: 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.
Not really. Without the Head's help, the Light would have lost the Great War. Lets observe in reverse chronological order. Without Soulblighter trapping the Legion in the Tain (presuming the Head told Soulblighter about the Tain), they wouldn't have had the Myrkridian Standard with which to defeat Balor. Without the Watcher's arm, the Legion would have been crushed between him and Soulblighter in the Dire Marsh on the way to Balor's fortress. Without Alric being captured in the desert, he would never have known he had to destroy Balor directly in the first place, or how to do it. Without the tip about destroying the World Knot, the Legion would have held the Fallen at the mountains, only to be destroyed from behind as the Dark came through the Knot. Without the heads-up about the Total Codex, the Watcher would have gotten it and used it to defeat the Light. And without the secret of Shiver's vanity, the forces of the Light would have been destroyed at Madrigal, and all of Myth:TFL would never have happened.
And about whipping the Fallen Lords himself, that would defeat the purpose of the cycles in my theory (which I'm not sure I mentioned, but I've been thinking for a while). I think the cycles are there to cull the Light, then let them rebuild, then cull again, rebuild, etc. Lets start from the beginning. The Light is getting started with building civilization, all banded together to hold off the forces of nature, and with the weak and stupid dying of natural causes and the evil being killed by siding against all the others. But over time, they conquer nature, get fat and lazy, and start fighting amongst themselves. Then, along comes the Dark. The weak and stupid die off in the wars, unless they're good enough to make people want to protect them, and the evil side with the dark, as we all know, no one has ever benefitted from a deal with the Dark (see the flavor text for "The Mayor" in Myth 1). Once the Dark is defeated, this leaves just a handfull of people with good genes and good social habits, both of which are passed down to the next generation, as society is built up from this cleaner base. But over time, they get fat and lazy and start to fight again, and it starts all over again.
If the Head just defeated the Dark himself, the Light wouldn't have to fight, knowing that the Head would sweep in to rescue them; and thus the culling effects wouldn't work, as people would be randomly killed, good and bad alike.
: 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 agree. I think the Head is intentionally keeping the whole thing going.
: 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.
Do we really? It's obvious that the Nine blindly trusted the Head, yes, but was that the result of magical powers, or just blind faith in a being who appears to know something everything?
: Second, starting the cycle was a morally neutral act.
From a higher viewpoint yes, but look at it from the Nine's point of view. Without the cycles, the Light would only be fighting within itself, like we do in the Real World. Power would only be subject to the ability to defend and expand your empire, not on some supernatural cycles. The Cath Bruig empire, or whatever superpowers before it, could have continued to rise in power and rule the whole world. But because of the cycles, any Light empire is doomed to fall after a thousand years. From the point of view of the Nine, this would be a bad thing.
It's like the old saying, "try to be nice to everyone and nobody will like it". Every side would want the Head to be on their team, and be angry at it for helping the other side as well.
: 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.
And continues to do naughty things now, and will continue to do naughty things in the future. If the Head blew his cover, let it be known that he is responsible for the cycles, then when the Dark comes again, why should the Light trust him? It's his fault! So the Head would have to do it all on his own, which would defeat the purpose of having the cycles in place. Though I do agree that the Nine would have listened to him this time, but they would never trust him again afterwards.
: 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,
Where did the Nine get this idea, anyway? Maybe the Head did tell them that much. Or did Alric learn it in the desert.
: his
: hatred for the Myrkridia
Which Alric learned in the desert, where the Head sent him.
: and the availability of
: Myrkridian artifacts in the Tain
I wonder, would the Light have gone willingly into the Tain without knowing what was in there? We know they went in in Myth II, but they already knew what it was like in there because of the disaster at Forest Heart.
: 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.
I'd think that the person would have been in on the assasination. Likewise, if the Head knew everything about the cycles, I would think that he had something to do with bringing them about.
: 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;
Maybe, maybe not. 3rd person generic plurals are often used to describe 3rd person generic singulars (despite this being bad grammar). For example, when talking about some person who you don't know is male or female, and thus wouldn't say called he or she, you might say "whoever they are, blah blah blah...". So "those who set it in motion" could mean "whoever it was that set it in motion". Or it could mean plural. But it doesn't exclude singular when read in context of modern usage of the English language.
: that they continue to maintain it and approve
: of it;
Which I believe the Head is doing.
: and that their power is such that they can
: retrieve and torture the souls of dead men (i.e.
: they're probably gods).
Tramists' Mirror can retrive the souls of the dead (and make them corporeal), so why is is so unbelievable that the Head might have such power as well?
: 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?
Did he *start* the civil war? We know the war was over the Head, but was it his fault that people started fighting eachother over him? The American Civil War was (largely) over slave-owning rights, but does that make it the African-Americans' fault?
: I really don't see how you can view
: the head as a good guy. 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.
Perhaps. Maybe the Leveller spirit is a W'rkncacnter and the Head is controlled by the (or is a) Jjaro.
: 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.
Ok, that's what I figured. Thanks.
: 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."
Is it done by double-clicking, like archer punches (daggar stabs in Myth II)?
: 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."
Alright! Thanks again.
: 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
Yes, I thought about this, but I can't think of how it would work (internally) or look (externally). I think I'll hack a MONS tag for the fir'Bolg to shoot a Bow of Forking.
: 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.
Yeah, that occurred to me last night, I just haven't updated the page yet.
: With respect to the "walking" and
: "running" sequences, Myth II allows
: different sequences for a monster when it's
: "moving" and "running." I'm not
: sure under circumstances it does one or the other,
: though.
Really? I don't think I've ever seen something like this in action, with the exception of the Spider Queens in Myth:TFL (who run really, really fast when they are nearing a target to attack). I wonder if it would be possible to, say, make archers run when they are under attack by melee units, but walk at all other times.
: 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.
Yes, good point! Trow know whether to kick or punch depending on the position of their target; it should have been obvious to me that these are just different animation sequences for firing up, down, or ahead. The shade attacks must be the same thing; swing sideways for someone at your own height, swing vertically for someone {above|below} you.
: 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.
Really? I'll have to break out Fear and Amber2 and take a look inside Myth II.
: BTW, did you know that both dwarves and
: mortar dwarves have close range attack animations?
Yep.
---
Hey; I'm currently writing a storyline for a hypothetical scenario in which all these unimplemented features could be implemented. You see to be somewhat knowledgable of Myth haxoring; would you consider making a medium-sized (~15 level) scenario about the quest of te Mad Journeyman from the Myth:TFL manual, with passages through Skrael land, the aide of the fir'Bolg's friends the Griffins, Trow throwing severed heads and Rhi bombs, Myrmidons throwing explosive shrunked heads, Dwarven Balloons, Dirigibles, Myth:TFL Mahir (Shadow Warriors), Forest Giants throwing sacks of explosive heads, and plenty of other little changes (artifacts like Aconite and Fever Stones, etc)? I wouldn't be able to do any work on it other than storywriting and level design, because I'm busy with this site, a Marathon scenario, and Real Life, but I'd love to see it done.
