Blam (meme)

"Blam!" is a recurring phrase in Bungie lore with violent or otherwise impactful connotations. The Oni community mainly uses "blam" to designate a crash of the Oni app, as discussed HERE, because of the dialog that pops up on such occasions (Windows builds only).

In Bungie lore

The onomatopoeia was coined by Robert ("Robt") McLees in 1995 or so, and was commonly used by Bungie staff to emphasize multiplayer kills. At Bungie West, "Blam!" was used to punctuate the silence after staff members would hear squealing tires outside the office, but no sound of an accident (apparently this was a frequent occurrence).

Occurrences are found throughout the Myth series: the most prominent in-game occurrence is probably in Myth II's Stair of Grief, shouted by grenade-happy dwarves.

Later on, "Blam!" became a codename for Halo, with Bungie going as far as to register the blam.net, blam.org and blam.com domains. See HERE for an overview of "Blam sightings" and community speculation from that era.

In Oni

Apart from the fatal error dialog (right), the single most remarkable occurrence of "Blam" in Oni is when Konoko, having disrupted Muro's plan, feels compelled to type "blam! love, little sister" at the final Sturmanderung console. While in line with the violent satisfaction of Myth dwarves or Bungie LAN sessions, it's a bit discordant with the tone of the game's ending, considering that Konoko thwarted ("pwned") Muro at the cost of countless innocent lives.

On a visual level, "Blam" occurs in the form of a (barely readable) badge worn by ACC engineers, possibly foreshadowing Konoko's decision to blow up the ACCs (and the engineers) later on. In early development, "British Land & Air Mobile Transport" was written acrostically on some cargo containers; possibly this was a precursor or an alternative to BGI.

A minor occurrence of "blam" occurs in kana form, ブラム (buramu), as an element of the Oni matrix. Somewhat strangely, "Blam!" is not referenced at all by Oni's Mad Bombers.

Also see

• Blam(e)