: Moot?? MOOT??!! Ain't nuttin' moot 'til I say it's moot,
: foo! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt
: of elderberries!! You think that's funny? I'll spark
: your ass, fat boy!! I'm twice the man you'll ever be
: and three times the woman you'll ever get!! Attica!!
: Attica!! Attica!!
: Ah, that was fun. And now, back to the wonderful world of
: rational discourse. But before that, a couple of
: general announcements.
: #1: Anyone who hasn't bought the Myth and Myth II
: soundtracks, go and do it. They're half the price and
: twice the quality of--well, I can't name any
: particular pop star because I'm sure someone who likes
: her or him would read this and engage me in a
: month-long flame war. So just go get them. And while
: you're at it, buy some Bungie T-shirts, for
: chrissakes. You think you're ever gonna get a date
: looking like you shop at the Goodwill? Honestly,
: sometimes you act just like your father.
: #2: I think a few people might have been a little
: confused (I know I was) by my version of Myth II as it
: would have played out had Alric's Eblis Stone been
: reusable. It was supposed to be: "Hey,
: Shiver!" (says Alric)
: [Fries her with giant lightning bolt]
: "Hey, Soulblighter!"
: [Fries him with giant lightning bolt]
: The End.
Personally, I imagined thats what you ment, but now I am wondering about the bracket problem...
: For some reason (bracket problems, I think), every other
: line was lost when I posted. I know, I know, it wasn't
: very funny in the first place, but it's a lot better
: than the "Shiver and Soulblighter do a Green Day
: video' thing my incomplete post appeared to be
: describing.
: Now, about the Head. Let me first say that I've learned
: my lesson about reading articles *carefully*; before
: your last post, I didn't even realize that part of
: your theory was that the Head started the whole cycle.
: So obviously, some of my observations need to be
: scrapped. But I don't think EVERYTHING's moot. Here
: are my objections, painstakingly and lovingly arranged
: in paragraphs with topic sentences by this proud
: graduate of Rhetoric 1A.
: If the Head did create the Light/Dark cycle, he'd
: probably be so powerful as not to need the help of
: ordinary mortals, even Avatara. Even if he didn't have
: the power to stop the cosmic cycle once it was
: started, surely someone who was able essentially to
: add a new law of nature to the universe should be able
: to whip a few Fallen Lords every two thousand years
: with his...um...neck tied behind his...um...neck. Come
: to that, why would the Head need to take any action at
: all? He of all people would realize the inevitability
: of the cycle and that no matter what he or anyone else
: did, the Dark would fall as unstoppably as it had
: risen a thousand years ago. Unless the real nature of
: the cycle is that the Leveller is invincible during
: the Dark millennium and vulnerable during the Light
: millennium, but not necessarily defeated then unless
: the Light actually goes and kills him. Care to add
: this to your theory? It's pretty consistent with Myth
: history. The Leveller never just dies from a heart
: attack or something when the Light millennium rolls
: around; he has to be murdered by the Light. Hey, wait
: a minute. I'm not supposed to be championing *your*
: theory;) Next paragraph, please.
: How likely is it that the Light/Dark cycle could be
: started by accident (if the Head's really a nice guy)
: and continue on its own for thousands of years? I
: mean, most accidental phenomena are a) chaotic and b)
: short-lived (although they may have long-term
: effects). You drop a glass of water and it breaks and
: spills in maybe a second, leaving glass shards and
: water drops scattered about randomly. You drop your
: ICBM and it blows up--a release of energy that takes a
: split second and converts everything nearby into a
: disordered plasma. The glass shards and water drops
: don't arrange themselves into a picture of Gandhi; the
: mushroom cloud doesn't morph between a cube and a
: dodecahedron every six minutes for the next year. I
: don't mean these examples to be taken too seriously;
: I'm just trying to point out it's unlikely that a
: six-thousand-year-old, precisely periodic effect began
: with a "whoops" and ran on its own for the
: rest of time.
: I don't think the Nine would automatically distrust the
: Head if they knew it started the cycle. First, the
: Head has, we know, incredible powers of persuasion.
: Second, starting the cycle was a morally neutral act.
