Sorry it took so long to reply. Consider this a reply to both Forrest's and CryoBlue's posts. I'll go over Forrest's specific comments first.
: 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.
I was basing my faith in the Light purely on the existence of the cycle. If the beings that control it are as powerful as they seem to be, the Light literally could not lose. That's the point of it being a cosmic cycle and not just a 6,000-year chain of coincidences. Even if every last one of the Nine had been killed and the armies of the West destroyed utterly, the last surviving warrior would manage to throw his sword through the eye-slit of Balor's helmet and kill him. Or a nearby sheep would suddenly find itself possessed of superhuman intellectual and magical power and defeat the Fallen single-hoofedly. Or Balor would get smacked by a handy meteorite. Or he'd step on a rake. Or something. The Leveler's defeat is as inevitable as his rise, when the time has come for the age of Light. How else could a beaten, cowed people, ravaged by the Myrkridia, produce a hero like Connacht? He'd get noticed and have his head ripped off before he got anywhere near powerful enough to challenge the Dark. The only explanation is that Fate was on his side; when it's time for the Leveler to be destroyed, probabilities shift and "chance tears and bends" (or, slightly less metaphysically, the beings in charge of the cycle pump far more power into the champions of the Light than they could ever achieve on their own) to make his destruction a certainty. This is not to say that there's no point in the Great War; even if the triumph of the Light is inevitable, you want to make sure the Light hasn't been reduced to a single peasant by the time they win. But in my view the battles of TFL determine only the quality of the Light's victory, not whether that victory actually occurs. Of course, the average warrior, like the narrator, is probably a little less trusting of fate than the Heron Guards are, so they're still going to fight as if the triumph of the Light really did depend on them.
: 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.
Actually, I think it would be *neutral* specifically from the Nine's point of view. Yes, the Cath Bruig empire was destroyed by the cycle. But so (probably) was the Trow empire. So was the period of domination of the Myrkridia. For every Light power that was tragically destroyed before it could bring peace to the whole world, a Dark power was mercifully destroyed before it could annihilate the planet. As far as we know the Dark races would still have been there if the cycle hadn't existed; the Dream of Unlife would still be waiting for someone to discover it. Without the cycles, the Light and the Dark would just slug it out non-stop until one or the other had triumphed for good, and I for one don't think the Light's victory would be a sure thing. In fact, in the long run, it might be inevitable that the Dark would win. The Light, after all, has to save the world every time; the Dark only has to destroy it once. Sooner or later, a Dark being or empire would live long enough to discover the Myth equivalent of the H-bomb, and once the planet was populated only by the "unthinking dead" the Dark's victory would be complete and eternal. So it's probably more important to keep the Dark powers from becoming strong enough to kill everybody than to let the Light powers become strong enough to give everybody flowers and candy. I think the Nine would actually be grateful that the cycle allows the Light dominance at least half the time.
: 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?
I agree, they wouldn't trust him when the Dark comes again. But he wouldn't want them to. He doesn't want the Light to ask him for advice when the Leveler comes again; he wants them to get clobbered. Only when it's time for another age of Light would he want to give them a hand, and they'd trust him then since they'd know that, for that half of the cycle, he's on their side. I'm sure the Avatara would find it extremely annoying that he only helps them half the time, but what are they gonna do? They have to take whatever help they can get. Besides, even if they never trust him again, I'm sure in a thousand years or two he can find a suitable disguise, or a friend to go instead. There are a lot of possible ways to get the necessary information to them when he has two millennia to plan.
: 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?
I'm almost sure the mirror only worked on Shiver because of the special nature of her death--"her spirit disconnected from her body, set adrift on the ether." In fact, given that her weakness is vanity, I'd be willing to bet that Rabican used the mirror to defeat her in the first place. If just anyone could be retrieved this way, Soulblighter would have resurrected every Fallen Lord in the last million years, not just Shiver, and he would have been unstoppable.
: 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?
Look. In the middle of a desperate and losing war with the undead, upon which the fate of the continent depends, several thousand warriors decide to forget about the war, mutiny, and kill their own leaders to protect a disembodied head who's been advising them poorly. That's not liberalism gone overboard--that's mind control. Or at the very least, the Head's been working (magically or not) to recruit supporters. Severed heads don't have much natural charisma.
I'm sort of running down on arguing about these specific points; I don't think either of us is ever going to convince the other. So let me move on to the general point of the cycle. Forrest sez:
: 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.
CryoBlue sez:
: 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.
