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From: "Andy Robertson"
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 21:07:19 +0100
From: Ian McMurtrey <imcmur1@towson.edu>
> This is off the topic of a discussion of Deep One/Mythos creature
hybirds,
> but there's been something that's always kind of bothered
me about
> "magical transformations," where big cellular changes happen
very quickly.
Right
First off, I guess we all agree that there is *no* problem with slow transformations. Things like the metamorphosis of human/DO hybrids, taking years, are within the bounds of conventional biology. So we will leave that to one side.
What is hard to understand is fast transformations - taking place in minutes or seconds.
---- **** ----
I think "zombies" are a parallel difficulty. Bear with me while I explain their relevance .
With zombies, revived corpses of whatever sort, the problem really arises because we have a clash of explanatory worldviews.
The old "traditional" worldview is that the body is worn and moved by the Spirit, like clothing. A body is dead, limp, when the spirit leaves.
On this worldview it is perfectly logical that an interloper spirit could take over and move even a "dead" body. Like one person stealing another's clothes.
The new "scientific" worldview, however, is that the body is a machine, and when it's dead it's a smashed machine.
On this worldview there is no "spirit". A zombie, in the sense of walking dead, is a contradiction in terms.
The problem in Delta Green arises from the fact that while we do not accept the scientific worldview "as fact", *we don't accept the traditonal one either* If anything, the Delta Green reality is furthur from "souls" or "spirits" than the scientific worldview is.
Therefore, ideas that explain "zombies" can be fudged up, but we remain conscious that they are pure fudge. They don't *really* fit easily, despite Herbert West (one of HPL's joke stories, actually).
---- **** ----
Hokay, now what about werewolves, were-bears, and other "rapid biological transformations"?
Here again, they are hangovers from the "traditional" worldview, they don't fit with the "scientific" worldview, and they are very hard to accomodate in Delta Green.
Revisit. The old "traditional" worldview is that the body is worn and moved by the Spirit, like clothing. The body conforms to the spirit, which is the true & underlying reality.
Were-xxxx'ss are therefore a poetic way of describing people whose body is human but whose Spirit is not human. Their transformation is a revelation of their essence. Their authentic entity, their Spirit, shows itself, and forces their body to accomodate it.
But since we don't believe in the "spirit" any longer, yada nada . . . .
it doesn't fit.
The very fact that we are forced to make up "rational" explanations of were-tigers etc. is really a measure of how much it doesn't fit.
Were-beings are *essentially* outside rationality.
---- **** ----
OK. Possibilites
1) Can we preserve this literally - actually have human beings turning into wolves (or ghouls or bears or whatever) in the DG universe?
I don't think so. Despite the xenonanotechnology &c the brutal fact is that there is *no* way a conventional animal body can be remodeled, right down to it's (dead, structural) bone, sinew, keratin, and scales (nearly half its mass), in a few seconds.
It's a fudge, and it shows. For example:
- if they can do this, why waste energy hiding? Why not take over the world like the thing in "Who Goes There"?
- why limit themselves to one or two body forms? Why not a million different shapes?
- why limit themselves to organic matter? Why not take over and transform all the matter on Earth?
- and so on
2) Can we preserve it "in essence" - can we have "human" beings whose internal entity is not human and who show this in gross, physical, ways when challenged or shocked?
This *can* be done, in multiple ways. For example
- have a physically abberant entity that uses psychological manipulation to force humans to "see" it as human. Serpent men, &c. "Transformation" is when this illusion breaks down.
- have a were-creature that changes *slowly* (like, over half a day) but who hides its incipient transformations from investigators & from itself until it cannot hold back the truth any longer
- have a creature that is *mentally* human but is originally & by design biologically protean - if it's evolved to do the imitation trick, all the bets are off. It could be very good at it indeed. (and no, evolution does not need "computation" to learn to handle tricks like this). This opens the possibility of a human mind downloaded into a Shoggoth trying to reconstruct its familiar body . . . .
3) Can we appeal to The Mythos Which Cannot Be Understood?
- Yes. But it just ain't *sporting*.
4) Finally, I guess, you could go all the way and abandon the DG rationale, run a scenario that is entirely supernatural.
- The problem being that this would swiftly morph into Albino Fleabag
--- *** ---
In conclusion: were-creatures are not found in HPL, *because they belong to a different world-view*. If you put them in Delta Green, you will have to bash them hard to make them fit. Don't say I didn't warn you.
From: box_nine
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 17:17:47 -0400
Andy wrote:
>In conclusion: were-creatures are not found in HPL, *because they
belong to
>a different world-view*.
Although I will note the ghost of a werewolf, IIRC, in "The Ghost-Eater." And don't forget his werewolf poem "Psychopompos."
From: Davide Mana
The Glove Cleaner is trying tio know things that were not meant to be known and writes....
>I think "zombies" are a parallel difficulty. Bear with me while I
explain
>their relevance .
>With zombies, revived corpses of whatever sort, the problem really
arises
>because we have a clash of explanatory worldviews.
>The
old "traditional" worldview is that the body is worn and moved by
the
>Spirit, like clothing. A body is dead, limp, when the spirit
leaves.
>
>On this worldview it is perfectly logical that an
interloper spirit could
>take over and move even a "dead" body. Like
one person stealing another's
>clothes.
>
>The new "scientific"
worldview, however, is that the body is a machine, and
>when it's dead
it's a smashed machine.
>
>On this worldview there is no "spirit".
Correction - no scientific proof of a "spirit".
Yet.
Who knows what tomorrow science will bring?
>A zombie, in the sense of walking dead, is a contradiction in terms.
[massive snippage of fine stuff]
I'll tackle only this bit as at the moment I'm deep into planning a new way for hanging, flaying and torturing (not necessarily in that order) my resident munchkin _and_ having him say thanks at the end.
But, you can bridge the contradiction between the spirit riding the body and the body as broken machine by simply postulating that the spirit is using a form of psaeudo-cynesis to move the body, puppet-like.
The body is actually broken - no muscular or neural activity etc - but the spirit is there willing the limbs into movement. Probably having a body as a focus for its power allows the spirit something more precise and direct than, say, standard poltergeis activity, who knows.
Explains why the zombie walks like a badly animated puppet, why it keeps going as relevant chunks are blasted off and why the first rule is still "Never mess with the Loas".
[On the other hand, AFAIK Loas do ride preferentially living bodies - zombies seem to be something completely different. But on the other hand, my copy of GURPS Voodoo arrives tomorrow, so.....]
Obvious follow up question - why does the spirit need a human dead body?
Why don't they animate scarecrows and mannequins?
Because they don't, right?
And this, hurriedly, is it for the time being.