: The cycle doesn't favor the Dark or the Light; it just
: alternates their periods of dominance. So if its
: creator decides to show himself and ally with the
: Light, there'd be no reason for the Nine to assume he
: must secretly be evil. Third, the Nine are nothing if
: not pragmatic. They are fighting a desperate and
: losing war and cannot afford to turn away potential
: allies (especially ones smart enough to write the
: Total Codex) just because they did some naughty things
: a few thousand years ago. Look at Alric--he allies
: himself with the Trow, who oppressed an entire
: empire's worth of people, and The Deceiver, who was
: just plain evil for most of his life. He certainly
: wouldn't reject someone of godlike power and intellect
: who committed much less evil (if more momentous) acts
: millennia ago.
: Even if the Head did have to mask its identity, it could
: have been a lot more helpful without blowing its cover
: story. The dependence of the Fallen on Balor, his
: hatred for the Myrkridia, and the availability of
: Myrkridian artifacts in the Tain are just the sort of
: things you'd expect a friend of Connacht and ancient
: enemy of Balor to know. I don't even think the Head
: would have to be that careful; in the Myth world,
: aeons-old beings with a wealth of arcane knowledge can
: be found under every rock. I can't think of any one
: fact which couldn't plausibly be known by the
: Deceiver, for instance, or an elder of the Forest
: Giants. If the Head sounds amazingly knowledgeable,
: the Nine are going to think of a lot of explanations
: before they think it's the cycle-starter. If you met
: someone who seemed to know the secret details of all
: the assassinations of leaders like JFK and MLK for the
: last century, you might think he was a high-placed
: government official or a Mafia Don or even a time
: traveler but you wouldn't immediately think he must be
: Jesus. Anyway, like I said, I think the Head's cover
: story of being one of Connacht's Avatara makes
: plausible its knowing pretty much any useful fact
: about Balor.
: The Head's being the cycle-starter contradicts the
: general belief in the West. In the epilogue of Myth
: II, the narrator relates the Heron Guards' beliefs
: about the cosmic cycle, which are apparently accepted
: by him and everyone else in the West as the most
: expert opinions around: "Soulblighter was not The
: Leveler. He may have been if
: he had survived into the next millennium ñ but, in his
: attempt to force the cycle, he perished and almost
: certainly will suffer at the hands of those who set it
: in motion."
: This implies that the cycle was started by a group of
: beings; that they continue to maintain it and approve
: of it; and that their power is such that they can
: retrieve and torture the souls of dead men (i.e.
: they're probably gods). If the Heron Guards are right,
: the Head can't be the cycle-starter; if they're wrong,
: the West's beliefs are so far from the truth that the
: Head can pretty much volunteer any information it
: wants without anyone even suspecting it might be the
: cycle-starter.
Well, If you ask me:
The head alone didnt start the cycle, it was he and a group of very powerful individuals, who, now are so powerful that they could be considered "Gods". They started this cycle for one reason: Stop other men from gaining too much power. The most powerful being is always the next leveler, and the next most powerful one defeats him. Maybe before the cycle, *almost*immortal avatra were a common everyday sight, and others became gods, and had their god-wars, and that was a tad more messy than the average avatara battle. But the people who had acheaved Godhood didnt want any other "gods" to be able to come and spoil their fun, and so they made the leveler. This entity took over the most powerful, and the second most stopped him, and then he would be the next leveler, ect. The end result is the same, The most powerful avatara & fallen lords die. None of them ever live long enough to acheave godhood. So the gods live forever without being chalanged by newly created gods.
And how does the head fit into this you ask? He was the one chosen to make sure it all works out fine. He is the one who makes sure the leveler dies( in time to go back to his comet? In time to restart the cycle? In time for breakfast?) and whatever that they (the "Gods") want to happen happens.
And so the head is either a founding member of the cycle or the cycles janitor.
: Finally, you still have to explain the civil war. The
: Head had by this time completely lost the trust of the
: Nine, so it didn't need to keep up appearances, and
: you and I agree that it didn't have to worry about
: self-preservation. So why not disappear? Why did it
: have to hang around and cause a civil war and the
: deaths of more Avatara, when these didn't help Alric
: in the slightest? I really don't see how you can view
: the head as a good guy.
