@JordiGH Doom had them? citation needed my friend

@JordiGH oh, it sounds like Doom calls small medpacks "stimpacks" whereas in StarCraft they act completely differently; IIRC they increase the rate of fire and movement at the cost of taking HP

@technomancy Sure, whatever, they're different, and the name probably comes from stimulation package or something, but why would Doom pick that name in 1993?

@technomancy Not sure if serious, but Doom, id Software, © 1993, page 10:

https://archive.org/details/DoomManualPC

@JordiGH I wonder if it comes from science fiction novels?

I’ve read a number of them that have things like “stimtabs” or similar as a futuristic energy source for people. (Where “stim” is short for stimulant.)

@gannet Yeah, it sounds like a very cyberpunkish name. Doom is kind of inspired by the Alien series, so maybe they occur there?

@JordiGH pretty sure the books I’m thinking of are older, like from the 50s or 60s.

@JordiGH Though maybe the Forever War was first. Anyway, at least that old, predating cyberpunk.

@gannet Dammit, Google ngram viewer has no hits for stimpack nor stimpak!

@JordiGH @gannet I remembered "stims" or maybe "stimtabs" being in RED MARS (1992), but in looking them up, I found that they're apparently in THE FOREVER WAR (1974).

@bstacey @JordiGH @gannet and i'd be kinda surprised if haldeman's was the first use...

@brennen @bstacey @JordiGH yeah, I feel like I’m remembering something older. (In my teens, I worked my way through most of my library’s SFF.)

@JordiGH @gannet @brennen I have the vague memory of "stim" or "stimtab" or something close to that appearing in an Asimov story from the 1950s or earlier. Anyway, it wouldn't be surprising.

Ri-ide the stimutacs....

@bstacey @JordiGH @brennen it’s got that futuristic feeling. The people of the future won’t have our medicine, they’ll be using something fancy!

The Doom Bible, which was an old design document for Doom, calls them "Stim-Packs" and describes them as giving a small boost to health until you can get actual help.

This must be the origin?

I keep getting into these quests to find cultural origins of things. Like how the record-scratch/freeze-frame meme came from, which everyone thinks actually happened in some movie but never did, or that #filmnoir scene I was looking for with voiceover in the PI's office with The Dame.

Isn't anyone else worried that our consensus reality is just wrong? That's really the core of my concern here. How can we not know what is true and be okay with that ignorance?

@JordiGH I suspect it's a glitch in the matrix and the true origins of those memes were lost around the time the spelling of "Berenstein Bears" was switched to the current "Berenstain."

@JordiGH
Isn't that just human existence? :)

(I ask only partially in jest, because that is a major thread of both philosophical and scifi inquiry, and apropos, have you read any Philip K Dick?)

@JordiGH eh; this case is different because they are two opposite concepts that happen to share the same name

@technomancy Nah, pretty sure they're both about stimulants.

@JordiGH I think I came across "stimutabs"- which could easily be mutated, either in an Anne McCaffrey book or in the first of the Dorsai books. Guessing 1970s for when they were written. Read in the 1980s.

@GinnyMcQueen Maybe Doom's "Stim-Packs" are inspired by Shadowrun.

@JordiGH I only know of the term from the 90's. Could be from anywhere, really!

@elomatreb The precise phrase "stimpack", whose earliest appearance I can find it "Stim-Pack" in the Doom Bible, appears to be fictional.

@oreolek Fallout is way too new compared to Doom, though.