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 18:41:02 -0400
From: (Graeme Price)
Andy "Spotless Latex Mittens" Robertson wrote:
>I think "zombies" are a parallel difficulty. Bear with me while I
explain
>their relevance .
[snippage]
>The problem in Delta Green arises from the fact that while we do not
accept
>the scientific worldview "as fact", *we don't accept the
traditonal one
>either* If anything, the Delta Green reality is
furthur from "souls" or
>"spirits" than the scientific worldview is.
I'm not so sure about this as a generalization. A key facet of the "scientific" (perhaps "rational" would be a better description) is the understanding not just of what we know, but also that there are things we don't know. Whether or not these things _can_ be understood in the context of such a worldview is a different question in my mind. The concept of "soul" or "spirit" is one of these things we don't fully grasp. What is it that makes us "human" as opposed to "animal" (self-awareness was one answer the philosphers came up with - Descartes probably)? What is it that makes a dead body different from a live one? I think Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen nicely made the point with the line which goes roughly " So he's dead. A dead body has the same number of particles as a live body. Why should I care?"
I'm not sure I made the point, but the concept of soul is difficult for scientists (No Mark, that doesn't mean all scientists prefer rock).
Strictly speaking, if you can't quantify it, it doesn't exist. In which case, how do you measure souls (and I just know some smartarse out there is thinking "with a piece of string")? But bear in mind, it was only comparatively recently that we started to be able to measure things that don't _appear_ to exist (sub atomic particles are a good example - have you ever _seen_ one? But in the right circumstances you _can_ detect them, or at least logically infer their existence). Glibly, it's possible to answer that the rational worldview doesn't have the explanation for such things _yet_... but give it time. Because we don't know how something happens doesn't mean that it's necessarily impossible.
>Therefore, ideas that explain "zombies" can be fudged up, but we
remain
>conscious that they are pure fudge. They don't *really* fit
easily,
>despite Herbert West (one of HPL's joke stories, actually).
As an alternative, you could try reading Poe's "the Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar", which deals with some of the same issues but in a different way.
The rapid transformation thing is a different question entirely. I think it's worthy of our attention and I'm going to try and give it some thought.
Overlapping dimesions have possiblities in this area, I think. But I concur, eventually it's all a fudge.
From: LizardRoi
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 18:52:45 EDT
>The new "scientific" worldview, however, is that the body is a machine,
and
>when it's dead it's a smashed machine.
>On this worldview there is no "spirit".
If that worldview is the active one, then a body resurrected from it's essential saltes is merely an automaton.
I'm afraid you are going to have to define and quantify "spirit" because something that acts suspiciously like a soul seems to be inhabiting the resurrected one.
Is that *really* Otto Skorzeny risen from the dead, or merely an incredible simulation by a clockwork team of biological nanites?
And what possessed Charles Dexter Ward if there are no spirits in HPL?
I think the only conflict springs from an arbitrarily binary division. If there is a choice other than "traditional" or "scientific", this would be a good time for it.
From: Gil Trevizo
>The problem in Delta Green arises from the fact that while we do not
accept
>the scientific worldview "as fact", *we don't accept the
traditonal one
>either* If anything, the Delta Green reality is
furthur from "souls" or
>"spirits" than the scientific worldview is.
The conspiracy genre is based around ontological shock, that in awakening the protagonist to hidden secrets the orthodox concepts that served as the pillars of the protagonist's worldview are destroyed and opens up them up to a deeper understanding of their environment. However, this deeper understanding rarely if ever appears (or if it does, it's sentimental schlock like recent X-Files), leaving the protagonist with a nihilistic void - he has learned secret answers that are so profound as to render all questions meaningless. Thus ensues the horror... the horror...
Zombies make such a welcome addition to DELTA GREEN, as part of the conspiracy genre, for exactly the reasons you provide them as a bad fit. What can provide more ontological shock for a rational-materialist mind than to find that a person can be reanimated centuries after their brains have sunk into dust? The religious concept of a "soul" would be the obvious answer to how such a thing could be, but there lies only superstition and madness in these kind of stories (TED Klein's "Nadelman's God" is not a Mythos work, but makes a good example). Instead, the rational-materialist protagonist is left without the security of either science or religion, and, as his worldview crumbles around him and the SAN loss sets in, he can only imagine at what might be the answer, and all his ideas lead him down dark possibilities - whether he thinks it might be xenomicrobiotechnology or a Mythos definition of "soul" or remnants from the Dreamlands, all of these answers have awful implications and he knows that the answer must be deeper than any of them , and more awful still(Can aliens create science that violates all scientific laws? Is the "soul" Yog-Sothoth? Where do the souls of people killed in the Dreamlands go? Do androids dream of electric sheep?).
An example from HPL - "The Dreams in the Witch-House", where the protagonist descends from scientific explanation to one of ritual and occultism, to a complete lack of understanding whatsoever that leaves only a dreadful horror, a horror at the primal heart of an insignificant mankind, as ancient as caveman watching shapes move outside the light of their pitiful fires - the fear of the unknown.
>Hokay, now what about werewolves, were-bears, and other "rapid biological transformations"?
The transformation might be rapid but the mechanism for transformation need not be. Lon Chaney Jr took awhile before he started sprouting hair, so why can't there be a biological process working it's way through the human recently infected with lycanthropy, slowly eating away the natural material and replacing it with a stunted form of protoplasm programmed to initiate under certain conditions (ie. a full moon) and produce a singular form proscribed by the protoplasm's original creator and not allowed to be changed by those infected thus not giving the were-creature the option of taking on new shapes and taking over the world and leaving them with a synthetic consciousness, a true living death.
This is how I see vampires in the Mythos.
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 13:56:49 +0200
From: Jorrit
> The rapid transformation thing is a different question entirely.
I think
> it's worthy of our attention and I'm going to try and give
it some thought.
> Overlapping dimesions have possiblities in this
area, I think. But I
> concur, eventually it's all a fudge.
I don't know exactly what overlapping dimensions are, but in my view multidimensionality would be the perfect Mythos explanation for rapid transformations. Some of you might already know where I'm heading, but I'll explain:
Let's start with things we can imagine: take a three-dimensional object, doesn't really matter what it looks like. Then take a two-dimensional slice of it: this slice will have some particular form: for example if the 3D object is a cone then the slice might be a circle or an ellips, etc. Then if you move the cone, the shape of the two-dimensional slice will change. It can even change rapidly depending on how you move the cone and it might even disappear. If the shape is more complex than a simple cone, the 2D slice can even consist of a number of seperate shapes.
Now generalize this to more dimensions and replace the 2D slice with a 3D slice and let's say that the 3D slice has the shape of a normal human. Then when you change the orientation of the multidimensional object of which the human is only a 3D manifestation, the 3D slice will change and to a 3D observer it will look as if the human transforms.
