Outlaw boss!!!!

[Nate]

Khanzumerz are considered the most important creatures on Oddworld by the industrial races, and they need a new fabric softener. That's all we know. Speculate around that.

Unless they don't know that they need a new fabric softener until the vykkers tell them that they need it. That's the wonder of marketing!

[Mac the Janitor]

I'm guessing Clakkerz will be the complete opposite of Khanzumerz society-wise. Like, the creatures Khanzumerz are always cracking jokes about and all.

[oddguy]

So, there are pigs on Oddworld, because a certain Clakker wanted Pork 'n Beans.

-oddguy

[Shell Man]

But what would be more important to Glukkons than mindless consumers? The Clakkerz to me look like they could be the mindless comsumer portion of society, which is what I thought could be the definition of Khanzumer. They're fat, they wear industrial clothes and don't appear too bright.

[Nate]

But what would be more important to Glukkons than mindless consumers? The Clakkerz to me look like they could be the mindless comsumer portion of society, which is what I thought could be the definition of Khanzumer. They're fat, they wear industrial clothes and don't appear too bright.

Except that they are farmers so they are not going to be a big market for food and they probably make their own clothing. My guess is that they are mostly self-sufficient (though they may buy a few things from the Glukkons when needed)

[oddguy]

I always imagined the Khanzumers to be extremely overweight from all the Glukkon product they eat, and have a lot of technology gadgets with 'em all the time. Like Glukkons and Vykkers sell them everything and they buy everything. Khanzumers may not be the only consumers, but they're important to the big industry because they're so gullible and buy everything they can get their hands on to stay trendy. That's how I always viewed them...not like down to earth townsfolk that look like chickens.

-oddguy

EDIT: I replaced somewhat with extremely. That's what I meant to say, but I I guess I was distracted and typed something else.

[Mac the Janitor]

I've always imagined the Khanzumerz to be groutesquely fat, say...800 pounds, maybe...with lots of puss and slobber. Just absolutely repulsive creatures, since their purpose is to mirror what society has come to today.

[Nate]

So if we want to picture Khanzumerz we should just think of Jabba the Hutt?

[oddguy]

Yes, Jabba on a hovercraft.

-oddguy

[Mac the Janitor]

So if we want to picture Khanzumerz we should just think of Jabba the Hutt?

Well, give Jabba a cane and a british accent and you'd have it.

[Teal]

Define "British accent". Are we talking upper-crust perfect queens' english, or are we talking about for instance a good old Brissol accen', which requires you don' pronounce the "t" half the time, boi ar?

I'm guessing you mean ultra plummy. And that's just a damned surreal image.

[Oddish]

If the Khantzumers live in the big city and their like citizens, and are the most vaulble creatures of OW,then someone must control them and the city. Mayer like or even kings. I guess it would be a Khantzumer.

The way i used to imagen the Khantzumerz having big heads and yellow coluor skin, but i think the Khantzumer bieng fat would suite them :]

[Statikk HDM]

Whenever i think of a Khanzumer I think of some coked up yuppie scrambling to keep up with the Jones'. They certainly wouldn't be fat, they'd buy thirt-eight gadgets to get slim and maybe get surgical operations from Vykkers to look ship-shape. Think of them as insanely rich Alien yuppies.

[Volsung]

Thus far Khanzumers could be one of two things: An insanely rich yuppie/jabba type, or a relatively average joe. In the first case you get a ruling class scenario, with 1% of the population having all the money, and in this case, theoretically, all the stuff. Or else they couldn't be khanzumers. In the second more interesting scenario you get a species similair to mudokons in their level of subversion. They must work jobs that don't have any relevance to them to earn moolah which has no intrinsic value to buy products which (if they need them) are provided naturally in the environment or (if they don't need them) which they've been socially conditioned to desire. Strangely, one of these socially conditioned desires would be the desire for no teeth: hence, gumrot.

On another note, farmers currently are not self-sufficient. In the U.S. at least. Here they must sell the goods that the megacorporations have decided they should grow for prices far lower than (A) the end result will be sold for and (B) the amount of money the farmer requires to continue farming. Therefore they must use all their acreage to plant cash-crops (Soy, Corn, Wheat, Cotton) on monoculture fields which have a lower production rate than the smaller traditional polyculture fields. Then, when the farmer has to give up farming the land his family has likely owned for perhaps five generations, he (or she) will need enough money from the sale to move out of the bread-basket and to somewhere jobs which require no training can be found. This situation generally means that although the farmer cannot continue to farm, he (or she) can now not afford to quit farming, either. Suicide rates of U.S. farmers are high and rising.

They might sew their own clothes though. But they probably have to buy them.

[Nate]

Do we know for sure that Khanzumers are a species and not a class/culture? As in, there may be native mudokons, slave mudokons and Khanzumer Mudokons. Lorne said somewhere that in the cities the muds are less slave like and more industrialised - with jobs and homes and stuff

[Volsung]

If Khanzumers are a culture group which isn't exclusive, then it seems possible to end up in these vast cities with all these once-native peoples: Mudokons, "scuba toads", those grubs, hickens, etc. All of the so-called intelligent species of oddworld working at jobs to industrialize oddworld. There, stripped of all soverignity or the divine, the characters the Quintology heroes have been trying to save are working steadily to similarly imprison the world. Eerily similair to our own situation. Still, that seems a little too "star wars"

[Xavier]

Khanzumers could be a class?
makes plenty of sence, but why didn't oddworld gave names to the other classes and only to the Khanzumers?
Anyway I have the impression we will learn more about them in the next game

[Nate]

I meant class in the way that 'native', 'industrial' and 'wildlife' are considered classes

[Alcar]

It almost sounds like the Hindu class system. If you're born a Khanzumer, you are instantly introduced into the world of upper class citizens. However, the fact that Glukkons must work their way up to the top of the 'ladder' contradicts my theory (as you can't change class in Hinduism).

