Birth of the Cybermage?

I was playing Master of Orion 2 a bit earlier this evening after briefly looking at Galactic Civilizations III and then remembering that that game has no soul… So I played a little game with some slightly customized Klackon’s on Hard in a Huge galaxy and got horribly thrashed by the computer!

Halfway into the game a leader offers to join me - this guy:

Now for those of you that don’t know me, I’ve been going by the nick Cybermage in online games since before I had internet to play online games! I can’t remember in exactly what year I chose this nick… I seem to recall that I was on the back of a bakkie (that’s a truck for the non-Afrikaans speaking) with my cousins and sisters. If I’m not making / mixing up memories I think we were going in to town from the farm to go play Carmageddon at what was probably the first internet cafe to open on Upington - hence the nick choosing.

So now I have to wonder… was this before or after I started playing Master of Orion 2? Was my nickname my own idea or was it planted in my subconscious by Master of Orion 2 without me noticing?!