If we take lycanthropy (which has been overly covered on this lyst already) as an example then this disease might influence/change our multidimensional form without influencing the `normal' 3D slice that looks human. But everytime the moon is right the orientation of the were-wolf in multidimensional space changes causing the 3D slice to change into something horrific (Keeper's choice).
The big question here is: what does this multidimensional human look like? What I mean is that if there are more than three dimensions then humans are probably extended objects in this multidimensional space but what does our extension in the extra dimensions look like? I don't know what the Mythos point of view is on this subject. I think it is probably something that HPL must have thought about, but I can't remember if he ever wrote something about it (perhaps in Dreams in the Witchhouse?). I couldn't find it in the Ice Cave either.
This is also the way I always explain the chaotic nature of GOO's and Outer Gods to myself: they continually seem to change because they move in more than three dimensions and we humans only see a 3D slice of them. Yog-Sothoth is the simplest example: I see it as a big mass of (for example) four dimensional tentacles or tubes: the 3D slice of this would produce a collection of spheres.
What do you think?
From: Nick Brownlow
First of all, if you guys want to open this particular can of worms, we need to get our terminology straight.
>I'm not so sure about this as a generalization. A key facet of
the
>"scientific" (perhaps "rational" would be a better description)
Oh no you don't; you're not going to get away with *that* old trick round here. Saying yours is the 'rational' position implies that all others are somehow 'irrational'. Let's use the term 'rationalist' instead (next you'll be trying to pull that horseshit 'hard'/'soft' science distinction on us).
Furthermore, Andy is talking about a 'physicalist' perspective rather than a blanket scientific one. There's plenty of scientists out there who are quite comfortable with the idea of us having a soul and a spirit.
Meanwhile the 'traditionalist' viewpoint is pure and simple Cartesian dualism; traditional in the sense that many Western religions also expouse it and that it is usually the context in which we're made to understand the soul/body distinction.
I might add that HPL was occasionally prone to this conception of the world as well, as seen in the Dreamlands stories.
>I think the only conflict springs from an arbitrarily binary division.
If there
>is a choice other than "traditional" or "scientific", this
would be a good time for it.
Absoloubtly;- both dualism and physicalism (and 'functionalism'-physicalism without the animal-centric view of consciousness) have serious philosophical problems attached to them. They might serve as a working model for your religion (whether that's Catholicism or Physics), but there's logical and empirical ground they just don't cover. What's more, it's not entirely clear if they're capable of ever doing so. As a consequence, there are plenty of alternatives knocking around; none of which neccesarilly resolve the mind/body problem (which is only really a problem if you see things from either a dualist/physicalist perspective) but rather relegate it to a matter of little or no significance.
>Strictly speaking, if you can't quantify it, it doesn't exist. In which case, how do you measure souls
There's plenty of arguments against the existence of a soul/mind- generally hinging on this point. Even before Descartes, Aquinas had to admit defeat in his attempt to work out how we can talk about individual or distinct non-physical entities if they occupy no physical space or location.
However, there also appears to be no way of quantifying or explaining the qualititive aspect of our experience (the percieved 'greeness' of grass), or the intentionality of thoughts. Does that mean that we don't experience these things?
>If that worldview [the scientific one] is the active one, then a body
resurrected from it's
>essential saltes is merely an automaton.
>I'm afraid you are going to have to define and quantify "spirit"
because
>something that acts suspiciously like a soul seems to be
inhabiting the
>resurrected one.
>Is that *really* Otto Skorzeny
risen from the dead, or merely an incredible
>simulation by a clockwork
team of biological nanites?
And as a quick aside;- I don't follow your point here Mark. The physicalist position is that there are no, and never has been such anything as souls and spirits. A ressurected body is a broken machine restored (albeit magically) to full working order. The ressurected corpse is only an automaton in so far as it always was. It has a mind only in so far as it has a fully functional human brain, which is all it ever had.
(actually, the ressurection spell would seem to be good evidence *for* the physicalist position in the CoC Universe. All you need to perform it are the remains of the machine; there's no 'summoning souls from the ether' or the like)
Now, what started all this?;-
>The problem in Delta Green arises from the fact that while we do not
accept
>the scientific worldview "as fact", *we don't accept the traditonal
one
>either* If anything, the Delta Green reality is furthur from "souls"
or
>"spirits" than the scientific worldview is.
>Therefore, ideas that explain "zombies" can be fudged up, but we
remain
>conscious that they are pure fudge. They don't *really* fit
easily,
>despite Herbert West (one of HPL's joke stories, actually).
Some might say dualism and physicalism are both fudges in the absence of any hard truth. Certainly, both can be made to sound pretty inadequate given the right thought experiments.
>Here again, they are hangovers from the "traditional" worldview, they
don't
>fit with the "scientific" worldview, and they are very hard
to accomodate in
>Delta Green.
>Revisit. The old "traditional" worldview is that the body is worn
and
>moved by the Spirit, like clothing. The body conforms to the spirit,
which
>is the true & underlying reality.
>Were-xxxx'ss are therefore a poetic way of describing people whose
body is
>human but whose Spirit is not human. Their transformation
is a revelation
>of their essence. Their authentic entity, their Spirit,
shows itself, and
>forces their body to accomodate it.
>But since we don't believe in the "spirit" any longer, yada nada .
. . .
>it doesn't fit.
>The very fact that we are forced to make up "rational" explanations
of
>were-tigers etc. is really a measure of how much it doesn't fit.
>Were-beings are *essentially* outside rationality.
You see, this is where I lose you. Your point is that we have this 'Delta Green' worldview that a) isn't the 'traditional' (i.e Cartesian) one, nor the 'scientific' (rationalist/physicalist) one. You say that werewolves, zombies etc don't fit into either the 'Delta Green' or the 'rationalist' worldviews, but then you give us a bunch of reasons why they won't fit into the DG Universe, that to me at least, all sound pretty rationalist.
We've got ghouls, elder things, mi-go, star-spawn, magic(k) the GOO's themselves, all of which require 'fudging', if 'fudging' means you have to 'fiddle' the science...
Is all this just a (very) roundabout way of asking for everyone's cool ideas about how werewolves, zombies and so on can exist in DG? That's polling, you glove-cleaning bastard...
>In conclusion: were-creatures are not found in HPL, *because they
belong to
>a different world-view*.
You could say the same about the Dreamlands stories, as well as a lot of the secret history of the Earth stuff. It's the same author, they all use a lot of the same characters/names/places, but there's obvious inconsistencies between all of them. They're easily fudged of course, but they are just 'fudged'.
