An AE question: why in the SoulStorm Brewery there are the wells mining? I don't know how to say it, but I mean the "grinder" yellow and black of the Necrum Mines, but they are also in the SoulStorm Brewery. Why? Excuse me for this orrible English :fuzemb:.

For using the employees as an extra source of bones. After the closure of RuptureFarms, the destruction of Necrum Mines, and the shutdown of Bonewerkz, every little helps.

Ok, thank you Max. And how can Sam birth Mudokons without a male Mudokon? Is it a special power of her? Or is there any factor that help her to birth?

Alf says there are male drones, just as there are in any eusocial model on Earth. Of course, this being Alf, we should take this information with a pinch of salt.

And is it possible Sam will birth a female Mudokon because she is going to die? Maybe because she is an old Mudokon and she understands that her life is going to fnish. Is it possible?

Maybe. We just don’t know.

And can Sam walk if she isn't tied? And where was Sam after she has been captured? In the Monsaic Sanctum?

I don't think she could even walk even if she was untied. The work the Vykkers have done on her is so exterme, she is heavily over-weight. (I don't even know if that is just how Sam is suppose to look like naturally)

I assume you mean that you want to know what happens after Sam is released to capitivity, instead of being captured again. She probably will go to the Monsaic Lines after her release, since it only makes sense to form a new birth ground in the now-Mudokon controlled holy grounds.

If the Mudokons have a queen then what about the Gabbits? I'm not much of a Gabbit lover but it doesn't hurt to ask.

It is presumed that Gabbits breed more similarly to fish; every mature individual is capable of reproducing and a single male and female get together to do the dirty. That said, it is possible that 'the dirty' occurs with both of them at opposite ends of a large pool as we know that female exudes unfertilised eggs which must then be fertilised by a male.

No we don’t. This is an idea people have latched onto without it ever being said in an official capacity.

It is probable that gabbit eggs are taken from the ovaries of slaughtered females, like black caviar is from beluga sturgeons. It would be hopelessly inefficient and therefore unprofitable to gather them up from the water.

As for how gabbits breed...let's whittle down the list. There are several main methods on Earth.

Internal Fertilisation, in which one parent deposits its gametes into the other, and fertilisation occurs within the body of one or both (in the case of hermaphrodites) parents. There are then three modes of gestation:

Vivipary: the embryo develops inside the parent within a special uterine organ, and is born live (ideally). The most advanced known form of vivipary has the embryo develop a placenta and umbilical chord to facilitate the exchange of nutrients, oxygen and waste products between the blood of the offspring and the blood of the parent, we see this in the Eutheria (placental mammals) and many sharks. A less advanced form has the parent give birth to the foetus before a placenta is required, and the offspring continues development in another environment, as in marsupials. An even less advanced "form" is-

Ovovivipary: the offspring are brought to term within the body of the parent, but within an egg. The egg provides nourishment (the yolk) while the parent provides gaseous exchange. The offspring hatch just before birth or immediately after laying.

Ovipary: Internal fertilisation, but the eggs are soon after laid, and development occurs within the egg, with its own yolk sack for nourishment and takes care of its own gaseous exchange.

External fertilisation in which eggs are released into a medium, as far as I can tell exclusively water, as are sperm. Fertilisation takes place in the medium, outside of the bodies of the parents. This is a form of ovipary, though sperm and eggs may be released into the water column for random fertilisation, or mounting may occur, and eggs are fertilised as they emerge from the female (spawning).


Now, which can apply to gabbits? What do we know about gabbits?

1. Where they live. Gabbits are amphibious. They live in water, where all strategies are feasible, and can come onto land, only externally fertilised eggs are infeasible. Live birth in fully aquatic groups, such as cetaceans and ichthyosaurs, is usually done in the water. But gabbits are not fully aquatic, they can come onto land. Many aquatic mammals can come onto land, and that is where they pup (seals, otters etc). Some sharks are also viviparous.

The eggs laid by reptiles would drown in water, which is why all other aquatic reptiles can and did come out of the water to deposit their eggs. If gabbits are egg-laying, do they spawn in water? They are like amphibians, and if gabbits are of a lineage that has never yet left the water entirely, this is likely. Do they lay eggs on land? If their ancestors were fully terrestrial and gabbits have returned to the water, this is more probably. We know neither, so we can conclude the neither, though if they can come onto land despite living their lives in water, the latter is more probable.

