference to the song "Poetry In Motion (She Blinded
Me With Science)"; the artwork bears some resemblance to singer Thomas Dolby.
[SMB,JW]
Goal: Earth First!
Earth First! is a extreme environmental group. [SMB]
Goal: Population
Reduction
Believers in "deep ecology" (environmentalism as extreme
as Earth First!, or even more so) advocate radical
reduction in the human population. The lunatic fringe takes this ideology
to the point of regarding epidemics, etc, as a good thing. [SMB]
Grave Robbers
Note that the tombstone bears the name "Kris Kull",
making a pun on Crystal Skull.
Note also a copy of The INWO Book to the left of the grave. [SMB]
Hubble Trouble
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched with defective
optics due to inadequate pre-flight testing. A Space Shuttle mission installed
a patch for the problem a few years later.
The name is also a pun on "double trouble" (a catchphrase
referring to two problems or a problem twice as bad as previously thought).
[SMB]
The Irish Flu
Steve Jackson suffered through a Flu Bug From Hell
while in Ireland, inspiring this card. It is traditional to name flu epidemics
after the place of origin (e.g. the Russian flu). [SMB,SDO]
Junk Bonds
High-risk high-yield bonds used to finance many corporate
takeovers during the 1980s. US government regulators decided to crack down
on such bond issues and launched a string of prosecutions (most notably against
Michael Milken). [SMB]
Lab Explosion
Another occupational hazard of research on the bleeding
edge.
The card art shows a monkey flying from the center
of the explosion, suggesting that the researchers should have mounted a scratch
monkey. [RLM,SMB]
Let the Sunshine
In
A line in a song ("Let the Sun Shine") from the 1970s
musical/movie Hair.
Also refers to the "Sunshine Laws" that affect many
government committees. Such laws require that the group open their meetings
to outsiders in order to increase accountability. The expression has come
to mean shedding light on the goings-on within any secretive organization
-- hence its application to Secret groups. [SDO,BAM]
May Day
May 1 is commemorated by various Socialist and Communist
factions. A display of Soviet military hardware was the centerpiece of the
traditional May Day parade in Moscow.
The Illuminatus! trilogy gives May 1 as the
date Adam Weishaupt (re?)founded the Bavarian Illuminati. [SMB,GB]
The Meek Shall
Inherit
From "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the Earth." (Matthew 5:5). One of the Beatitudes; according to the Bible,
these were delivered by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. [SDO,LC]
Metric System
The metric system is a decimal-based system of weights
and measures used by most of the world outside the United States. Efforts
to convert the US to the metric system have been notoriously unsuccessful,
and often characterized by bureaucratic snafus. [SMB]
My Karma Ran Over Your
Dogma
Apparently a popular bumper sticker in certain parts
of the country. Pun on karma/car and dogma/dog. [SMB,SDO]
Near Miss
A standard explanation for how a character survived
an attack that should have killed him. [SMB]
Nevermore!
The artwork is a reference to Edgar Allan Poe's poem
"The Raven".
[SMB]
No Beer!
Beer is very important to Australia, where the idea
for this card originated. The scene resembles the customer mobs that sometimes
result when the stores can't keep up with demand for some item, usually a
fad (e.g. the Cabbage Patch Kids of the mid-1980s).
The title comes from the Slim Dusty song "Pub with
No Beer". [SMB,SDO,GB]
NWO: Antitrust
Legislation
Legislation designed to increase competition by preventing
or breaking up concentrations of the production of any one good. [SDO]
NWO: Apathy
I was going to think of something clever for this
one, but it just didn't seem worth the effort. [SMB]
NWO: Australian Rules
Reference to Australian rules football. The artwork
is not particularly accurate.
Note that the blue-shirted player kicking the yellow-shirted
player in the crotch is number 23. [SMB,GB,MIB]
NWO: End of
the World
Many milleniarian sects have predicted the imminent
end of the world, causing their adherents to set aside their mundane concerns,
at least until the prediction turned out to be inaccurate. [SMB]
NWO: Global Warming
According to some Science Alarmists, industrial
emissions of carbon dioxide will increase the greenhouse effect, causing
the climate to warm up and the polar ice caps to melt. [SMB]
NWO: Interesting
Times
Reference to the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting
times." -- historically "interesting" times tend to be characterized by war,
civil disturbance, and other unpleasant events. [OS,SMB]
NWO: The Magic Goes
Away
This is the title of a Larry Niven story
set in a world where magic is powered by a nonrenewable supply of mana, implying
that the magic-based civilization will collapse when the mana is used up.