>If you put them in Delta Green, you will have to bash them hard to make them fit.
I'll get back to my bashing, then.
Date: 28 Sep 00 08:36:32 PDT
From: Nick Brownlow
>But what about the instances of
>Sonderkommando-H ressurecting
the remains of a medieval German sorceror
>and conducting conversations
with it? In that case, the physical brain >is
>long past the point
of resuscitation and you must be dealing with a
>consciousness that
is not "physical" in any sense we could define the >term.
The key point in the physicalist's argument is that we don't know exactly everything about the physical world or how our bodies work. Their view is that ultimately, all mental activity is really just a strange, not yet fully understood physical activity.
Given this view, restoring the corpse to full working order (or a close aprox thereof) should in their view also neccesarilly ressurect its consciousness.
The method itself may be magickal (which they wouldn't exactly want to accept, perhaps), but the ressurection itself is in perfect harmony with their philosophy. The problem for them would come if it was possible to fully ressurect a centuries dead sorceror physically, but for it *not* have that vital spark we call a soul.
From: "Anthony Jones"
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 16:43:10 +0100
> The big question here is: what does this multidimensional human
look
> like? What I mean is that if there are more than three
dimensions
> then humans are probably extended objects in this
multidimensional
> space but what does our extension in the extra
dimensions look
> like? I don't know what the Mythos point of view
is on this
> subject. I think it is probably something that HPL must
have thought
> about, but I can't remember if he ever wrote something
about it
> (perhaps in Dreams in the Witchhouse?). I couldn't find
it in the Ice
> Cave either.
Although at a slight tangent, just finished reading reading "On Blindness", by Byran Magee & Martin Milligan (sorry, no ISBN as borrowed from university library). Milligan, blind since birth, argues that he can still see in some form, as the absence of sound creates an "atmosphere thickening occupant of space", and that he is able to ascertain a form from this.
Considering the multidimensional aspects of many mythos creatures, and the fact that most are considered beyond our comprehention, and our reliance on sight, maybe the key to understanding this aspect (as far as we want to), is to start thinking of how the passage of sound etc. is affected?
Dont know quite where this could lead...
From: "William Timmins"
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 15:42:21 EDT
My out, which is the ultimate horror, is the spiritualist angle.
There are three fundamental ideas, materialism, dualism, and spiritualism.
Materialism: There is nothing but matter.
Dualism: There is matter and spirit. (This point of view gets into big problems, because why would two essentially different phenomena interact at all? And, if they do, can they honestly be separated in this way?) Spiritualism: There is nothing but spirit.
There are also a few riffs... in materialism, spirits are an illusion of matter. In spiritualism, matter is an illusion of spirit.
My out is spiritualism. The physical world is, ultimately, a 'mystic' series of forces that are inadequately understood as matter. The rules of matter are actually local conditions of spiritual principles or forces.
I use this riff in my Fair FOlk bit in Endtimes, but it's great for scientists. When even evolution and material science is some sort of thin film on something more alien, there is no refuge from the truth.
From: (Eckhard Huelshoff)
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:23:57 +0200
Good Evening.
Time for my comments on Were-Beings, Zombies and philosophical stuff:
First off all concerning gaming philosophies [rational, rationalist, spriritual, and so on... ]:
My most important philosophy, the prime directive, the mother of all philosophies is the following: As long as it ist entertaining, as long as it is good storytelling it is great.
I like Werewolves, I like zombies, I like vampires and I *love* ghost stories.
In DG as well.
There is a certain tendency in DG, and especially among some of you nice people out there to "explain" certain things, may it be by using 'real science' or alien technology. This makes DG more SF than horror.
Fine.
But it isn't really my pint o' beer.
I love the supernatural. I think that too many 'explanations' [ and even if they include weird alien technology ] take some of the horror.
Don't get me wrong: Some Sci-Fi-Elements are pretty cool and frightening: I love the Herbert-West-Concept concerning the raising of the dead and adore the way it is used in DG as one of Karotechia's toys.
But I also love the Charles-Dexter-Ward-Concept of raising the dead, though it is completely different: While West's way is more 'Technology', or science, I consider the CDW-concept as 'super-natural' [ didn't find a better term ].
And exactly that's my conclusion: One of the intersting things about HPL and therefore DG is the fact that it has both supernatural and scientifical [word?] elements!
There shouldn't be a separation between a "supernatural school" and a "science school"! No, it's a, or should be, a combination of both.
How you mix those ingredients, well that's your choice.
Personally, I add more of the supernatural. In my concept it's just plain reality that there aren't explanations for everything, at least no explanations that human brains can understand.
Vampires, Werewolves? Yes, they do exist.
Why? Who knows.
How does the Werewolf change that quickly? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!
From: "Andy Robertson"
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:56:25 +0100
I should have guessed that the problem of *zombies* would come overshadow the idea of were-beings . . . it's a more fundamental and more interesting one.
All I want to do now is to reemphasise that I was not talking about the "science" of were-beings & zombies. (Though that is interesting.)
Rather, I was talking about the way both were-beings and zombies come from a coherent, pre-technological, "Magical" worldview.
And I was talking about the fact that this world-view *is not the Lovecraftian worldview*.
And no, the present-day "Scientific" worldview is not Lovecraftian either.
--- *** ---
The Lovecraftian worldview doesn't lie "between" the Scientific and the Magical.
It is not a synthesis of the two.
Rather, it is Other - it denies the capacity of *either* the scientific *or* the magical worldviews to fully encompass the Universe
The Lovecraftian worldview is the third (and when that fails, fourth, fifth .... ) way of understanding.
((And most of the "scientific" stuff I have posted now & in the past is not an attempt to reduce Lovecraft to a subset of "Science". Rather, it is a playful attempt to stretch Science in the direction of the Lovecraftian universe until it breaks. And maybe lets you see a bit more.
That's my kick.))
--- *** ---
Zombies, reanimated corpses.
I'd say the only possible problem with dead bodies that get up, is if their use drags in a set of *false and comfortable explanations*.
There are magical "explanations" and there are scientific "explanations".
These explanations can work or fail aesthetically.
The task is to forge them into a Lovecraftian "explanation".
How do you do that?
--- *** ---
Now , what is the *comfortable* explanation for a zombie?
Isn't it, actually, the supernatural one?
The "scientific" reanimated corpses of Delta Green do work - I think - *because they shun the comfortable explanation*
Paradoxically the "scientific" explanation is more unsettling than a magical one would be. Because it is wierder, more unusual, and introduces more cognitive dissonance.
--- *** ---
One method, therefore, is repeated denial.
For example, to start with, set up the zombies as "magical". The bad guy pretends to do it by magic to scare the peasants.
