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These are the two versions of KMB/Akira/Sun Tzu's history of the term Ogg.

Earlier Account

An earlier account by the same author existed in the Netrek Nexus glossary, and has been removed to here.
It seems a bit more specific about names and dates.

Back in, I believe, November/December of 1990 I use to play netrek much more than now. At the time, I was probably only Flt Captain Sun Tzu, maybe even just a Captain. A group of us, which included Jay Hui (TheSlug), Byron Sinor (Krang), and Steve Russel (Feakhelek) were playing netrek with Terence. The three of us were Feds, Terence was Orion.

It was a full game, and Terence had come in as Og <== (beginning to get how it happened :> ). At this time, suiciding people with kills *NEVER* happened. Dogfighting rained supreme, and cloaking was used only for planet taking, that is until Terence decided to teach us CMU boys alesson.

Steve had accumulated a 3, 4 kill ship and had taken Spica (or El Nath, I don't remember) and Terence chased him and tried to mutual with him. Steve killed him, but was left at ~90% internal. As he wiggled towards Fed. space he watched the galactic map as Og reappeared and began to move rapidly in his direction. I will never forget how his voice shattered the calm of the cluster with yells of

Its OGGGGGGGG. HELP! HELP!!!!!!!!! Its OOOOOOGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!.

His final words were something to the effect of AAAAAAAAAArrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh, Ive been Ogged!!.

Jay and I immediately picked up on the effectiveness of suiciding people, and had Terence show us how to do it better.
That is how Ogging started getting popular, and how the name spread through Netrek History. [Kevin Bernatz]

2006 Wikipedia Account


While the concept of the suicide attack may have occurred in other games, such as Xpilot, Xtrek or Empire, the term "Ogg" was first used in either the Baker or Wean Hall computer labs at Carnegie Mellon University in the 1990-1991 school year (I do not remember which exact lab or whether it was before or after Xmas break that year).

Myself, Jay Hui and Steve Rancunus (sp?) were playing netrek in the early hours of the morning. Steve was a Fed (F# something) and was scumming against a lone Orion player. The server god at the time (Terence Chang, who brought netrek to CMU from Berkeley the year before), was watching the game and logged in as one of the non-player robot slots (the game is 8x8, so the player slots are 0-9,a,b,c,d,e, and f).

Since he joined the Orions and was the first "robot" in the game, he was "Og". Terence was one of the best players in the game and proceeded to terrorize Steve, such that at one point in the middle of the quiet computer lab, Steve burst out with "Help!! It's 'Oh' 'Gee'!". Followed quickly by additional screams of "Help" and the first uttering of "It's Ogggg! It's Ogggg! Helllppp!!".

Given the hilariousness of the situation, the term followed Steve and quickly was picked up among other netrek players.