: I know that this is dogma by this point but I've always
: had a problem with it. The game is so complex, and
: even the darkest units have deeper agendas than that.
: To just say the leveller is "evil" and
: "wants to destroy" just strikes me as
: simplistic. Did Soulblighter cause all that trouble
: just so he could crack the cloudspine? I kind of doubt
: it--I think he wanted to start a new empire and wasn't
: real picky about how he did it. The events of the
: Forge always felt to me like the act of a desperate
: man forced to the breaking point. Not "oh good,
: things are going according to plan, now I can destroy
: everything!" but more like "#@?&! That Alric
: has ruined everything--and now HE has an empire and I
: don't! Boo hoo! Well, if I can't have it, nobody
: can!"
I agree here, about Soulblighter. He started out trying to conquer the world, but Alric foiled his plans so he figured "aw hell, screw it all" and tried to destroy the world.
: Okay, of course, SB wasn't the leveller... well, Balor's
: motivation seems more complex to me as well. He comes
: on the scene, raises an army, destroys Muirthemne...
: and then sits around for a while. A long while.
: Finally he gets off his ass and goes after the West.
: If all he wanted was destruction, why didn't he just
: keep going? Strategic reasons play a part there--he
: needed time to cement his power and create Fallen
: Lords and so on--but if he was so single-mindedly bent
: on destruction, why would he care about strategy? And
: even if he did--that pause gave Alric time to grow
: into avatara-hood and for allegiances to be formed in
: the West, and so on--it was a bad move strategically
: because it gave the West time to fortify. I can't for
: the life of me figure out why he waited like
: that--leveller or no.
Here we come upon the important distinction between the Leveller spirit and its current incarnation. GURPS tells us that, while the Leveller seeks only to destroy, many Leveller-incarnations try to secure a lasting Dark rule (instead of just "kill them all, then it's over") - and inevitably die in the process. I think the Leveller is behind this. If its current incarnation doesn't try to destroy, well, it'll help him in his destructive efforts, but once all the damage doable has been done, it just gives up and lets him die.
: Being the Leveller seems to come with a certain amount of
: power, but anybody with half a brain (and Balor was
: Connacht, the Odysseus figure in the Mythworld, so he
: must have had a brain and a half) will see the
: problem: if you want power, you don't want to destroy
: the world, you want to own it, so you wouldn't want to
: pick up the mantle of "Destroyer". Obviously
: Balor had no choice in the matter--he didn't choose
: it, it chose him.
Of course.
: Well, this is the Asylum, so I need a theory. Okay. The
: comet comes around. Some alien intelligence that's
: bound to it sees the Mythworld ripe for the plucking
: and sends out feelers, looking for anyone in desperate
: enough straits to be vulnerable, and poisons their
: mind. But why? Well, "Leveller" to me sounds
: less like "Destroyer" than
: "Cleaner", as in, time to clean off the game
: board so we can start over. It also sounds like
: "the Great Leveller", which was a medievil
: name for Death, since everyone both noble and common
: had to die eventually.
Wow! I haven't hear that theory since Myth II came out! Nice to see it brought up again.
: So here's the weird part of my theory: the Leveller (the
: spirit, not the bodies it inhabits) is actually a Good
: Guy.
Weehee! This was my original theory, that the Leveller "levels" as in the playing field, instead of "levels" as in toppling buildings. Myth II basically declares it not so, however; "a transient divinity seeking only chaos and destuction". However, there are ways that the purely-destructive Leveller could be working toward a good cause...
: Okay, now that I have your attention: the Leveller saw
: what happened with the Trow. Nyx (who I always thought
: of as female, BTW, since the Trow are her consorts)
: made them too powerful and gave them the means to
: commit endless genocides. Wyrd might have done
: something about it but he was too busy tripping on the
: one dream (he's a consummate hippy god, man). The
: Leveller decides it can't let this happen again--none
: of the young races can be allowed to get so powerful
: they start wiping each other out.
...like this!
: Now the Leveller, up on its comet, is a kind of God and
: Gods are known for taking the Extremely Long View. It
: doesn't matter if people get killed left and
: right--what matters is the eventual destiny of entire
: species. If that means an absolutely horrific
: conflagration every thousand years, the Leveller is
: willing to put up with that--there will always be
: survivors, which is not how it worked with the Trow
: (how many races' destinies did they put a stop to?).
: The Leveller exists to Level the playing field, not to
: destroy it. Maybe it also inspires the great
: heroes--or maybe it just knows that one will always
: come along.
Nope, no Great Heroes. The Leveller is purely destructive. However, it does seem that there is a common spiritual vein between Heroes and Levellers. Alric's spirit always opposes Connacht's, and vice versa. Alric's spirit was Moagim Reborn, and Connacht opposed him. Then Connacht became Balor, and Alric opposed him. We know that a good Alric incarnation (Tireces) opposed a Leveller at least once before, and then a bad Alric incarnation (Moagim) was opposed by a Great Hero. Wanna guess who's spirit was behind those two unknowns?
: So why isn't everyone all grateful for Balor and Moagim
: and Moagim's various incarnations? Well, individual
: units are just people, and people are known for taking
: the Extremely Short View. Think about it this way.
: You're a tree. Your branches are looking especially
: nice this year--huge, so huge they might just obscure
: that pesky street, maybe huge enough to damage that
: pesky house that's always annoying you. Then some guy
: comes along with a twenty-foot pole and starts cutting
: off your damned branches. Do you thank it for letting
: you coexist with the street and the house? No! You
: start crying about how there's the evil paingod called
: the Pruner that comes around every so often in a
: repeating cycle and wants nothing so much as to
: utterly destroy you.
: Silly, I know, but I kind of like it.
Me too! Particularly because it was my idea and I had it first so there nya!
My old take on the cycles was that they were created for the ultimate benefit of the Younger Races. A given Light civilization, of left unchecked, will eventually grow big enough to destroy itself, and chances are it will eventually destroy itself and others. However, if a big evil Dark force comes along for the Light forces to ally against, and in the process removes the Light's ability to destroy themselves, then disaster is averted. In the process, the Dark Ages cull the population; the weak and stupid die off, and the evil ally themselves with the Dark and wind up dead. That leaves only the strong, smart, and just.
But the Light will attain self-destructive power again someday, so the Dark has to come back in cycles, over and over and over again. And so by almost destroying civilization every thousand years, you keep civilization from ever being completely destroyed forever.
