: How can you possibly justify that this was the opinion of
: the Westerners? That is how Bungie has set up this
: whole world... They say on the back of the box that
: the Dark seeks not to conquer, but to destroy. There
: is no evidence pointing the opposite direction.
: Levellers showing restraint? Please spare me. The only
: reason the West wasnt completely and utterly
: devastated was because Alric lopped of Balor's head
: and tossed into a big hole in the ground before they
: got a chance to. Therefore, all your arguments in this
: paragraph only support me! ("I don't think the
: Mythworld would continue to exist if the Levellers
: didn't show some restraint. It's just so much easier
: to destroy than repair that, after two or three
: cycles, the cumulative damage would produce worldwide
: extinction." which is exactly what I'm saying)
Yeah, but you're not denying the existence of the cycles, are you? Or are you agreeing with me now, that the Levellers must act with restraint, because otherwise they could expunge all life with ease in the course of each Great War? Balor could have had his forces raze and blight the ground of the Province as they advanced, as he did to the Cath Bruig; he could have herded Wights into *all* the rivers and poisoned the entire water supply of the West; he could have headed to Tharsis and destroyed the whole world as Soulblighter tried to do. But he didn't. Because he didn't want to.
Further, he must have at least appeared to show some restraint to his subordinates. Ghols and Shades both desire conquest, not total destruction; Myrdred and the Myrmidons probably would also prefer that the world not be ended. They wouldn't have followed him if they thought assisting him was equivalent to suicide.
And the entire story is told from the point of view of a Westerner. Of course it's going to espouse his view on the back of the box. That's the worldview you start from. C'mon, you've heard of surprise endings and plot twists.
: Uhm... for a thousand years? Sharks are much less
: frequent than krids, for one thing, and for another,
: given that it takes at least 15 years for a human
: being to breed, and that if they stuck together a
: whole band would be wiped out together... no. Babies
: cry when when your tribe is hiding in the dark from
: huge, lumbering creatures, or they do at least once in
: forty generations.
Krids probably aren't that frequent either, when a sorcerer isn't resurrecting their entire race at once in a localized area. And what if the bands (those who don't live in cities) *don't* stick together? Everyone runs in a different direction; the Krids catch and kill some of them, then move on. And babies can be muffled, although I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
: See, I WOULD concede this if a city could be
: self-supporting for a thousand years.
As Dave's said, it doesn't need to be. Again, the Krids are animals. They don't figure out that, if they set up a supply route and start scavenging the country side, they can hold a years-long siege; they just get bored and hungry and go away. Or start squabbling amongst themselves.
: Hyperbole and nothing more. It would be equally true if
: the krids were created, and attacked for the first
: time yesterday, and Connacht won his battles tomorrow.
Can you arbitrarily decide that certain statements are correct while others are hyperbole? If I was asked to decide which statement--that the Krids have been around for a thousand years, or that no human had ever survived a battle against the Krids--was an exaggeration, I know which one I'd pick. Especially since we know the Krids penetrated into Muirthemne but were beaten back.
: I'd say the Dark was dominating pretty well when TFL was
: taking place. There was one city left - Madrigal, just
: like there was likely only Muirthemne left when
: Connacht arose.
No, most of the province and the Northern lands (as we know from Myth 2) remained populated and under Light control, until the very end of the war (and even then the Northern lands remained inviolate.)
: Heh, ok, I'm sure Bungie would say that when they're
: making money off it :P
Point taken. So, given that Bungie's made about a thousand times as much money off the Myth games themselves, I claim that they have absolutely no validity for story purposes. In fact, the only valid source of storyline info are the prerelease info and Chimera, since those were distributed for free. :-)
Do you think anyone would care if Bungie called GURPS a "speculative" work instead of one Bungie helped "research?" The only people who care about it being an official info source are the dozen or so of us Asylumers. I don't think Bungie's marketing department factored us into their decision. Furthermore, why didn't they just have GURPS depict the cycle the "right" way in the first place? Did they think they'd sell a few more copies if they claimed that the Leveller shows up at the start of each Light Age too?
You can always claim to know why an info source really isn't valid, because they just released it to make money, or the error-checkers happened to be smoking crack while they looked it over, or a ninja was hired by Id to sneak in and screw up the storyline. But until Bungie actually admits it isn't valid, I'll continue to accept it. Because that's what makes America great. (If you want to start an additional thread on whether or not America's global supremacy is really due to GURPS, I'm all for it.)
: PS I wrote this all in one sitting and have no time to
: check over it. Will fill any holes later, but gotta
: go!
I had plenty of time to check over my response, but I'm just lazy. :-)
--SiliconDream
