Whenever your niche interest or knowledge happens to overlap with a popular piece of media, you’re legally required to post about it, so I’d like to take a moment to tell you about 10 codes in Disco Elysium! (all images taken from the Let’s Play by Arist on lparchive.org)
10-2: Signal good
10-5: Relay message
10-4: Affirmative, has also expanded to mean “all clear” based on the context (everyone already knows this one lol)
10-18: Urgent
10-20: (state your) location
10-9: Repeat message, as you might have guessed
But 10-22 means “disregard.” It’s often used to report false alarms, cancel dispatch requests, or to correct a mistake, e.g. “It’s at 123 Evergreen - 10-22 that, it’s at 321 Evergreen.”
I have spent far too much time thinking about this and I have several explanations, in descending order of believability:
1. An honest mix-up with 10-21, “Call.” I don’t think this is very likely, especially not in a game as lovingly and deliberately crafted as DE, but it was worth mentioning.
2. Jules is discreetly saying that he’ll cover for Harry and not report the missing badge. But if that were the case, he’d say something more like “I will 10-22 the issue to the captain” or “I’ll tell the captain to 10-22.” Saying you’ll “10-22 the captain” would mean you will disregard something said by the captain himself.
3. They’re based on some old or regional 10 codes where 10-22 means something more like “relay message.” It’s certainly possible, but from what I’ve seen and heard, “10-22” is one of the more common and standard 10 codes. They would’ve had to go out of their way to pick a very obscure 10 code system.
4. The precinct uses 10-22 to refer to some kind of report or notice, as in “tell the captain to 10-22 anything reported with this badge number until it’s recovered.” Given how the use of 10 codes can drift and expand over time, I actually kinda like this explanation.
5. They knew the most common/universal 10 codes (10-2, 10-5, 10-20, etc) and made stuff up for the rest of them. There was an odd use of 10-10 as well, but they weren’t worth bringing up because 10-10 *officially* means “fight in progress” but can also mean a hundred other things depending on where you are and who you’re talking to. 10-22 is kind of in the middle where it’s a fairly common but not as universal as, say, 10-5 or 10-20. And, well, 10 codes are an American thing and the creators are Estonian.
