All your base are belong to us
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"All your base are belong to us" (sometimes referred to as "All Your Base" and often abbreviated AYBABTU, AYBAB2U, or simply AYB) is a phrase that sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002. The text is taken from the opening found in the English version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing, the translation of which was terrible to the point of hilarity. The game was originally produced by Toaplan in 1989. Groups of game enthusiasts began digitally altering various images to include the phrase. Eventually, these images were collected together onto one site, Tribalwar, and a Flash animation produced from them, which was widely downloaded.
The well-known quotations were taken from the European localization of the Sega Mega Drive port released in 1992. The arcade version of Zero Wing does not include the quote (or any other dialogue); the intro for the PC Engine version has CD-quality spoken dialogue but has a completely different introduction. Zero Wing was never released in North America and therefore never came to the Sega Genesis, the North American Mega Drive.
"All Your Base" is interesting because it demonstrated the Internet's power to spread quickly idiosyncratic messages that would never have been covered by the traditional mass media. Although the fad has died down, the phrase continues to be one of the most commonly quoted examples of "Engrish." The phrase is also often used as a battle cry on many competitive video games, particularly ones played over the Internet.
Newgrounds' Flash portal spawned many variants of the Flash animation with a wide range of content, creativity, and quality.
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Origins
The phrase is a line from the game's introductory cut scene, which is subtitled and poorly translated (see Engrish). It made its first appearance on the Internet in 1998. During mid-to-late 1998, the phrase began appearing in many Internet message boards. In 2000, Jared and Canadian Gabber group The Laziest Men on Mars created the song "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" using samples from the game theme by Tatsuya Uemura (including a robotic voice synthesis rendition of the complete cut-scene dialogue, which by some accounts caused mp3.com to temporarily remove the track from their servers for perceived copyright violation).
By the second half of February 2001 a huge number of altered pictures, GIF animations, and Macromedia Flash animations (in addition to photos of actual sightings) swept over the Internet, the first being the twelfth episode of Eskimo Bob, in what creators Tomas and Alan Guinan later declared their worst episode to date, going so far as to post warnings advising people not to watch it. It has been used as a caption for almost any photograph since the heavily overloaded word "base" (along with homonyms such as bass and compounds like base pair) seemed to make the phrase mean almost anything. Numerous persons and groups also replaced the word "base" with other topics (e.g. "all your data are belong to us," "all your vote are belong to us," "all your oil are belong to U.S."), generally suggesting someone's aggressive dominance – or self-perception or desire for such – in a particular field.
Transcript and translations
Transcript
The cut scene transcript goes as follows:
- Narrator: In A.D. 2101, war was beginning.
- Captain: What happen ?
- Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
- (spoken in the Flash animation as Someone set us up the bomb.)
- Operator: We get signal.
- Captain: What !
- Operator: Main screen turn on.
- Captain: It's you !!
- CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
- CATS: All your base are belong to us.
- CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
- Captain: What you say !!
- CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
- CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
- (spoken in the Flash animation as Ha Ha Ha.)
- Operator: Captain !! *
- Captain: Take off every 'Zig'!!
- Captain: You know what you doing.
- Captain: Move 'Zig'.
- Captain: For great justice.
- * This line and those following it are not in some animated GIF/Flash versions seen on the Internet. They may also be included within the song lyrics of the Animated flash movie.
Original Japanese text
The bluntness of the famous mistranslation is in stark contrast to CATS's cool, caustic irony in the original text. The difference is especially vivid in the line corresponding to "All your base are belong to us." In the original line, CATS uses a form of Japanese grammar that is rude to the listeners but respectful towards the Federation army. Since the Federation army was presumably an ally of the Captain, this usage is particularly offensive but might be sarcastic. It suggests that the Federation army was treacherously co-opted into betraying the bases.
It also appears from the original text that CATS may be the name of an organization, not just of the particular cyborg villain appearing on the screen (as is the popular interpretation among English speakers.)
Please note: You may need to have Japanese character sets installed on your computer for proper display.
- 西暦２１０１年
- 戦いは始まった。
- 艦長：一体どうしたと言うんだ！
- 機関士：何者かによって、爆発物が仕掛けられたようです。
- 通信士：艦長！通信が入りました！
- 艦長：なにっ！
- 通信士：メインスクリーンにビジョンが来ます。
- 艦長：おっお前は！
- ＣＡＴＳ：おいそがしそうだね、諸君。
- ＣＡＴＳ：連邦政府軍のご協力により、君達の基地は、全てＣＡＴＳがいただいた。
- ＣＡＴＳ：君達の艦も、そろそろ終わりだろう。
- 艦長：ばっばかなっ・・・！
- ＣＡＴＳ：君達のご協力には感謝する。
- ＣＡＴＳ：せいぜい残り少ない命を、大切にしたまえ・・・・。
- ＣＡＴＳ：ハッハッハッハッハッ・・・
- 通信士：艦長・・・。
- 艦長：ＺＩＧ全機に発進命令！！
- 艦長：もう彼らに託すしかない・・。
- 艦長：我々の未来に希望を・・・
- 艦長：たのむぞ。ＺＩＧ！！
Literal translation
- AD 2101
- War began.