Then show they are "scientific". It's captured, dissected. There are (oh,offhand...) microscopic mitochriondra-like intracellular symbiotic organelles reanimating the cells by pumping ATP out even without blood circulation .....
Then go a step furthur. Yes, the symbiotes are powering the cells in the absence of oxygen and glucose. BUT where are the symbiotes getting the energy to do it? They are violating the laws of thermodynamics - so it seems!
Then - if you are running a near-Endtimes scenario - explain that these organelles are siphoning energy from another Domain .....
Then . ..
--- *** ---
And so on.
It doesn't matter too much if the intermediate steps are "magical" or "scientific" - though I think "scientific" is the Delta Green thing.
It will work, as a Lovecraftian idea, IF THE *FINAL* ITERATION OF THE EXPLANATION IS OUTSIDE OUR RADIUS OF UNDERSTANDING.
And that's the crux of the matter. I think.
From: "Jon Capps"
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 22:07:51 -0400
> perhaps), but the ressurection itself is in perfect harmony with
their
> philosophy. The problem for them would come if it was possible
to fully
> ressurect a centuries dead sorceror physically, but for
it *not* have that
> vital spark we call a soul.
Not necessarily. Suppose some centuries dead guy were resurrected, and was just a mindless body, essentially brain-dead. How could those who conducted the resurrection be sure that they had *fully* resurrected him? Could they not have missed some of the essential salts? Possibly they lost some of the grey matter dust? I see more of a problem in the physicalist's world-view if they saw proof of a soul with no body.
I'm not sure what form said proof would take, tho....
From: box_nine
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 23:34:12 -0400
> To get back to the "no place for zombies in the Mythos" deal though,
if
> there is a "soul" and it is a form of sentient energy, could that
not be
> Yog-Sothoth or at least an aspect of it?
There are hints that at least *SOME* souls may be an aspect of Yog-Sothoth in "Through the Gate of the Silver Key," IIRC.
There's also the hinting in Campbell's "The Church in High Street" - don't recall whether his hinting at what grew out of the dead was from HPL's commonplace book or one of his stories, though.
The relevant quote:
"Their powers are few, for they can but disarrange space in small regions and make tangible that which cometh forth from the dead in other dimensions. They have power wherever the chants of Yog-Sothoth have been cried out at their seasons, and can draw to them those who will open their gates in the charnel-houses. They have no substance in this dimension, but enter earthly tenants to feed through them while they await the time when the stars become fixed and the gate of infinite sides opens to free That Which Claws at the Barrier."
From: "Andy Robertson"
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 09:16:25 +0100
> I'd think a variation of reality where I am a wolf would be one
wacky
> Dreamtime\Dreamlands place. It would have some interesting
local rules.
A bit like Timmins' "it's all spirit?".
If the spirit is strong enough, "physical" reality must conform.
Multiple layers of reality .... surrounding the ultimate source of Being.
On each successive layer inwards Spirit is more fiery, stronger, more protean. On each successive layer outward, matter is colder, more dead.
"Werewolves" and other reality-transformers are just visitors from the next layer in; as, small and weak, are human souls.
The Dreamlands are in the god-ward direction.
Very Gnostic, actually - with the added twist that god = AZATHOTH
I think my point has been misundertood somewhere; let me see if I can pinpoint the problem...
>Okay, I can see that happening - this is the Scully Solution. There's
>nothing supernatural about a medieval sorceror being ressurected
from its
>ashes through a magical ritual, because there obviously
must be some
>scientific explanation that our human minds cannot (yet)
comprehend. She's
>either made the SAN roll or missed it (get's a
bit shaken up) and fails the
>Idea roll (clutches that damn cross
necklace a bit tighter).
>But among the Mythos, this is a stopgap solution at best - its not
a
>worldview, it's security blanket.
I agree. You seem to be attributing the physicalist perspective to me personally, even though I said in my original post it was not a viable one- philosophically speaking- even in the real world. Obviously, the existence of Yithians, Ghosts, Dreamlands etc in the CoC universe preclude the possibility of physicalism. My point was that Mark seemed to be using the ressurection spell as evidence of the existence of a soul or soul-like thing, and I don't neccesarilly see why the physicalist would have to buy that (summoning a ghost;- *that's* a problem for the physicalist)
>>> Is that *really* Otto Skorzeny risen from the dead, or merely
an incredible
>>> simulation by a clockwork team of biological
nanites?
>>> And what possessed Charles Dexter Ward if there
are no spirits in HPL?
If it sounds in any way unintuitive, then you're thinking the same thing that everyone who's ever objected to physicalism since John Locke first started to bang on about it way back when has. Like I said earlier, a lot of people have a lot of problems with this viewpoint. They all revolve around how it somehow fails to capture some essential element of our experience.
>And there you just lost me, and we fall back to defining.... what
do mean
>by "vital spark we call a soul"? Is that consciousness?
Because if it is,
>why can't this consciousness simply be cloned
by Mark's "clockwork team of
>biological nanites"? Neurons or nanites,
it's all physical in the end, but
>then what comes out of the ether
and possesses CDW? Do the "souls" of the
>Yithians move from body
to body? Is the "soul" than energy as opposed to
>matter?
I just put my point badly here;- the physicalists require that *everything* be reducible to physical states at some level. The existence of *anything* that does not appear to be physical is a problem for them. Ergo, if a person was perfectly recreated physically (no essential saltes left in the bottom of the coffin etc), then it must follow if there was anything missing that this would be something *not* physical.
The existence of ghosts and other non-physical entities, however, are a much better refutation of physicalism.
>A bit like Timmins' "it's all spirit?".
>If the spirit is strong
enough, "physical" reality must conform.
Something to bear in mind is that the mind/matter distinction is almost entirely a tradition of Western philosophy; born out of religious concepts of the afterlife. Will's 'spiritualism'- as he describes it- is just a variation on Berkeley's 'idealism'.
Consequently, the likes of Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hegel, and many, many others have, in various different ways, rejected this distinction, whilst most Eastern religions never made it in the first place; at least not in the same way.
Try thinking instead of mind and matter as two different aspects of the same thing. The difference being that we choose to percieve it that way. This is not to say that there is only matter, or there is only mind. The distinction is one we make only to describe aspects of our experience that are different in the context of a particular discussion.
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 14:55:01 +0100
> Something to bear in mind is that the mind/matter distinction is
almost
> entirely a tradition of Western philosophy; born out of religious
concepts of
> the afterlife. <snip>
Right. I agree - but where werewolves are concerned the "spirit/matter" difference is a question of language and definition, I think.
