: Sorry... though, as I mentioned, I think both our
: theories dovetail pretty well. Yours was mostly about
: the personalities of the various characters, mine was
: about what was inspiring them... we can work it out,
: man! ;)
True. There are three (in my scheme) entities involved here, the Leveller, A and C--unless perhaps you believe that the Great Heroes are secretly animated by an Anti-Leveller? It would certainly be an interesting idea to defend. Anyway, yeah. My theory doesn't directly talk about the Leveller. I just don't like to see other people have good ideas. :-)
: Very impressively--or very slyly? I know my theory
: doesn't contain a lot of hard evidence. It's mostly
: based on speculation and a change in perspective. I
: really didn't mean to do it that way, but it was the
: only method that allowed me to get my ideas across
: without constantly annotating and footnoting.
Hey, feel free to annotate and footnote. It's my hope that after the discussion has died down somewhat, everyone can submit the final draft of their Cycle theory, in full, boring, sociology paper format, footnotes and all, to the Delusions page to be posted. And then we can do it all again with the Marathon/Myth connection. Except you can't, because you haven't finished the games. Ha!
: It's my feeling that the Leveller is a very limited
: Divinity. It doesn't have the power to effect radical,
: significant changes in the Mythworld, only to subtly
: alter the psychology of certain persons. It cannot,
: for instance, possess a pro-population growth leader
: and make him go to his scientists and say "invent
: for me the birth control pill". It can, however,
: possess someone who believes big families are a good
: thing and suggest to him that mass infanticide is
: perfectly justifiable if it's for the greater good.
: The bulk of my theory was devoted to describing how
: this is achieved--by giving the avatar a bit of
: god-like perspective so that he begins to think that
: the end justifies any means necessary.
Ah. I was hoping for some way in which the Leveller's actions could be shown to differ from someone who just likes killing things, but of course that's not really necessary. A theory can be valid even if it's predictions don't differ from those of (possibly simpler) rivals.
: The polarization I see not so much as an effect of the
: Leveller's influence as a survival of the original
: personality of the avatar in question. Certainly it is
: possible for a "dark" race to ally with the
: light, and vice versa--hence the Trow (I know, I know,
: a special case) in M2, and the Myrmidons in M1. Not to
: mention all the brigands and dark bowmen and, for that
: matter, dark dwarves. Certainly we see in the Fallen
: Lords how the polarization is not perfect. The
: political alliances in the Mythworld are very old and
: do tend, I agree, to change very slowly if at all.
: They are, in my theory, one reason the Mythworld needs
: a Leveller in the first place. Were one side or the
: other to become too strong, it might actually succeed
: in wiping the other side out, which is what MY
: transient divinity is trying to avoid. For the most
: part they seem to almost get along, or at the very
: least be willing to sit back and build their power
: bases in hopes of an eventual genocide. If not for the
: Great Wars and such, it might come to that pass. When
: every thousand years a sizeable chunk of the
: population of both sides is wiped out it keeps either
: side from becoming too powerful.
But it seems to me that there wouldn't even *be* such sides if not for the Leveller. The Light's made up of humans, Dwarves, fir'Bolg, Forest Giants and Skrael; the latter three only joined when Balor came, and have broken off the alliance now that he's gone; the fir'Bolg will never fight outside the Ermine, and the Skrael and Forest Giants have almost no contact with the remaining Light races. The (living part of the) Dark's made up of Ghols, bre' Unor, Fetch, Mauls and Krids; pretty much none of those races has any history of alliance with the other, save as fellow servants of the Leveller. Without the cycle, without a big mean guy appearing every thousand years and saying, "I choose you, you, and you to help me beat up everyone else," there wouldn't be any of the alliances we know, except perhaps the Human-Dwarf one (and even that would be weaker, given the psychological differences between the two races.) And if the Leveller absolutely has to classify each race as servant or foe, why doesn't he pick different races each time, so that the alliances and blood feuds are constantly being shattered and re-formed?
: You make an excellent point here. It occurs to me that
: the Leveller may not understand technological
: progress. It also occurs to me that despite the old
: adage that technology and war are mutually
: reinforcing, the Mythworld is only now reaching the
: level of basic gunpowder weapons after several
: thousand years of uninterupted civilization--and then
: only because of the presence of the dwarves. The human
: population is still fighting with swords as their
: primary weapons and doesn't even appear to possess the
: longbow. It seems that something--I would vote for the
: constant warfare--is keeping human technology down.
Humans do possess the longbow, actually; remember the Imperial Bowmen? (And I KNOW you remember them. ;-) For some reason, the Province just preferred not to use bows.
As for the rate of development of technology--on our world, about 5,000 years elapsed between the establishment of the first large states like Sumeria, and the development of firearms. On the Mythworld, the Cath Bruig was established in the middle of the Age of Reason--no more than 500 years after the beginning of recorded history--and it only took 2500 more years to create the first muskets. Not only that, but the Dwarves--to judge by their ghosts--have possessed cocktail technology (heh, what a phrase) for at least a millennium.