Alcar...

[Wil]

Wow, this is the most intelligent discussion I've seen in GD for years: well done guys. I'm especially pleased to have Volsung hanging about. Khanzumerz could indeed be a class of Inhabitants we have not yet seen. There are definitely consumer Mudokons in Oddworld's cities, and more than likely members of certain other species; but then again they could be a separate species that, maybe, dominates the consumer population in terms of numbers. I've never tried to picture a Khanzumer, if t'were a species, but both large and small ideas make sense: it could be a case of Magog junk food verses Vykkers slimming science. Seeing Khanzumerz as a victim of society also makes a lot of sense, as Lorne has said that there are no good and bad guys on Oddworld, only people with conflicting views, and the very fuel for all the Industry in Mudos may actually be under pressure from the influences of advertising, peer pressure and image, as we are today. It could be a very powerful reflection, as most of Oddworld's parodies are, that would hit closer to home, as most people buying the games are much more likely to be consumers than slaves.

But then again, Oddworld parodies are unique and twisted, and ever-so-extreme. I'm sure there are cases where workers are actually turned into products on Earth, but for the most part, the harsh working conditions of Glukkon factories, I'm sure, is simply a reflection of poor working conditions and worker extortion on Earth - therefore, it wouldn't be unreasonable to presume OWI and Lorne have something much more unexpected up their sleeves.

Then, on the other hand, I think I recall someone [official] saying Khanzumerz are actually the true evilness behind everyone's else's actions on Oddworld. I'll dig up the quote - I think it links in to Danny's Species X theory as well.

God I miss all the great discussion like this. It really did disappear when Danny, Anna et al. left. *sigh*

Just as another aside, Volsung, I wasn't really referring to modern Western farmers, but those from the colonial period. There are millions of subsistence farmers in LEDCs and even NICs, but I'm very aware of the pressures from governmental rules and regulations and TNCs placed on farmers. I'd never have guessed suicide was being resorted to, though - you've sparked my interest in this issue.

[Mac the Janitor]

I'd have to say that the Khanzumer class system does seem very possible - I hope to see a class system such as the one during the Middle Ages in the industrial cities. With the two basic classes - the 10% groutesquely rich and 90% dirt poor. Where the dirt poor are roaming the streets for food and getting spit on and kicked and such...basically despised everywhere.

As cheezy as it may sound, I'd actually like to see that.

[Volsung]

I think I'd read somewhere before that Khanzumer's were definitely a species or class, but it's just as likely that was unofficial. What I'm wondering now is--if Khanzumers may be the "ultimate evil" behind industrialisation on oddworld--OI might not just be blindsiding us with talk of a khanzumer race. Since in real world events it's probably impossible to find one truly evil (or unknowable) group or person, it seems as if OI could speak of the "Khanzumers" and mean instead the system or set of values that has led oddworld down the industrial path.

The fuedal type system Mac refers to seems like another definite possibility. Oddworld is vast, and this could leave many places in a kind of cultural limbo. Close enough to the true cities to obtain some industrial goods, but far enough away to ignore social innovations, like the middle class. Not that I consider the concept of a middle class as an innovation. More of a stopgap.

[Statikk HDM]

This will seem a little weird, but hear me out. Is it possible that the Khansumers are a contrived or genetically tweaked subtype of an already exsisting race just like Abe is a hyper-modified and cultivated Worker Mudoken creature?

[Al the Glukkon]

Somewhere on the forums I saw a photo of concept drawings of an intern and other creatures and the lizard like thing smoking looked like it could be a khanzumer.

[Nate]

Somewhere on the forums I saw a photo of concept drawings of an intern and other creatures and the lizard like thing smoking looked like it could be a khanzumer.

It's hard to say that something looked like it could be a Khanzumer when we still don't know anything about them. You can safely assume that if you have a picture from OWI then it isn't a Khanzumer and we probably won't see any images of them for a few years yet.

[Oddsville]

Somewhere on the forums I saw a photo of concept drawings of an intern and other creatures and the lizard like thing smoking looked like it could be a khanzumer.

You might be referring to the image of the Chronicler. Cause "Lizard smoking" reminds me of it right off the bat.

[Shell Man]

Wow, look at the controversy I started. Anyway, I just wanted to pose the idea that the Kahnzumers may in fact be a class rather than a species, because that's what struck me the first time I heard about them. It was said that they are the most important creature on Oddworld, it was almost as if they were saying, "And they might be right under your noses...." Because in the end, Oddworld isn't a story about good vs. evil, even those who are supposedly good can be guilty of crimes they don't understand, so I thought perhaps we were closer to them than we realized.

Of course I only know as much as anyone else outside OWI, so I'm not claiming to belive it one way or the other. Just a theory.

[Nate]

I heard that the last quintology game was going to utilise something similar to the PS2 camera toy thing so that just when you get to the last level it takes a photo of you and inserts that on the body of a Khanzumer. ooooooooooooooooh, symbolic.

[Alcar]

I heard that the last quintology game was going to utilise something similar to the PS2 camera toy thing so that just when you get to the last level it takes a photo of you and inserts that on the body of a Khanzumer. ooooooooooooooooh, symbolic.

Where on Earth did you hear that? I'd be interested, as Oddworld Inhabitants have said they would never include humans in their games. And a human face is a human, give or take

Alcar...

[Jacob]

Upon reading those card things, i do think that Stranger will be hunting the Outlaws...this has probably already been mentioned. But still. Also, i think that the Steef may be some kind of law abiding, law setting specie in that area. Since with 'Blisterz Booty' his most embarassing moment was been captured by a Steef...