- (Explosion goes off)
- Captain: What on earth is going on?!
- Engineer: It seems that explosives were set up by someone.
- Communication operator: Captain! A transmission has been received!
- Captain: What!?
- Communication operator: A video [literally "a vision"] is coming on the main screen.
- Captain: Y- You!
- CATS: Gentlemen, you seem to be preoccupied.
- CATS: With the cooperation of the Federation forces, CATS has taken over all of your bases.
- CATS: Your warship as well will soon meet its end.
- Captain: foolish ["How could that be..."]...!
- CATS: I appreciate your cooperation.
- CATS: Make the most of these few remaining moments of your lives.
- CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...
- Communication operator: Captain....
- Captain: Order all ZIG machines to takeoff! !
- Captain: We cannot but trust in them...
- Captain: Hope for our future...
- Captain: is in your hands [literally "take care of it"]. ZIG!!
Alternative "free text" translation
The following is a "free text" translation of the original Japanese. It is not intended to translate the exact wording of the original, but rather an attempt to capture the spirit and tone which the author intended.
- A.D. 2101—The war has begun.
- Captain: What was that?!
- Chief Engineer: Somebody set off a bomb!
- Operator: Captain! We have an incoming transmission!
- Captain: What? Who?
- Operator: Activating Holoviewer...
- Captain: You! You're...
- CATS [with sarcasm]: You seem to be preoccupied, gentlemen.
- CATS: With the kind cooperation of the Federation forces, We [CATS] are now in control of Earth!. [Some say the intent was that the entire empire was taken over]
- CATS: Your ship, too, will soon meet its end.
- Captain: What do you mean?
- CATS: We thank you for your kind cooperation.
- CATS: Make the most of these last moments of your lives.
- CATS: Ha ha ha ha ha...
- Operator: Captain...
- Captain: Give the launch order to all ZIG fighters!
- Operator: Captain! Do you know what you are doing?
- Captain: Yes, we can only depend on them now.
- Captain: Our hope for the future...
- Captain: It's in your hands, ZIG fighters!
Game ending
Though the arcade version of Zero Wing did not have the famous "Engrish" introduction, it did provide more unintentional comedy upon completion of the game:
- CONGRATULATION !!
- A.D.2111
- ALL BASES OF CATS WERE
- DESTROYED.
- IT SEEMS TO BE PEACEFUL.
- BUT IT IS INCORRECT.
- CATS IS STILL ALIVE.
- ZIG-01 MUST FIGHT
- AGAINST CATS AGAIN.
- AND DOWN WITH THEM
- COMPLETELY! GOOD LUCK.
Related phrases and usage
The final phrase "for great justice" appears also to have been adopted by various groups as their slogan, and there is also some adoption of "move 'zig'" (which resembles "let's roll" — a universal command to action; the "Zig" was the name of the small fighter craft piloted by the player in Zero Wing) and "Somebody set up us the bomb" (basically "uh-oh!")
AYB in society
Due to its immense popularity, the phrase or some variation of the lines from the game has been seen in innumerable articles, books, comics, clothing, movies, radio shows, songs, television shows, video games, webcomics, and websites. However, few have actually drawn any legitimate media attention. A selection of those that have garnered such coverage follows; a Google search will turn up thousands more hits on individual websites.
- In the FoxTrot comic strip on March 13, 2001, Jason Fox (the nerdy youngest child) began to shout, "All your base are belong to us!" confusing his parents. Bill Amend has been known to incorporate "geek culture" into his comic strips, such as the fictional MMORPG "World of Warquest."
- On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven men aged 17 to 20 placed signs all over town that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They said they were playing an April Fool's joke by mimicking the famous Flash animation that ubiquitously depicted the slogan. Not many people who saw the signs were familiar with the joke, however. Many residents were upset that the signs appeared while the U.S. was at war with Iraq, and police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean." [1]
- In early 2004, an automated news ticker on News 14 Carolina, a North Carolina cable channel, was "hacked" to display the message on television. [2]
- When Google launched Google Base in October 2005, the phrase was twisted into "All Your Base Are Belong To Google" by search industry watchers such as John Battelle. [3]
External links
As with media and other references, the number of sites containing a reference to AYB is very large. Accordingly, the following are links considered representative without being redundant or trite. Proposed additions to the list should be discussed in Talk before changes are made. Archived links can be found through the Talk page as well.
- Google Video — unmodified opening sequence of Zero Wing
- Official AYBABTU Video Site (also contains histories, links, and pictures)
- Newgrounds All Your Base Flash collection
- Original Quicktime movie
- The most popular movie
See also
- Engrish — A term applied to incorrect translations into English, typically made by Japanese translators.
- Meme — The concept of self-propagating ideas, of which AYBABTU is often cited as an example.
- Resistance is futile
- Snowclone — A type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context. AYBABTU has been seen as a snowclone.