Your point about the Leveller not understanding technological progress is well made, and I think an important element of your theory may be that the Leveller doesn't really understand *anything* about mortal races. He's a divine Clouseau--"Hey, I think I'll go down and attack some of these guys to thin the herd. Whoops--they've formed alliances and power blocs! Well, I'll throw some Myrks at them to attack the centers of population. Uh-oh--they've started building cities for protection! Heh, heh...that was unexpected." and so on.
The Leveller's in the same position as, say, a well-meaning colonial power like Britain, trying to do what's best for its subject peoples without actually learning what matters to them and how they think. You might directly relate this to his status as a god. Gods are static; they don't get better and better with time, and so the Leveller doesn't really get how a race can improve itself through technology. Gods are highly individual, and make no alliances because they're not accustomed to having to figure out which qualities they share with others, and so the Leveller doesn't expect the mortal races to band together. Poor guy--I wonder how he got the job in the first place?
: Similarly, the Leveller seems to act as an agent of
: technology transfer, as well, making sure that the
: dwarves aren't the only ones with satchel charges. The
: ghols would never have figured that one out on their
: own--Balor or perhaps Soulblighter must have taught
: them that one. How the Leveller deals with the
: escalation of military technology is a good question;
: I'd say in general it tends to spread the wealth and
: help keep a level playing field (its primary
: function).
According to GURPS, human brigands taught the Ghols how to use Dwarven cannons, so the Leveller's not the only agent. And, of course, there's no evidence of a Leveller ever facilitating the transfer of magic or technology from a Dark Race to a Light one. But you might argue that that's one reason why the Leveller chooses to take the same races under his wing every millennium as the Dark; he picks all the ones which, without his assistance, would be woefully inferior technologically and generally beat-upon, and gives them a boost.
: Moagim may actually have functioned to limit the krids,
: rather than elevating them. Surely, the end result of
: his actions was to get them killed off in the Tain.
: That seems rather indirect and contrary to what Moagim
: had in mind, granted, but the Leveller works in
: mysterious ways... perhaps it knew that unless it
: gathered the krids together and made them vulnerable,
: they would do exactly as you say. As to the ghols,
: though your point below about them not being so bad
: off now is a good one, the Leveller did force open
: conflict between them and the dwarves, which lead to
: the numbers of both races being cut considerably back.
: By encouraging a constant displacement of both races,
: as one or the other of the dwarven cities is occupied
: or liberated in turn, the Leveller manages to keep the
: two most dangerous peoples (dwarves for their
: technology, ghols for their numbers) from finding a
: safe homeland.
But the Dwarves have found a new and even safer homeland--the West. Thanks to the Leveller, they've been forced into an alliance with humans so closely that they actually function as a single political unit, "building new lives in the West." (Well, some do, while others serve Albrecht.) There's no chance of *ever* sowing discord between humans and Dwarves now. And as for the Ghols, they never seemed to *want* a homeland before. The Leveller's shooting himself in the foot by giving them a Dwarven city to live in, since they're now starting to get interested in civilized life--which brings them one step closer to the Light.
So you're saying Moagim *wanted* the Krids extinct? Doesn't that screw up the natural balance? It seems to me that a Leveller who wanted balance and population control would have just left the Krids alone to be the unfocused top-level predators they were originally. As such they were perfect for achieving the Leveller's aims; they roamed around attacking any large, dense, stationary population. By upgrading them, Moagim ensured that they'd either wipe everyone else out or get wiped out themselves.
: An excellent point, to which I have only a half-assed
: answer. My guess would be that there is enough
: scholarship and longitudinal studies of the cycle in
: the Mythworld that the cycle is an open secret. Every
: Leveller avatar who comes along will have been in a
: position, at some point, to have heard the story and
: know what is going to happen to him--surely Alric is
: aware of his own eventual fate. Rather than assume
: that the divinity speaks directly to his avatars, I
: would suggest that they are perfectly aware of what is
: happening to them because they've studied the old
: books as well. Certainly there is a certain kind of
: person who WANTS to become the Leveller--I'm thinking
: specifically here on Soulblighter, of course--and
: others who want anything but. There must be a chaired,
: tenured position at the University of Covenant in
: Leveller Studies. When Balor came back he would
: describe himself as the Leveller both because he knew
: he was right and because he wanted to inspire fear in
: his enemies. With his new god-like vision it wouldn't
: seem like such a bad thing to be.
This is quite true, but I was asking why they'd consider themselves to be the *same being,* rather than simply different representatives of the same category of "psychotic millennial warlord." That's why I brought up the Great Heroes; the same scholars are quite aware that a Great Hero arises every thousand years, but they don't consider the Hero to be a single, eternal entity with successive avatars. Why would they consider the Leveller to be such, unless there was some sort of obvious strong psychological continuity between incarnations?
