: Actually, the Myth II epilogue implies that it's 2000
: years per cycle, 1000 dark/1000 light. Balor's death
: marked the end of the Dark Age, and according to the
: epilogue the Leveler won't come back to start another
: one for another thousand years. Also, one of the TFL
: journal entries says that some of the Fallen are over
: a thousand years old, so I think that the last Dark
: Age had to be about that long; few Fallen would have
: survived if they spent hundreds of years under a Light
: Age. Also also, Connacht was the "first man in a
: thousand years" to beat the Myrkridia; again, a
: thousand-year period of Dark dominance. Of course,
: quite a few people, possibly the majority, believe the
: cycle to be only a thousand years long, but I
: certainly don't think the question is settled.
Yeah, you are right. Every one-thousand years, the tide turns and the Light rises above the Dark and takes back the countryside, and it continues on and on.
: I don't think they really "allowed" people to
: live, unless you count "I'm going to let you live
: because you're hiding somewhere in a maze of caves
: several miles away and it's much easier for me to
: attack my cousin who's standing next to me." The
: Myrkridia were fierce, but they were basically animals
: without any real plans for genocide; they just killed
: whoever they happened to see. I'm sure humans could
: survive (although in very small numbers) by hiding in
: holes and under rocks and things; an uncivilized way
: of life would make them a lot less obvious (no big
: cities to attack). Also, being predators, the
: Myrkridia would have to be nomadic and relatively
: sparsely distributed, so that their food source
: (people and other large animals) had a chance to
: regenerate after being massacred. Probably a band of
: Myrkridia would sweep through an area every few
: decades or so, killing and eating anyone they noticed,
: but overlooking enough people so that the population
: could grow back to its original size before the next
: attack came. I've often wondered if the apparently
: instinctive terror inspired by the Myrkridia is
: actually genetic, evolved during this period of
: Myrkridian dominance. After all, the Myrkridia may be
: scary but at first sight they're a lot less scary (at
: least to me) than the Trow, or the Mahir, or even the
: Myrmidons. I think maybe the reason the Myrkridia
: cause such panic in Myth humans is that anyone who
: didn't panic and run away really really fast got et. I
: know a thousand years is a short time even for
: punctuated-equilibrium-style evolution, but the
: Myrkridia are one hell of an evolutionary stimulus.
Well, actually, a thousand years is a very long time for the human race to evolve, not blatantly like a fish growing a third eye, but evolution in terms of societial change. A change in the human race can occur in as little as 30 years. Look at America for example. In the 1950s, we still held on to that morale fiber that parents don't spilt up and kids always respect adults and you help the family in anyway possible. Then, the 1960s hit and the country goes to hell. Now, living in the 1990s, we see our mistake in the 60s and how we evolved into a total different society, where kids can open fire in schools and over 55% of our married population is divorced and its no big deal. So, saying that the Myrkridia created an evolution in Myth society is very believable, and I think that's how it worked. The Myrkridia were Nomadic and kept the populations alive by not coming back for many years and keeping everyone in a state of fear seems the most plausible answer to how they survived for so long without wiping everyone out.
: You bring up an interesting point about how many of the
: Dark races are morally non-aligned. Ghols, Mauls and
: Myrmidons want to conquer and kill quite a few people,
: but presumably they don't want to end all life on the
: planet including themselves. It's only incredible
: stupidity which leads them to ally with the Fallen
: Lords, who are aiming for "blasted lands"
: populated only by "the unthinking dead." The
: Fetch were brought here against their will and are
: basically under a sentence of death unless a Fallen
: Lord sends them home, so they have to fight; they may
: be arrogant, but they're not necessarily evil at all.
: The only really dedicated Dark entities, in my
: opinion, are the Fallen Lords and maybe the Mahir and
: the Myrkridia (although the Myrkridia have no coherent
: plan to destroy all life, they probably wouldn't
: object, seeing as they happily kill anything put in
: front of them).
: Phew, this was long, and I'll bet you can refute
: everything here in two paragraphs or less. Make 'em
: long ones, please, just to soothe my ego. ;)
I can only agree with you, you bring up some good points.
Chris