I have to agree with Cryo on this. Before TFL, you have nine Avatara, seven Fallen Lords, and a passel of Shades. After TFL, you have Alric, Soulblighter, a few shades and half-dead Myrdred and Shiver. The cycle definitely hits the most powerful beings the hardest. It's hard to argue for an evolutionary explanation when the people most fit to survive are the peasants, who run away while the stronger fight and die to beat back the Dark. However, I'd go even farther than Cryo does. It's not only there to get rid of Avatara; it's there to get rid of civilization in general. The Dark always targets the most civilized regions first, like the Cath Bruig empire; exceptionally brutal and primitive races, like the Mauls and Ghols and bre' Unor, are welcomed as allies of the Dark even though the Fallen Lords are supposedly hostile to all life. I expect if the Dark ever won, the Fallen would kill off their living allies as soon as convenient, but in the meantime they clearly manage to get along better with primitive creatures. I think the cycle was designed to let the Dark destroy the most scientifically, magically, technologically and artistically advanced cultures, then have the Dark be defeated before they can wipe everyone out. That way, the human race doesn't quite go extinct, but it always stays technologically backward. I mean, the cycle's been going for six thousand years. If it had some sort of beneficial evolutionary effect on humanity, everyone ought to have a mind like Alric's and muscles like Turgeis of Burning Steel by now, and be building teleporters and particle cannons with one hand while they compose 200-part symphonies with the other. Instead, in the time it took Earth humans to progress from the Stone Age to the Space Age, Myth humans have remained at pretty much the same medieval technological level. And their magical powers haven't improved either. Alric's most powerful weapons are the Eblis Stone, Ibis Crown and Balmung, all over a thousand years old. Here on Earth, weapons that were "cutting-edge" a thousand years ago are laughable now (although a good big rock always comes in handy).
I have rather an elaborate theory for why the cycle was created to keep humanity primitive; it involves a Marathon connection like Forrest's and I actually posted it a while ago in reply to his "general theory" post. Why don't you guys take a look and tell me what you think? It gets exhausting just criticizing other people's unfalsifiable theories for months on end; I'd like to have the easy job for once:) I should note that in that theory the Head acts like Thoth, trying to abort the cycle. That explains the civil war and the Head's good-but-could-be-better advice quite well; the Head basically wants every powerful being on both sides dead so that the Light and Dark will fight to a draw and no one of real power will be alive to become the Leveller next time. The Head probably planned for Alric to escort Balor's head to the Great Devoid; when Soulblighter tried to steal it, Alric would have held him off while the dwarf tossed the head in, and then Alric and Soulblighter would both have been killed in the blast and the cycle, perhaps, would have been broken. Some people have noted that you actually see Alric's body fly by in the ending animation, so maybe Bungie intended for the game to end this way, with the breaking of the cycle, until they starting thinking about a sequel. So, anyway, go look at my theory, please. A couple of things about Fear:
: 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.
Have you done this yet? I'm curious too. My guess is, at the beginning or midway through flight, the arrow "unfolds" into a whole shower of arrows aimed in slightly different directions. In Fear terms, it detonates immediately into a projectile group containing many ordinary arrows, the same way a Myrk Giant throws a projectile that immediately becomes a bunch of explosive skulls. Now that I think about it, that would look really cool. I think I'll post a mini-plugin for Myth II on the Mill in the next few days, enabling archers to use the "magic" arrows.
: 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.
Actually, that's not quite what I meant. Trow kicks and punches are completely different attacks (and each attack has its own set of animations) in Fear. This is why fistfights between Trow take so long to conclude; their punches are a lot weaker than their kicks. They punch each other and kick smaller units because of a couple of flags you can check for each attack, "vs. giant-sized" and "prohibited vs. giant-sized." What I was referring to was their punches alone. You've probably noticed that sometimes they throw a straight punch and sometimes they use a back-fisted punch. It's exactly the same attack; it just looks different. In the same way, Myrkridia attack sometimes with their right hands and sometimes with their left, but it's the same attack either way. In both these cases, the choice of animation is random, but you can also make the monster select between animations depending on the height of the target, like bowmen. Personally, I think berserks look a lot more berserk when they use all three attack animations unpredictably.
: 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.
Sounds like fun. I can't do squat with TFL, so it would have to be a Myth II scenario (which you'd probably want to do anyway because of all the Myth II perks, like fire.) However, I'm afraid I've got no experience with map-making, and a lot of the third-party editors like Amber don't work too well on my machine. I could probably do most of the necessary Fear work, though (which is the easy part of the job, I know). Maybe we should ask around for someone who's interested and good with Loathing and the third-party editors. Even if we can't do a whole scenario, I'm sure a plugin and a couple of maps would give players a lot of pleasure. Email me if you're serious about this. CryoBlue, you interested?
--SiliconDream
