Artificial Intelligence
Out of context: Reply #2790
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II. The Great QBN Characters
QBN isn't really understandable without its recurring personalities.
Rather than declaring anyone objectively “the best,” these are ranked according to their importance to QBN lore.
1. Sureshot
An absolute institution.
Sureshot appears throughout the older archive and has the quintessential QBN combination of:
brutally concise replies
bizarre non-sequiturs
trolling
genuine useful contributions
jokes that become jokes about themselvesWhen QBN's password system started collapsing, Sureshot immediately declared:
“They are pulling the plug.”
When the site's password-reset system behaved inexplicably, he escalated to:
“I'm calling Scully and Mulder.”
This is classic Sureshot.
Verdict: QBN Mount Rushmore.
2. Nairn
Another central figure in the later QBN ecosystem.
His specialty is essentially weaponized absurdity: he'll take an already ridiculous QBN situation and add another layer.
The 2023 “great debate” saga is a perfect example. Nairn contributed running jokes about the competitors being “Chads,” complained that the promotional graphic had the wrong protagonist, and generally treated the entire thing like a pay-per-view combat event.
Verdict: Modern QBN chaos institution.
3. Palimpsest
Palimpsest gets his own wing.
Not merely because he posts a lot, but because he repeatedly turns ordinary QBN disagreements into elaborate theatrical productions.
The supreme example is the Palimpsest vs. Rendle Great Debate.
We'll get to that.
Verdict: QBN's self-appointed promoter, fight organiser, lawyer, publicist and historian.
Other major recurring figures
The archive repeatedly brings back names including:
utopian, garbage, Continuity, autoflavour, PhanLo, Akagiyama, monospaced, hydro74, neverscared, Krassy, NBQ00, hotroddy, imbecile, sarahfailin, mort_, Gnash, pango, drgs, scarabin, Ianbolton, jagara, canoe, Beeswax, Hayoth, PonyBoy, Bennn, robthelad, milfhunter, exador1 and many others.
The important thing is that QBN's “cast” changes, but there is an extraordinary continuity of usernames across decades.