2. Where they reproduce. Gabbits swim upriver to the Mongo's source, Ma'Spa. A freshwater environment that is strong evidence that they spawn in the waters of Ma'Spa. However, they may pup on the shores of Ma'Spa, or lay eggs like turtles.

3. That Munch is male, and these eggs will allow him to repopulate gabbits. But we don't know if the eggs are already fertilised or not. He may fertilise the eggs himself if they require it. Being male, it would seem to rule out ovovivipary and vivipary, but no. In seahorses and pipefish, the male gives birth to the young because the female deposits eggs into his pouch to develop. We do not know if gabbits do the same. So if the eggs are unfertilised there is external fertilisation, and if it is internal gabbits must exhibit male pregnancy. If they are already fertile, it makes no difference to the choices any of the choices. Unless internal fertilisation requires an ovipositor, Munch will not be able to impregnate himself without equipment. Personally, I think the whole male pregnancy thing is unlikely in gabbits, so if the eggs are unfertilised, fertilisation must be external. Earth caviar is roe, and roe is ripe fish eggs, removed from the ovaries of the fish, making them unfertilised. Gabbiar is likely to be the same.

4. The appearance of Gabbiwogs. Gabbit larbae metamorphose from gabbiwogs to full-grown gabbits. Gabbiwogs are clearly unable to come onto land, disproving the land eggs and land birth hypotheses, the closest Earth analogy of the gabbit life-cycle are amphibians. We now know for certain that gabbits breed only in the water, though this makes their ability to come on to land perplexing.

5. They have large eggs. By that I mean they are not microscopic. This is strong indication that they are eggs within which gabbiwogs grow, and not colossal ova, however it may be that some ova on Oddworld are very large. Even the ovum of a human being is the largest cell. The first divisions of the zygote result in many smaller cells of the same mass. We can see this in frog spawn, but frog spawn is protected by a clear jelly, and if gabbiar is like caviar, it is not like frogspawn. This development would have to occur within a parent host. Either that, or gabbit eggs are much more like fish eggs. Judging by their analogy to Earth caviar, a deliberate comparison by OWI, they are true eggs. This rules out vivipary.

6. These eggs can be kept viable and dormant in cold storage (refrigeration) and/or anaerobic environments (the can). Otherwise Munch's quest was fairly pointless, and that doesn't seem to be OWI's style. Eggs, ova and embryos may be stored this way on Earth, so it does not help us.


So, we have ruled out vivipary (live birth) and spawning on the land, so all I've managed to do is eliminate what nobody expected, but now we have good reason to rule out those alternatives without official word from OWI. I have also shown that both other internal fertilisation methods, ovipary and ovovivipary, are unlikely, since gabbiar probably requires fertilisation by Munch. This most likely rules out ovipary, meaning for it to require internal fertilisation Munch must practice a form of ovoviviparous male pregnancy, and rules out ovipary (why lay eggs into the male to be fertilised only for him to lay them again straight away?).

So, this proves that, unless basic non-queen reproduction on Oddworld is completely upside-down, gabbits practice external fertilisation. The only question is: do they spawn like fish or frogs?


I was off my head with sleep-deprivation towards the end of this. If anything does not make any sense whatsoever, I apologise and will correct it in the morn- er, afternoon.

Holy cow. Post of the year award goes to... Bullet Magnet.

I know female fish lay eggs and then male fish fertilize them with their seminal liquids. I know nothing about frog's reproduction model.

This is why I am in love with you, Bullet Magnet.

Haha, awesome.

Really that question what simply regarding whether or not gabbits mount one another like frogs do, fertilising eggs as they come out, or disperse eggs and sperm into the water column or nest without mounting.

Here's a question that's interesting for me:

When the bad ending in AE plays and it gets to the part before abe is zapped hanging upside down he says "Oh no, oh man, oh JESUS, oh no!"

Something like that, but I know he said jesus, was there some kind of jesus in oddworld?

It sounds much closer to "No, no, no, oh no no, please, No-icanchange, no please..." and becomes incomprehensible. The "I can change" part is run together, but I've always heard it as such.