[SMB]
NWO: Visualize Whirled
Peas
A pun on the slogan "Visualize World Peace". Appears
to have originated as a bumper sticker. [SMB,JKn]
NWO: Watermelons
A term used to refer to people who use environmentalism
as an argument for increased government regulation (or outright control)
of business.
The term "watermelons", as described by the color
quote ("green on the outside, red on the inside"), appears to be inspired
by the term "Oreos" ("black on the outside, white on the inside" -- like
the black wafer cover and white creme filling of an Oreo™ cookie) used by
some black activists to refer
to other blacks who they consider overly friendly to white American society.
After the Soviet Union collapsed and many of its secret
files were opened to historians, it turned out that some Western anti-nuclear/peace movements actually
were subsidized by the Soviet bloc.
The cover art resembles a gadget seen briefly in the
movie "The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai". The Banzai Institute was engaged
in research to feed starving peoples in Africa, and had developed a watermelon
that could be airdropped from moving planes. The machine the watermelon was
in was a pressure device to determine if it was capable of surviving the
fall. [SMB,SDO,JKn,SAC]
Oil Spill
The artwork refers to the notorious Exxon Valdez
oil spill off Alaska. [SMB]
Partition
A reference to actual and potential national breakups,
such as the splintering of Yugoslavia, the secession vote in Quebec, etc.
[SMB,SDO]
Pave the Earth!
A parody of the environmentalist slogan "Save the
Earth". There is a Usenet newsgroup called alt.pave-the-earth.
Note that the machine is number 23. [MIB,SMB]
Pizza for the
Secret Meeting
One of the sideline items Steve
Jackson Games created for the original Illuminati game was a "Secret
Meeting" doorknob hanger. One side says, "Secret Meeting In Progress --
GO AWAY"; the other says, "Secret Meeting In Progress -- COME IN!
BRING PIZZA!"
It may be possible to tell when something big is in
the works by watching for late-night pizza orders from staff burning the
midnight oil at the White House, Pentagon, etc. [SMB,DH,SDO]
Regi$tered Trademark
Companies go to great lengths to watch for improper
uses of their registered trademarks, since failure to do so can cause the
trademark to be lost (for instance, "aspirin" was once a Bayer trademark,
but passed into generic usage).
Possibly a reference to TSR, which has a history of
going ballistic over the fact that some people refer to Advanced Dungeons
and Dragons[tm] as Dungeons and Dragons[tm] or D&D[tm] (a different game
entirely!). The spelling may thus refer to the Net tradition of writing the
company's name "T$R". [SMB,SDO]
Reverse Whammy
A "whammy" being a magical curse or such, a "reverse
whammy" (often seen on humorous shows dealing with magic) is a reverse curse.
[SDO]
School Prayer
A recurring controversy in US politics, between advocates of school
prayer (who claim that it would improve the nation's moral climate) and opponents
(who claim that, since the public schools are government-run, it would be
unconsitutional government support for religion). [SMB]
Secret Master
One of the real rulers of the world. [SMB]
Security Leak
Ordinary phone lines are fairly easy to tap by going
up the right pole with a set of alligator clips. Modern digital lines are
a bit harder, which caused the FBI to lobby for legislation requiring built-in
tapping capabilities. The legislation passed the US Congress in 1994. [SMB]
Sorry, Wrong Number
A standard apology for bothering someone with a misdialed
phone call. [SMB]
Spontaneous
Combustion
Occasionally, a body has been found consumed by fire,
with relatively little damage to the surroundings. Paranormalists attribute
this to mysterious forces; skeptics attribute it to people accidentally setting
their clothes on fire and burning to death, after which the fire consumes
much of the body. [SMB]
Strange Bedfellows
From the old saying "Politics makes strange bedfellows."
