Marvel’s Loki Unearths the Polybius Mystery for a New Generation

| July 7, 2021 |

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Tom Hiddleston in Marvel's Loki Episode 5 — *Photo: Marvel Studios*

This article contains Loki episode 5 spoilers.

Curiosity's Loki episode 5 has a really unique Easter egg showcasing a video game that barely even existed, still whose reputation has grown thanks to the power of urban legend. Visible in the surreptitious hideout of the Variant Lokis, nestled between some erstwhile pinball machines and stacks of ephemera, is an arcade cabinet begetting the name: Polybius.

Information technology's not exactly out of place on a show that relishes in jumping effectually the timestream and into and out of troublesome branch realities. The show has hidden little jokes all around the TVA offices indicating that representatives of the time-and-infinite-spanning arrangement similar to drink and snack on long defunct brands. Why shouldn't they? If you lot could go a bottle of Josta and all it's going to take is a jaunt back to 1997, why not, right?

But Polybius takes things a little further. Loki could take just equally easily gone for a Crystal Castles or Mad Crasher or Zaxxon chiffonier if all they wanted was some fun and anachronistic set dressing. But the presence of Polybius is something a niggling more mischievous, a little more than deceptive, and thus a fiddling more perfect for this bear witness.

Polybius wasn't a pop game. It was simply tested in i surface area. But the teens who played information technology went basics. At least that's what the urban fable would take you believe.

Before Qanon, Slenderman, and deep-fake news confusions evoked international viral fears, concerned citizens worried about the brain-flaying backdrop of video games. Today, the American Psychiatric Association is studying "Cyberspace Gaming Disorder" to determine whether information technology can be classified for potential diagnosis in an age of like shooting fish in a barrel technological access. In the 1980s, kids had to go to video arcades to pump quarters into machines which mined their minds. According to urban legend, Polybius , an arcade game, was specifically designed to encroach on the players' psyche. The legend says it was tested on civilian youth at the Malibu Grand Prix arcade in Oregon betwixt 1979 and 1981.

Players reputedly complained about nausea, headaches, blackouts, amnesia, night terrors, seizures, and even brain aneurysms. Some had auditory hallucinations, while others saw faces out of the corners of their optics. The most extreme adventure of playing Polybius was to swear off video games forever.

The earliest written account of the game is an archived Usenet mail service from 1994, according to PCGames . The Polybius fable grew after a Feb. 6, 2000, list in the digital arcade gaming database CoinOp.org. Co-ordinate to the mail service, the "game had a very limited release, one or 2 backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland. The history of this game is cloudy, at that place were all kinds of strange stories nearly how kids who played it got amnesia afterwards, couldn't remember their name or where they lived, etc."

Admittedly, this happened in the '80s, when an actor played a president while the vice president was a former CIA director. Some conspiracy theorists posit Polybius was a brainwashing device designed past the agency, a concern raised in the original postal service.

"The bizarre rumors about this game are that it was supposedly developed by some kind of weird war machine tech offshoot group, used some kind of proprietary behavior modification algorithms adult for the CIA or something, kids who played it woke up at dark screaming, having horrible nightmares," the CoinOp listing reads.

The CIA's MK Ultra programme had been put to rest, at least officially, after a 1975 congressional investigation, only the technology could have gone rogue. MK Ultra began after World War Ii, and concerned psychological warfare studies.

MK is said to stand for Mind Control, although conspiracy theorists suggest it can stand for Mein Kampf. Much of the clandestine projection's research was done under the supervision of Nazi scientists who had been brought into the country nether Functioning Paperclip. The listing says Polybius was manufactured by a company chosen Sinneslöschen, which means delete, or more vaguely, sensory deprivation. Just the plot of the listing twists further. There are indications someone was monitoring the players.

"According to an operator who ran an arcade with one of these games, guys in blackness coats would come to collect 'records' from the machines," the posting reads. "They're non interested in quarters or anything, they simply collected data almost how the game was played."

The suggestion that Polybius tested mental and physical agility, and was being used every bit a recruitment tool for the war machine is almost canon now. The idea that video games have been used to militarize youth has been the subject of books, comics, movies, and episodes of The Simpsons . There are probably video games about it.

The name comes from the aboriginal Greek historian and cryptographer Polybius, who emphasized the importance of quoting eye witnesses for noteworthy events. Since the fable began, many people have claimed to accept played the game, and some accept said they own a ROM version of it. None of these have been corroborated and no physical evidence exists. Steven Roach came forward in 2006 to claim he was one of the game's programmers, according to PCGames . He explained information technology was pulled from the arcades later on someone suffered an epileptic seizure during play.

Roach's claim has been widely written off as an cyberspace prank, but a theory challenge Polybius was an early code for the game Storm persists. Early on testing of that game also noted epileptic seizures in players. A like theory suggests that the "existent" Polybius is really a somewhat obscure 1983 arcade game chosen Cube Quest . Non only does Cube Quest feature some of Polybius ' (and Tempest 'southward) well-nigh notable gameplay and visual design elements, but its advanced technology reportedly caused Cube Quest machines to interruption down more oftentimes than other arcade cabinets of that era. That would certainly help explain why people vaguely remember a trippy arcade game that was constantly being serviced past strange figures who always seemed to be around it.

According to the CoinOp post, Polybius "was weird looking, kind of abstruse, fast action with some puzzle elements." But rather than beingness addictive, "the kids who played it stopped playing games entirely." Which leads to the possibility it was some kind of game stopping disfavor therapy.

The mythology has grown to include kidnappings and suicides, simply bated from a 2017 game that shares its name and a few of its most famous ideas, Polybius is still only a legend. A fable that has mischievously been brought to light once again thanks to Marvel's Loki .