Is there two Bigfaces? Or is there only one cause I was watching Abe's Moon clip and noticed something. In this picture the Bigface has three(that I can see anyway) brown bands one wrapped around his left arm and one wrapped around his left foot. Oh and on his right foot too.
http://i15.tinypic.com/8fkn9r9.jpg

And here he doesn't. :confused:
http://i7.tinypic.com/7xb54x4.jpg

Just because he's wearing different things it doesn't mean it's 2 different Bigfaces. He might've just wanted a change of style.

He probrably just needed to take off those garments to give Abe the handscar. Maybe they somehow diminish his powers a little. Or maybe the magic or whatever you call it can't flow through with those on.

Or maybe he just took his sandals off because they were itching like hell. There’s only one Big Face.

Oh maybe he wanted to use them just because the impervious soil could break his feet.

Oh ok. ^^; It'd be kinda stupid if there where two.

Okay, tell me if this is insane. I personally believe that Big Face is lame (as in, he can't move his legs in a very good fashion). For example, Big Face never walks in all of his cameos in AO or AE. Also, he uses teleportation to move most of the time. And when we saw Big Face for the first time (the time we saw him make a step into Abe's vision) he used a walking stick.

What do you guys think? I'm looking for evidence that may disprove this.

Well, he has the power, he might as well use it. How old is Big Face supposed to be anyway?

Left to their own devices, mudokons don't normally live more than forty years. What kind of years, I don't know.

Ok this is the first question that popped in my head.

If Mullock did return and was in Munch's Oddysee would they change his voice? I mean make it were you could understand him? I didn't have a problem understanding him in AO but..yeah. O_o;

I assume so, since all of the characters in AE had became a little more understandable.

But what if the reason behind this power is that he can't travel any other way?

Maybe because he's so sacred that he can't move anyother way, or perhaps he's too good to walk. Anyways, it makes him look super cool.
Haha, I just had this image of BigFace teleporting just a few feet too far from a cliff.. Ah, I'm so mean :p

I doubt that Big Face is in any way haughty, proud, snobbish, or disdainfully selfish. And isn't Abe just as sacred? That would mean that Abe shouldn't be allowed to walk.

Mudokons wouldn't abuse their power like that.

I don't ever recall seeing Big face travel a relatively short distance, though, and presumably whenever he has turned up, it had been from fairly far away initially. I'd assume he was cramming in all he could before appearing to Abe. Big Face must be pretty busy.

Abe gets tired possessing Lulu for...a couple of hours? So I doubt Big Face would teleport merely for the sake of it, it would be far too tiring for him.

I'd personally think that Big Face in particular, with his special powers and abilities, would have an at least slightly longer lifespan than the average Mudokon. But 'average Mudokon lifespan' is hard to define. A Mudokon eating natural food in the clean air of a forest, and one breathing fumes and eating chemically rich products would surely have much different lifespans?

Why would Abe get tired possessing Lulu when he had no trouble possessing the three Glukkons in Exoddus? And I read somewhere Abe could possess Slogs? :confused:

Abe only possesses Slogs in MO, he can't in the other two games.

At the end of MO, in the good ending, Abe has been possessing Lulu for an unknown amount of time, presumably from when he ordered the Slig to go to the auction until they arrived and entered the auction. Near the end of the auction, Abe lost control of Lulu a couple of times, as he was becoming tired from his exertions.

This was probably done for realism, and also in AO/AE unless you were messing about, Abe didn't possess anything to especially long periods of time.

Why Slogs now?

Oh I see. o_o

I suspect that if the orginal storyline of MO does come out, then this idea would be changed, due to the fact that you are suppose to control Lulu for exceptionally long periods of time.

But not when Lulu is resisting as hard as he was at that auction.

I suspect it was more for suspense than for realism.

No real reason, except that it shows Abe’s powers are growing. It adds virtually nothing to gameplay, just like possessing Scrabs and Paramites.

It might not be entirely down to the curtailed development of Munch’s Oddysee that Lulu’s role was reduced from what previews suggested would be in the final game. Early reports from OWI (exactly who and where I can’t remember or find back right now) mentioned that they were still evaluating just how much of a role Lulu should play to make sure he doesn’t become as important a character as Abe and Munch.

In abe's oddysey, Abe's voice slowly changes throughout the FMVs I noticed.

Before he shuts off the power, Abe had that whole innocent sad depressing voice in a way.

After he shut it off, he had that nazally voice and kept it from then till today. Is there a reason for this?

I think it's because he's had to talk his way through his adventure. And all that speaking turned his voice a bit.