The idea that the spirit, indwelling soul, will, consiousness, or whatever, "wears" the body like the body wears a garment is not a "philosophy" - it's the normal, default, pre-technological, pre-literate, pre-civilisation, human attitude to things.
It's a "fact" as obvious as the fact that things fall down; the fact that moving objects naturally tend to come to a stop; the fact that the Earth is flat.
What moves my arm? My will, my desire to move it.
It's obvious.
---- **** ----
I'm not arguing either for or against immaterial spirits (as facts or as DG "facts"). I'm saying that people *had* to start to understand the world by believing in spirits . . . and that led to the construction of "narratives" about the world, the universe, other people, animals ......
which echo down the ages to us.
So, may these narratives contain "shocking truths" which modern science has neglected?
Maybe.
But, despite that, the narratives are *mostly* false, and mostly - and this is the point - dangerously naff. Bogies, spooks, African witchdocters, Indian gurus, Mu, Atlantis, Heaven and Hell.
Those DG "shocking truths", or even real-world shocking truths, may be there, may be gems, but the gems, unfortunately, have to be dug out of a heap of crap as anodyne and inane as a newspaper horoscope.
Of course, I *don't* mean that we should discourage the "digging" - we do it, I do it, all the time.
---- **** ----
And your discussion of philosophy is valid, of course.
A revelation that the world was "really" a more idealist place than we think - a place where the primary reality is Perception, not matter - would, indeed, be just such a gem.
From: Nick Brownlow
>The idea that the spirit, indwelling soul, will, consiousness, or
>whatever,
>"wears" the body like the body wears a garment is not
a "philosophy" - >it's
>the normal, default, pre-technological,
pre-literate, pre-civilisation,
>human attitude to things.
>It's a "fact" as obvious as the fact that things fall down; the fact
that
>moving objects naturally tend to come to a stop; the fact that
the Earth is flat.
>What moves my arm? My will, my desire to move it.
>It's obvious.
I see your point, but I think you're taking it a step too far. I don't think it follows that the fact you become aware of an 'I' that encompasses more than just your body leads neccesarily towards the 'default' view of souls/spirits 'wearing' your body like an outfit.
When my body loses an arm, *I* lose an arm. And not in the same way in which I lose the arm of a pullover (in a freak ironing accident, no doubt). I think that's the default position- there is more to me than my body- but I am my body as well. The idea that there is a distinction- something seperate from my body that controls it- that's the more sophisticated, philosophical position.
As an aside, a lot of pre-technological, pre-literate peoples might *seem* to make a mind/matter distinction, but this is partly because until recently we've lacked the ability in the West to think about the non-strictly physical (again, our definition) in any other form. Some might say we still can't.
But I see what you're getting at. Pre-scientific humans/cultures attempted to explain the unexplained any way they could- in today's terms this was through appealing to 'paranormal'elements. Great work guys, but we only want the good bits.
From: Ian McMurtrey
> I don't think so. Despite the xenonanotechnology &c the brutal
fact is
> that there is *no* way a conventional animal body can be
remodeled, right
> down to it's (dead, structural) bone, sinew, keratin,
and scales (nearly
> half its mass), in a few seconds.
Well... conceivably if the transforming agent had permeated the body prior to the transformation, it could be possible. (Although at that point, the agent would probably represent a significant portion of the organism's mass.) Specialized enzymes or acids would chew up old structural material and while other processes synthesize new structural material. The problem is not that these reactions are impossible or slow: they aren't either.
It's that the energy required for widespread structure demolishing/ rebuilding is enormous. Where do you get the energy to drive these reactions?
> It's a fudge, and it shows. For example:
>
>
- if they can do this, why waste energy hiding? Why not take over
the
> world like the thing in "Who Goes There"?
>
>
- why limit themselves to one or two body forms? Why not a million
>
different shapes?
>
> - why limit themselves to organic
matter? Why not take over and
> transform all the matter on Earth?
It's true that when you're designing a creature like that for a game, those things should be taken into account. Obviously the sort of technology that I was describing can have some engineering limitations: just like there are things your own cells can't do, there might be some things that these technologies can't do. But, yes, as a doomsday weapon, there's no reason why nanites couldn't reorganize all matter on Earth into black glass at the rate of diffusion. (I wasn't really referring to nanites, though, except for some dedicated nanites playing some role in the assembly.)
Limitations I would impose on the "protein parents," at least for scenario feasibility:
(1) Large energy consumption would require nearly constant energy acquisition. (Eating lots and lots of people, perhaps.)
(2) In the case of single-form transformations (I was really thinking of irreversible ones, because of the vast energy expenditure required for transformation), assume the system is dedicated to resolving "transformational errors." Something like the Milk of Shub Niggurath or John Carpenter's Thing wouldn't necessarily have error correction: it's advantage is protein compatibility and mutagenesis, not whether or not the structures progress towards a specific target. But a single-form transformation may be spending all its available resources ensuring that the transformation doesn't go "wrong," either while transforming to the target or back to the host. So, if the Thing wasn't directing energy resources towards correcting errors, it could "miss" a target structure.
That wouldn't necessarily matter to the Thing, but to a were-creature, missing enough target structures could prove fatal to the organism, and, if not fatal, would definitely be a complication. Were-creatures are a lot more fragile than John Carpenter's Thing, Shub Niggurath, or say, Abhoth. Also, if you don't care about the longevity or robustness of the system, like in the case of Abhoth's spawn, you could spew out as many as you wanted with no error correction at all. I'd say, although my thoughts on this may be wrong, the fewer the number of changes to the system, the higher the amount of energy you can devote to correction. (Even a were-creature represents an enormous amount of correction when compared to the spontaneous generation of a third eye.)
(3) As to contriving reasons why the transformation agent wouldn't eat the Earth, it could be a question of the starting materials. If your agent is a net of communicating prions or viruses, it won't affect inorganic material until it's in a biochemical host. But if the agent is nanotechnology with features of full-scale atomic reorganization, then, well, there's no reason why the Earth wouldn't get turned into black glass, if that was the program it was running. (That's another thing, too: there might be limitations to the information that the transformation agent uses for the reorganization, either by design or evolution.) The Mi-Go, after all, aren't interested in destroying the Earth, just capitalizing on it until the Great Old Ones rise. In the case of an organism that's evolved from something with more generalized function (say, the Earth = Black Glass function), maybe there are parallels that can be seen in some microbiologists opinions of the genetics of single-celled organisms: their progenitors had more generalized function, but have evolved more specialized functions because of energy constraints.
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 19:12:54 +0100
> First up, you have to buy in to multiple worlds and an
infinite
> omnidirectional halo of possible variations on everything
that be. Anything
> that be has a non-local connection to all of it's variations in addition
to
> it's connections to itself throughout space\time. They are all
peers andonly
> POV implies which is "original" and which is a "copy".
