You see, the rock taps into a greater power known as The Rock, which in turn is half of the power called Rock and Roll. First you rock, then you roll, you see? So when the rock starts to roll, you'd better run as fast as your legs will carry you, because the rock is gonna flip out and totally kick you in the face if you're anywhere near it. Don't ask how a rock kicks anything. It's not important.

Now, if the rock is capable of flipping out, then what does that make it? Ask any ninja and they'll tell you: totally sweet! And what else is sweet? Candy, of course. So we can conclude that the rock is, in fact, a big chunk of Rock Candy, which explains why eating it gives the Chosen Four bonus stats; they're actually tapping into a miniature severed portion of Rock and Roll, giving them the power to totally flip out on their enemies.

Of course, when the Stoic Club becomes the Lazy Cowpoke Stop 'N' Go, the rock gets thrown in the trash and eventually ends up on Garbage Peninsula, where it continues to consolidate its power until it can roll, and then it rolls into the ocean, never to be seen again. Another world crisis averted!

I believe that the rock and I,
are twins you see, so eat a pie,
personailities we have and you guys sigh,
why does he always make stupid rhymes?

Well the rock is a rock,
in his first stage,
then when seen he talks.

His boogers come out,
and every one shouts,
and falls on the ground with a spluch.

I, myself did this one time such,
and created a mess,
for everyone fainted,
and the walls were painted like dutch!

So the rock comes right out and whacks eveyone with his magic cane and everyone is transported to happyland where they all eat magic cake and bathe in puke that master blech/barf vomits up and everyone lives happily ever after.

~Nostalgia

Alright, enough incessant babble nobody understands or cares about (And you [other] nerds out there trying to silently communicate with me that you can understand the above, just stop) My thoughts on the rock are that it is infact the Apple of Enlightenment, or perhaps the Apple of Enlightenment is encased in this rock-like form.

Let's face it - not even high New Age Retro Hippies would sit in a stupid little coffee shop forking over a grand for a glass of water and just talking to some plain ol' rock. There's gotta be something more to it. Logically, it is the Apple of Enlightenment in another guise or encased in this rock because everybody is getting strange little vibes and is talking like they're Einstein or something.

Now obviously these people can't fully understand the Apple of Enlightenment or comprehend it's messages, just like you (as Ness) can't comprehend the true form of Giygas' attacks. They're both some kind of supernatural force. Humans may get whiffs of what they think is knowledge, but what they're seeing and foretelling isn't necessarily fact. It's just a tiny piece of some granted 'wisdom' received from this rock.

The real question I think is how did the Apple of Enlightenment come to be there? Or even in that case, what is it's true form? Perhaps it in itself is just the rock, with the name of a fruit. Obviously it is neither good nor evil because both Giygas and the 'good forces' (whatever they may be, cause I don't think Buzzbuzz is their leader) were able to use it's information to their advantage.

Well, there's some food for thought. I suspect other entries for this golden delicious subject will also contain fruitful amounts of insight.

My best guess is that it is an authentic hunk of rock that Mr. T found in some junkyard. Think he cares? To quote him on the matter, "They pay high prices just for a glass of water and the chance to have serious, intellectual discussions. Actually, it's an easy business." T didn't care what he put on the stage; he was originally going to use an old hub cap off the A-Team van, but he sold it on EBay instead and got that rock. T realized, a bit sooner than the rest of us, that there are an astounding number of people in the world who have money burning holes in their pockets and like to think they're smarter than they really are.

Maybe this rock is a piece of the destroyed Mani-Mani Statue. It turned gray due to a lack of powers, or maybe creating the illusion that is of another color like the statue did in Moonside or maybe somebody just painted it. Anyway, since it doesn't have all the power that the complete statue had, it can only make people talk a lot about the rock itself and order expensive water.

Or maybe its a reality show, but here instead of surviving in harsh envioroments, dating complete strangers or singing in front of bitter judges you must talk about your thoughts of the rock.

Or maybe its just a rock. The people can be so silly sometimes. Somebody said once "A grown up person will say in 5000 words something that a child would say in 50 or less." Maybe that is what is happening in "Stoic Club", they all say this complicated stuff to give the impression of being smart while all this time they have just talked about a silly rock.

Humn!... Sorry folks, even now, I just see a rock.

The racket rock had the amazing ability to release a huge ammount noise when shaken up. Now this rock had many uses over the centuries such as frightening off wild animals and making rap albums (proof of its EEEEEEvil powers)but soon it became such an anoyance to its owners that they would typically toss it away.

One day, someone came across the rock and found out its remarkable powers. He instantly assumed that because of its powers he should start a sort of pop culture on this rock. Unfortunately, the rock's one way to break its power is to start a pop culture on it, so it was nere heard again. But its memory lives on.

And now I must leave off as the ninjas are now coming for me...

a) Society in general,
b) Idiots who will pay exorbitant prices for water to sit and philosphize about rocks, and
c) Rocks.

