Zealot Trivia was a Sci-Fi and Fantasy trivia game available on America Online from December 17, 1997 to January 2, 2001.
Contents
After it was revamped, the new Sci-Fi trivia game was put online and ran until January 26, 2011.
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 Hecklers 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.
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.
Zealot Trivia was shut down in January 2001 after Hecklers Online finally disappeared late in 2000. The staff who had run Zealot Trivia began a new science-fiction themed enterprise at RevolutionSF.
Original in-game description
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 because 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.
Original in-game description
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 its 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.
Original in-game description
The Drakulian Empire is one of the most ruthless and feared political entities in the Galaxy. From their modest origins as a small, feudal-based planetary government in a remote Spiral Arm, they have become one of the most successful Empires ever known, their protectorates sprawling over nearly a fifth of the Galaxy.
The Drakulians method of galactic expansion is as simple and brutal as their Code of Victory and Honor in personal combat.
Indeed, this three-step process has been drilled into every young Drakulian Warrior from the moment he enters the Ovoid, their premiere War Academy for over a thousand Spans: Explore, Conquer, and Subjugate. This is not so much an ideology for the Drakul Warrior as it is a religion. To fail is to not only be destroyed, but to not even be considered Drakulian any more.
Despite their aggressive nature and history, The Drakulians are also masters of diplomacy (although the practice of Diplomacy was forbidden as heresy as recently as 200 Spans ago and has only lately come into use), and will in most cases employ reason before arms. They are, after all, experts at strategy, and as such favor accomplishing their goals with the least expenditure of energy.
The Drakulians are reptilian in appearance and physiology; their homeworld, SalisKar, nestled behind a bristling net of Planetary Defense Outposts, is mostly blistering desert, divided by scalding seas. Their capitals are placed in the midst of the rare continent-sized oases.
Their government follows a simple feudal system. Generally, one hundred Warriors will swear loyalty to a central Warlord, who will then lease lands to them and their families and patrons. Combat is the ultimate decider of any issue, with a preference to bladed, short-range weapons over energy-based long-range ones.
Original in-game description
The Praan-blug have only recently been classified as sentient creatures. It was less than 300 Spans ago that scientific thought regarded them as merely "vicious, mindless beetles to avoid near the Sargasso Nebula." This ignorance of their true nature can be attributed to the inaccessible and remote nature of the Sargasso. It is due almost entirely to the Zsiverians that they are regarded not as "mindless beetles" but in fact as one of the Four Primary Races today.
In fact, the Zsiverians had no small hand in the evolution of the Praan-blug. Sometime in the third decade of the 35th century Galactica, the Zsiverians, in a move typical of their intellectual arrogance, altered the collective genetic code of the Praan-blug in an attempt to "jump start" their evolution. This, of course, is the primary source of the tremendous animosity that the Praan-blug have for the Zsiverian Science Council: The Praan maintains that they were deliberately kept from evolving into a much superior being. Their true nature before the Zsiverian Intervention is still unknown to this day.
The Praan-blug are insectoid in nature, covered with a remarkably strong Exo-Skeleton which can sustain them, even in the vacuum of space. Over time they have learned to modify this external shell to accommodate all manner of weaponry, even energy-based weapons, as extensions of their bodies.
Their government is modeled very much after the Hives that are the Praan-blug homes. The Praan Government, which is still centered in the Sargasso Nebula, goes through certain Gender Cycles, or Seasons. In a Masculine Cycle, all Praan subjects will report to a central King, who will then have up to a thousand Queens. In a Feminine Cycle, there will be a Central Queen who will have up to a thousand Kings. The end of a Cycle occurs only when one gender is able to dominate the other through conflict.
Little is known of their religious beliefs; indeed, since the Praan-blug are such a young Race (at least in this form), they may still be formulating their spiritual doctrine.
About The New Game
Zealot Trivia is a combat type trivia game played by the four teams listed above. Each team can have infinite amounts of players, but only 100 possible top scorers. There is a GE (Galactic Event) played every night to determine a bonus or a negative point event. At the end of the month, the team with the highest combined point total is declared victorious in their battle.
Questions are worth at the most 1,000 points at a time. The points can vary as you change your answer (946, 883, 176, etc.) as the time runs out for each question; about 40 seconds. If you get the question wrong you will be rewarded with -250 points. Three clues are displayed over the duration of the question, with the 3rd giving a possible correct answer. Although this keeps the player from getting a -250 score, the positive number is still low, being from 176 and into double digits at times.