A good, rare, story on this theme is "Fiddler's Green" by Richard McKenna - the guy who wrote THE SAND PEBBLES. (He worked out his journeymanship producing some of the best SF short stories of the '60's)
It has a man, a magician, who deliberately contrives to sink a ship and isolate himself in a lifeboat with selected other crewmen. His belief is that under the stress of thirst and isolation the membrane of "Consensus reality" will break - the collective *need* of the shipwrecked will construct a new reality, wherin he can be as a god.
It works for a while, then all goes pear-shaped. The rules of this new gane are harsh and unforgiving and not kind to amateurs.
I haven't read the story for years. I must get hold of the collection it is in ("CASEY AGONISTES AND OTHER STORIES" - now OOP, a crime.)
However, I think it is at least implied that the survivors of the foray into world-building are left in a condition not unlike that of vampires or were-creatures - lacking authentic reality and stablity in the "standard" consensus world, and forced to obtain it in the most basic ways. Which ties in with the were-being/alternate reality part of this thread oddly well.
From: "Andy Robertson"
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 19:41:49 +0100
> > I don't think so. Despite the xenonanotechnology &c the
brutal fact is
> > that there is *no* way a conventional animal
body can be remodeled, right
> > down to it's (dead, structural)
bone, sinew, keratin, and scales (nearly
> > half its mass), in
a few seconds.
> Well... conceivably if the transforming agent had permeated the body
prior
> to the transformation, it could be possible. (Although at
that point, the
> agent would probably represent a significant portion
of the organism's mass.)
Much of our body is not composed of living cells, but rather of tough matrices of protein (sometimes stiffened by mineral inclusions, sometimes flexible & elastic) with networks of cells spread through them to prevent infection and carry out repairs .
To make a simple analogy, our bodies are not like a pile of people standing on each other's shoulders. Rather, they are like a building, dead itself, which is continually maintained and reconstructed by its inhabitants.
It is this and this alone that allows us to stand meters off the ground, move quickly, throw heavy weights ..... and generally do stuff that a puddle of goo cannot do.
--- *** ---
The problem with fast metamorphosis remains all that dead matter - the bone, skin, connective tssue, teeth, and so on. You can't remodel it quickly without tearing it to bits, and that will kill you.
To push the analogy a bit furthur, you can't have a building built in the form of a skyscraper which is "rebuilt from the inside" into the shape of a bridge across a river in a few seconds, because gravity will pull it to pieces.
Applying "extra energy" is as futile, beyond a certain limit, as importing extra workers to reassemble the building faster - the medium you are working in will be destroyed by the forces you are using.
--- *** ---
Still, perhaps we are pushing this point too hard. After all, the truest single statement is the one someone made about "if it works, use it".
--- *** ----
An interesting parallel question is, how do Shoggoths do it? How do they remain protean & flexible, yet very strong?
Obviously Shoggoths are *designed* to build and break down flexible, rigid, and semi-rigid structures within their bodies very quickly: but how?
Do they perhaps have multiple "filaments" - tiny elements, perhaps a millimeter in size, that can move from place to place within their mass and can join to each other to quickly assemble and disassemble rigid structures like tubes and domes?
To use the earlier analogy: a human being's body structure is like a skyscraper: perhaps a Shoggoth's is more like the Eifel Tower would be, if each element was of variable length and able to join on to the others at will - and if a flexible skin was draped round the whole.
Something like that?
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 15:06:19 -0400
From: Ian McMurtrey
> The problem with fast metamorphosis remains all that dead matter
- the bone,
> skin, connective tssue, teeth, and so on. You can't
remodel it quickly
> without tearing it to bits, and that will kill
you.
> To push the analogy a bit furthur, you can't have a building built
in
> the form of a skyscraper which is "rebuilt from the inside" into
the
> shape of a bridge across a river in a few seconds, because gravity
will
> pull it to pieces.
Start from the top down. Really elegant restructuring would actually use the kinetic energy of the falling material, though.
> Applying "extra energy" is as futile, beyond a certain limit, as
importing
> extra workers to reassemble the building faster - the
medium you are
> working in will be destroyed by the forces you are
using.
This isn't "applying extra energy." This is fueling biochemical reactions _enmasse_. And not at the surface level, which is what you're describing.
I was describing a total, molecular-level permeation of structural altering materials, nestled right next to every alpha-helix, beta barrel, and beta-pleated sheet in your body. There's nothing that prevents proteins from changing the conformation of other proteins: that phenomenon is well established. But these conformational changes are typically driven by energy molecules like ATP, and the net energy cost for this sort of mass structural alteration would be enormous, much more than what can be generated by cells.
<snip>
> Do they perhaps have multiple "filaments" - tiny elements, perhaps
a
> millimeter in size, that can move from place to place within their
mass and
> can join to each other to quickly assemble and disassemble
rigid structures
> like tubes and domes?
Well, that's basically how amoeba work, with microtubules, so I can see that here.
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 15:33:57 EDT
>Do they perhaps have multiple "filaments" - tiny elements, perhaps
a
>millimeter in size, that can move from place to place within their
mass and
>can join to each other to quickly assemble and disassemble
rigid structures
>like tubes and domes?
>
>To use the earlier
analogy: a human being's body structure is like a
>skyscraper: perhaps
a Shoggoth's is more like the Eifel Tower would be, if
>each element
was of variable length and able to join on to the others at
>will -
and if a flexible skin was draped round the whole.
>Something like that?
I don't know if it was clear from my case file from before, but this was sort of what I used for lycanthropy.
Basically, it is a GOO-originated phage that consumes the body, finding genetic material to regenerate tissue, and replacing the body, as quickly as it could without killing the host, with a new type of tissue.
It attacked soft tissue, but eventually the bones and hard parts were dissolved or broken or pushed out and replaced with a hard but shiftable new substance.
The scene in the shower when the player's teeth fell out was memorable.
Particularly since, a day later, it looked like his teeth were in his head, nice and fine.
Neural replacement was the slowest.
But it generally went along the lines mentioned before, transformation by slow consumption and suppression of immune system. Powered by food, and lots of it.
Once done, the actual transformation from man to tiger was accomplished through high weirdness. Matter contained 'off domain' and energy sources of an unconventional origin powered the physical restructuring, a restructuring which was a little less elegant than protean shoggoth or protomatter.
In my game, I had the infection take D6 months, and adjust the physical stats to fit tiger norm (+1 Siz and Dex, I think), with additional shift while in tiger form.
I also required a Sanity roll to successfully, willingly, shift to tiger form, or to aviod shifting to tiger form when startled.