You know, the stoics themselves in the classical Greco-Roman age said that one must look to oneself for fullfillment and happiness, and that one cannot rely on material possessions for happiness, since those possessions could be impounded.

I dunno. That's one darn fine-lookin' rock.

Nothing in EarthBound, as you can see, makes sense, but it is still awesome.

Fuzzy Pickles!!!

His body crumbled, and most smaller stones lost their powers and passed them onto the bigger ones until only the rock that we have now contained all of it. Time passed, and the whole of humanity and furries came about. Then an echidna found the stone and called it the "Master Rock". However, they had already obtained a "Master Emerald" and had to discard the rock. More time passed. By this point we all had coffee and telephones. The rock was then tired of sitting there shouting at people (it yelled, "Argh! I'm a bloody rock!") so it propelled itself into space, whereupon, it died, but it's power remained. More time passed. The rock began returning to earth as a massive comet, whereupon the happens in "Illusion of Gaia" took place, but please take consideration to note that there were no "Dark Spaces" there. Will was constantly under such intense stressed he dreamed up a second reality to hide his mentally crippled self.

Will and Kara fuse and became Shadow (not me!) and destroyed the monster who had grown form spacedust and the rock, and the comet, now a tiny stone again, plummited back down to earth. It landed in the sea, actually, whereupon Gran Bruce (the shark boss of Viewtiful Joe) discovered his new "Shiney Treasure" and hid it upon his yellow submerine (like EarthBound: no pun intended) but then was trounced by Joe and the sub-taken. Joe found it after his fight with "Another Joe" and decided Sylvia might like it as a gift because it was so shiney-ooo!

Actually, this made Sylvia quite upset as she was actually wanting a platnum diamond-studded wedding ring, so she threw the rock at Joe. Thankfully Joe dodged it and it fell into a river. The river eventually carried it for miles whereupon the Star Master (Zero again) found it and took the powers from the rock to bestow into Poo so he too could learn the Star Storm. The rock, now useless and worn, seemed worthless, but still shiney-ooo.

So, Star Master sold the rock to the owner of the "Stoic Club", Mr. Stoic. Mr. Stoic thought it was shiney (all together now say-ooo) and put it on display. All the men in the club stared at it for hours but the women proved too smart to fall pray to it's awesome shiney-ness. So, even to this day, the shiney rock sits there, without its story being re-told. How sad. I'm sure if it could speak again it would say this: "ARGH! I'm STILL a bloody rock!"

When Dr. Sparks placed this rock on a pedastal to further examine it, it started to hum lightly, not unlike the cartoon character Stoic from the popular television show, Club 5. So Dr. Sparks opened a gallery to display the "Stoic" rock and the world was quite impressed with his find.

But what makes the Stoic rock so special? Well, its properties are quite like that of the brain stone, a special mineral that allows people to concentrate unimaginabely well when held with them. Since the Stoic rock is placed on a pedastal, and not held by one person, its power radiates through the entire room and allows any "Stoic Clubbers" as they are known, to think deep, profound thoughts.

Many many moons and a couple suns ago, a great ball of fire passed trough the reaches of space. Made of an unidentifiable metal, and fleshy pods with spikes! It was hungry...full of hunger every second of its life, and it had to find something to eat soon...

Eventually, it crashed into a planet, destroying a great palace and the entire race of Dinosaurs. This evil power was named Lavos!

Meanwhile, a second fireball traveled through space. This one came crashing down on an unassuming world on the unassuming country of Eagleland in the unassuming coast of and unassuming land known as Summers. When the primative ancestors of the land found the rock, they danced around it while screetching and howling. The monkeys lifted their tails in praise to the mysterious rock. One of them threw it's bone into the air and....(wiggly flash-forward)...we see several humans hiking up to the stone. They tie it to their jeep, then drive off to the town of Summers! Looking to start a health cafe, they needed to find a catchy draw. Advertised as a moon rock, it was placed center stage in the new cafe. A drunken designer decided that it should, instead, be a thinking rock, then suggested that they only sell water!

....(wiggly flash forward)....

They come to name the place "Stoic club" and it becomes a smash hit with stoners and rich snobs. But, it was fortold in a sacred scroll that their success was bound to fail! After some intrepid heroes visited, it was discovered that this rock was "the one rock" and was imbued with all of Gyigas's evil powas. A psychotic midget stole the rock and bore it to the volcanoes deep under the Earth to destroy it. Thus, the club lost it's catch and they had to sell it to a guy named Guss to make it into a gas station!

Thank you for your time, gooday!

It's quite obvious that the rock represents the firm yet steadily deteriorating political state; it seems hard-set from the outside but within it is rife with cracks and fissures, ready to break and only needing enough pressure to accomplish this, after which it will break into a multitude of smaller pieces, yet still bearing some semblence of the larger whole that it once was.