He isnt absolutly a good guy, he is just doing his job. He thought the best way to handel the situation was through deception, that way everyone would suspect a collaborator with the fallen, but if he was on thier side and told them the plan, and helped them a lot, he wouldnt have any excuse to simpely dissapear at the end of the war. And if a freindly head helped every cycle, they may start to ask questins and discover the plot to stop the creation of gods from men.
: Everything points toward him
: trying to stalemate both sides. As for who started the
: cycle, I think both my Marathon-PID connection theory
: and your own (both posted in this forum) provide more
: satisfying explanations. 'Specially if there was an
: Avatara in the Beta called Tfear.
I think the tfear thing was ment to be a joke...kinda like the guy fishing in lava, or the squirrel flavor text
: Speaking of which, thank you so much for the
: "Unimplemented Features" article; it was
: truly enlightening. I've never worked with TFL files
: but I can tell you that in Myth II, "soulless
: gas" large and small projectiles are the puffs
: that come out when soulless are injured. The Myth II
: (again, I don't know about TFL) soulless can jab with
: their spears at short range, although probably not
: when they're computer-controlled, and this is called
: "soulless javelin stab." The "internal
: happy star" was probably intended for a confusion
: effect that never got implemented; the sequence for
: the stars that orbit a confused unit's head in Myth II
: is called "happy stars mythII." There's also
: a "internal happy star" in the Myth II
: projectiles tags, but it isn't directly responsible
: for the confusion effect, which is a
: *local* projectile group. I think, though, that in
: certain cases for internal effects, a local projectile
: group can pull data from an ordinary projectile tag,
: so the Myth II "internal happy star"
: probably does have some role in the confusion effect.
: As for the two unexplained special arrows, an
: "arrow of forking" probably splits into
: several arrows during flight to do damage to several
: different units, and an "incendiary arrow"
: was probably intended to work just like the flaming
: arrow in Myth II, until they realized they weren't
: going to be able to put the fire effect into TFL.
: Bungie people have said more than once that Myth II is
: pretty much what they had originally hoped TFL could
: be. With respect to the "walking" and
: "running" sequences, Myth II allows
: different sequences for a monster when it's
: "moving" and "running."
Maybe the walking and running had something to do with the *inemplimented* skittish area, and the zerks and myrms were soposed to ramdomly disobey orders to go and fight, as well as having pesants run away from everrything is sight, because there were warnings of that they may be hard to controle because of their will to fight, but I never had any problems...
: I'm not
: sure under circumstances it does one or the other,
: though. II also allows different sequences for firing
: straight ahead, up, and down; the engine decides which
: one to use. Myth II shades don't have multiple
: animations for their primary attack, but many other
: creatures do; I'm sure you've noticed the Trow punch
: two different ways. For some reason, although the Myth
: II berserk sequence collection contains three
: different and perfectly usable sword swing animations,
: the berserks in the game are only programmed to use
: one of these. BTW, did you know that both dwarves and
: mortar dwarves have close range attack animations?
: I've used them in a plugin I made for the Mill; the
: dwarves can stab with a small knife and the mortar
: dwarves can swing their mortars like clubs. I have no
: idea why these aren't used in the game. I guess
: because, like your article says, they really had to
: scale down the power level of the dwarves. I dunno why
: they'd keep the sprites available in Myth II, though.
: I'm sure you know most of this, but I hope something's
: new.
: One last thing--remember that Thoth has the head of an
: ibis? I'll be very happy if anyone can come up with a
: convincing argument that the Ibis Crown is actually a
: cybernetic interface allowing the wearer to
: telepathically hack into the AI Thoth's databanks. It
: makes a little sense, since Alric doesn't get any
: tougher physically once he wears the crown--the
: "staggering power" it grants must be in the
: form of knowledge. I'll prove this theory myself just
: as soon as I get that IQ boost to 5000 I've been
: saving up for. Cheers,
Interesting, because I'll bet before he put on that crown, he didnt know where balmung(the sword) was burried...
-Cryoblue