From: "Andy Robertson"
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 00:57:13 +0100
> I don't know if it was clear from my case file from before, but this
was
> sort of what I used for lycanthropy.
> It attacked soft tissue, but eventually the bones and hard parts
were
> dissolved or broken or pushed out and replaced with a hard but
shiftable new
> substance.
<snip>
Ah. Interesting.
No, it wasn't quite clear - my fault maybe.
But this makes sense.
So.
--- *** ---
How do you think Shoggoths work? Can we look at this?
Is there a neotissue link? Is the same tech being used?
How do they power themselves?
If by the oxidation of organic matter, how do they breath, without solid or stable lungs?
More importantly - is there some *global* principle we can grasp & master here, some advance we can make?
--- *** ---
I have the feeling that there is, but that I am pursuing the wrong ideas, missing the truth for the details.
Very tired.
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 16:54:47 -0400
From: (Graeme Price)
>How do you think Shoggoths work? Can we look at this?
>Is there
a neotissue link? Is the same tech being used?
This is something I considered whilst writing the analysis of neotissue for CD. I would guess that similar principles lie behind shoggoth-matter and neotissue, but that there are some differences.
The Shoggoth matter is somewhat more resilient to my mind and probably capable of much greater physical feats. I was toying with the idea of having it as a form of semi-intelligent polymer capable of being rapidly polymerised (or depolymerised) as needs must. The added resilience would come from cross-linking the chains. A similar mechanism could apply for the neotissue.
>How do they power themselves?
>If by the oxidation of organic
matter, how do they breath, without solid or
>stable lungs?
Then not by breathing. The neotissue analysis goes into this a little, IIRC. The problem with material which is capable of global transformation (which need not be either slow or minor), as someone else said, is the huge energy requirement for such changes. Now, the Glancy story "A case of mutual interest" describes the antarctic shoggoth generator whereby humans are fed into the generator to produce energy, a side effect (or possibly the _intended_ effect) of which is the creation of an angry, uncontrolled shoggoth. Some thoughts arise from this. Firstly, the electrical energy produced by the generator - we could propose that this is from disintigration of the, er... raw material. Total conversion of mass (that's not a very scientific description, I know, but I'm kind of tired) creates huge amounts of energy... more than could ever be used to run a Secret Volcano Base (for example). So where did the rest of the energy go - obviously into making and powering the shoggoth. So we could assume that the shoggoth is equivalent to a giant battery filled with energy in some rapidly accessible form (chemical or electrical energy would be the most obvious) making it a kind of slimy Energiser Bunny with an attitude problem. This would have a few interesting side effects - the most important would be the lifespan. When the energy is used up... dead shoggoth (could explain why there aren't many left). The rate of energy use is going to be proportional to the amount of work done (obviously) so resting shoggoths may still be lying aound somewhere.
>More importantly - is there some *global* principle we can grasp &
master
>here, some advance we can make?
Slime is slime is slime. Likewise protoplasm. It's interesting that so many of the mythos entities have similar properties: Big C. can change size at will - implying a fluidity: Shoggoths and Spawn of T. (couldn't even begin to spell it!!!) are both slimy. Hounds of Tindalos are covered in slime.
Abhoth is slimy.... there are more as well, but those leap to mind.
>I have the feeling that there is, but that I am pursuing the wrong
ideas,
>missing the truth for the details.
Andy, the truth is in the details. But I think you might be on the right track.
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 20:36:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: SuperDave
I've been far too busy to jump into this excellent thread so far--I'm quite looking forward to being able to acces it via the Ice Cave later and read it all nice and collated. But this caught my eye:
The inestimable Graeme Price wrote:
> Now, the Glancy story "A case of
> mutual interest" describes
the antarctic shoggoth generator whereby humans
> are fed into the
generator to produce energy, a side effect (or possibly
> the _intended_
effect) of which is the creation of an angry, uncontrolled
> shoggoth.
I didn't interpret it that way. I was assuming that the heart of the "Item of Mutual Interest" generator WAS the shoggoth--I'm not sure how it would have provided power, maybe by some kind of pulsation effect (a bit like a hamster running on a wheel). Over the aeons it had developed some kind of free will, and after getting enough nourishment, felt strong enough to make its move toward freedom, to the detriment of the Nazis.
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 23:47:15 +0100
> >More importantly - is there some *global* principle we can grasp
& master
> >here, some advance we can make?
>
>
Slime is slime is slime. Likewise protoplasm. It's interesting that so
many
> of the mythos entities have similar properties: Big C. can
change size at
> will - implying a fluidity: Shoggoths and Spawn of
T. (couldn't even begin
> to spell it!!!) are both slimy.
OK, one thought.
Inspired, actually, by the fact that it's getting to autumn here ... and come autumn, the flocks of Starlings will start flying. They gather in groups of up to a thousand, bitching their heads off, and they fly about like one big collective organism. They don't do anything dangerous, of course, but they look like the Jinn as they fly over you - one dark wing.
---***---
Living things started simple, bacteria-like. These formed colonial organisms that ended up as eukariotic cells - cells with separate nuclei- a thousand times more massive. Then these cells themselves got together in clumps and groups and formed plants & animals.
What if the next step is colonial organisms which consist of many physically separate entities cooperating under one direction, one will?
You could argue that you are already seeing the begining of this in ants & bees - very successful creatures. Then there are colonial entities like sponges, jellyfish &c.
You could also argue that the highly social organisms like human beings are developing into a colonial mode of life - human tribes and nations considered as "Leviathan".
---***---
Could Shoggoths and such protean creatures be colonial entities, each shoggth composed of (let us say) a billion units, each unit the size of a pea - the units joined to each other by adhesion or other methods, but capable of separating and rejoining quickly and easily?
The units need not be identical - some might be specialised for digestion, some for vison, some for food storage, and so on. But allow each unit to be able to survive by itself at a pinch and you have a fearsomly tough collective, unkillable except by chemical poison, or burning.
Sort of like a swarm of ants that have learned to cling on to each other and form a single large hunting form - which can disintegrate into individuals at will.
---***---
There would be advantages to this sort of structure. Large animals are fragile, underpowered, and weak. For basic physical reasons connected to the geometry of fractal networks an animal's maximum power output goes up more slowly than its size. (At the 3/4 power of its mass, actually) So many small organisms linked together can generate more powr than a single large organism of the same mass.
And if you have multiple "body-lets" you gain in other ways - you can discard parasitised units; you can have units which are specialised. Once more, look at the ants.
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If "natural evolution" is heading this way, and if many Mythos entites come from older & more competent ecologies than Earths, perhaps that is the reason why so many of them seem protean?
And the Slime? Lubrication, maybe - the units must move about within the Shoggoth body.