(meaning that political circumstances often impel alliances between people
who would normally be enemies). [SDO]
Sudden European Vacation
A quick departure to avoid problems at home, such
as the wrath of the Mob. [SMB,SDO]
Sufficiently Advanced Technology
The color quote is Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law. (The
First is, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something
is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something
is impossible, he is very probably wrong." The Second is, "The only way of
discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them
into the impossible.") [SMB]
Supernova
The violent death of a star, in which a large fraction
of its mass blows up in a quick nuclear fusion reaction.
Several historical supernovae (the Crab supernova
in the 11th century, two supernovae that appeared in the late 16th century)
have been bright enough to equal or exceed the brightest stars. The one depicted
on the artwork is bright enough to outshine the full moon; the supernova that
created the Gum Nebula may have appeared this bright to our ancestors about
10,000 years ago. [SMB,SDO]
Supreme Court
Nomination
The rules for this card reflect the media circuses
that have surrounded controversial Supreme Court nominees. The two
best-known examples are Robert Bork (who was labeled an extremist and rejected)
and Clarence Thomas (who was accused of sexual harassment but confirmed).
[SMB]
Take The Money And
Run
How to avoid the standard criminal mistake of getting
too greedy and continuing an operation long enough for the net to close around
you. Also the name of a Steve Miller Band song. [SMB,JMR]
TANSTAAFL
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." The acryonym
was popularized by Robert Heinlein's novel The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,
though the saying (in various forms) is no doubt much older. [SMB,SDO]
Teflon Coating
Teflon[tm] is a non-stick coating for cookware. Ronald Reagan was called "the
Teflon President" for his ability to avoid damage to his own reputation despite
various scandals in his administration (note the similarity between the effects
of this card and Ronald Reagan's special ability).
The artwork is a play on the Backlash artwork -- the
same speaker, but this time he's protected against the audience's bombardment.
[SMB,SDO]
This Was Only A Test
Reference to the Emergency Broadcast
System, an arrangement by which radio and television would quickly convey
warnings and instructions in case of a disaster (either natural or manmade).
The system was tested on occasion; these tests would be preceded by the statement
"This is only a test" and followed by the statement "This was only a test".
Note that "23" is highlighted in the number
line. [SMB,SDO,MIB]
Truck Bomb
Trucks loaded with explosives have been used in terrorist
strikes such as the attacks on the Beirut Marine base, the World Trade Center,
and the Oklahoma City federal building.
The license plate of the truck says "BOOM". [RLM,SMB]
Vile Secretions
What other players will get on your INWO cards after
using appropriate plots and special abilities to snag them. From a Usenet
post by JW to rec.games.trading-cards.misc.
Note the Hoax
card in the card art. [JW,RLM,SMB]
Waiting Period
Reference to laws (such as the Brady Bill in the US)
which require gun purchasers to wait several days before taking the gun home
from the store.
Note that the man waiting for his shiny new machine
gun in the card art is wearing a "Bubba" nametag; in the United States, this
name evokes the stereotype of the gun-totin' Southern "redneck." [ACu,RLM,SMB]
Whistle Blowers
A "whistle blower" is an insider who exposes corruption
or abuse by his colleagues, often suffering retaliation as a result. [SMB]
Witch Hunt
Recurring outbreaks of witchcraft hysteria led to
many witch hunts in the 16th and 17th century (mostly in Western Europe,
though there was one famous case in Salem, Massachusettes in 1692).
The term "witch hunt" is often to refer to other events
characterized by spreading chains of accusation, guilt by association, low
standards of evidence, demagoguery, etc. (e.g. the Satanic ritual accusations
mentioned in the Day Care Centers
entry). [SMB,SDO]
You Are What
You Eat
An old nutritionist
slogan, apparently derived from the German pun "Man ist was man isst." (One
is what one eats).
The cross marked "INWO" is a play on the letters "INRI"
(the acronymn for the Latin phrase "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum," which
translates as "Jesus of Nazereth, King of the Jews") sometimes placed on
crucifixes. [GmG,SMB,SmG]
CREDITS
The bulk of the entries were originally written by Alan
de Smet and/or Colin Roald (Basic Set) or Steve Brinich (Assassins). Others
have provided feedback, additional facts, and occasional entire entries; these
entries are marked with the initials of the contributor(s). The full names
corresponding to these initials are listed on the credits page.
I would like to thank everyone who provided entries and
feedback.
Last Updated January 2000
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