Mission Control

Wohbanobongu!

Once upon a time, there was a native Osmoian who was hired by Princess Osmorella to control the launches of the Castle Pod. He loved to play Ship Chip Lander and practice counting backwards from ten.

Then one day, a strange alien visited the Mission Controller. The alien was so strange that he/she/it didn't have any antennae and his/her/its nose didn't even honk. The Mission Controller was so startled when the alien touched his back that he briefly reverted to his native language.

Click here to hear what he said. (76k).

Some have mentioned that our spelling of the native's language is incorrect, but since his native language has no written form, there can be no definitive spelling to be labeled "correct". We've done our best to reproduce it phonetically, though other spellings may be acceptable too.

We are also often asked for a translation of his reaction. To be honest, no one is sure what he meant, and he has always refused to offer a satisfactory explanation. Here is what little we have learned:

The first word is loosely translated as "Wow!", "Oh my!", "Yikeso!", or similar exclamation of surprise. It has been in common usage at Cyan for many years, especially among those who've been at Cyan for longer than 6 years. Though we are often too lazy to use the whole interjection and generally shorten "Wohbanobongu" to simply "Wohba!".

Many years ago, Bonnie Staub and I concluded that the ending "vuto vuto ni" was best translated as "very, very smelly", but that is just a semi-educated guess. We may never know the true meaning of this phrase.