: An interesting idea... hmm, but not really one I can
: respond to, without damaging my own theory... curse
: you, SiliconDream, you've lead me right into a trap!
: :)
A trap, yes...I got you to say "lead" instead of "led!" Dave made a grammatical error, everybody! Dave made a grammatical error! **points and continues to mock**
Ah, it's fun being a mature college student. So how would it damage your theory, anyway?
: Sorry--minor point--wasn't that Clovis? Or did I miss
: something?
Tireces founded Llancarfan; Clovis founded the Cath Bruig, using Llancarfan (which he renamed Muirthemne) as its capital. That's why I said Tireces "enabled" the creation of the empire--he didn't do it himself, but I don't think Clovis would have been able to form the Mythworld's first known human state if Tireces hadn't made the first known human city-state.
: My argument here would be that Connacht's legend was the
: greater and that power is at least half appearance,
: but pray, do go on...
And my rebuttal would be that Connacht's reputation and appearance would be useless and even detrimental to the Leveller, since he's recruiting from the Dark Races who hated him, and making war on the Light Races who loved him...hm...I think I will make that my rebuttal. :-)
: Okay, I may have been indulging in a bit of unintended
: hyperbole here--there are plenty of candidates for
: Best Hero Ever--but I think in general Connacht is the
: Big Name. Whether he was the most powerful man who
: ever lived is kind of a moot point, now that I think
: about it (I know I made a big deal out of it, and now
: I'm backing down--sue me :)). The point is, he was
: powerful enough to get the divinity's attention. I
: don't think anyone is arguing that he wasn't worthy of
: the mantle.
Oh, of course. No one else alive at the time came close to Connacht's level--unless, of course, The Head was around...and was Moagim! But HE'S NOT! HE'S NOT!
: Here I was trying to clear up a small but important
: mystery and in twenty-one words you've shot me down.
: Nice one!
Aw, shucks. And here I thought you were going to respond with, "Tireces changed his name because he wanted to hide from the Leveller too; they didn't change their names back after they knew they were Levellers because their Dark Legions had gotten used to their old names, and also might react unfavorably to learning that they were working for former Great Heroes." All that anxiety for nothing. :-)
: Did he know that? Anyway, my feeling was that he attacked
: anyone who refused to acknowledge him as
: Emperor--putting down a mutiny, as he would have seen
: it--and my intention was to try to explain the lengthy
: gap between the razing of Muirthemne and the beginning
: of the Great War. He wanted to re-consolidate his
: power base. His power base had been the old empire.
: Therefore, he would attack the entirety of the old
: empire but would stop at the Cloudspine until he was
: given a serious provocation--in this case, the
: formation of the Nine, which represented an enemy
: superpower arming itself to take away what was his by
: right.
I think GURPS adequately explains the gap; Balor was already fighting the West (or at least the Nine and their forces), it just wasn't on their home turf yet and therefore wasn't thought of as the Great War by most humans, who hadn't yet gotten involved. Also, of course, he was jumping up and down on the Dwarves.
And I don't know how many years you really need to re-consolidate several thousand square miles of dead, burning sand. :-)
: His army was comprised mostly of dark units. To him that
: would seem like a valid political expediency. To
: everyone else it would look like treason against his
: very humanity. I think his grand master plan was to
: become ruler of the Mythworld; the tactics he used to
: reach that end were what changed. With his god-like
: perspective, setting the entire continent on fire
: wouldn't invalidate his claim to rulership while to
: everyone else, with their limited human sensoria, that
: would make him look like a stone cold destroyer.
No arguments here. Balor thought he should rule, and not because he'd put a chicken in every pot.
: That the Great Heroes take unbelievable risks and make
: unthinkable sacrifices is understandable, since they
: feel they're fighting an unstoppable evil that wants
: only to destroy. That the Levellers might not expect
: that seems sensible to me as well--these are humans
: they're fighting, and humans aren't suicidal in
: general.
: Again, I probably overstated my case for reasons that
: seemed valid at the time. I do feel that Alric acted
: like a truly desperate man and that the risks he took
: were unconscionable--after all, if his zerks hadn't
: beheaded Balor, there would have been no Legion left
: to stop the bastard and the whole Mythworld would have
: gone down with their leader. However, since he won,
: and we all saw him win, and history vindicates the
: victors, the general feeling is that Alric didn't do
: anything so very rash.
But we know that all the previous Great Heroes in
his position accomplished the exact same outcome (with the exception of personal survival)--they died, the Leveller died, and the Light forces were exterminated. If Alric knew anything about the cycle, he must have been aware that his army was doomed to destruction in any event; all they were meant to do was take down the Leveller before succumbing.
: The thing is, we don't know what previous Great Heroes
: had to do to win. Whether they sacrificed their entire
: armies is an academic question. It's my personal
: feeling and opinion that this Great War was a lot
: worse than all the others. I'm basing this on the
: evidence we have that Balor's actions far outstripped
: the perfidy of any other Leveller--specifically, the
: total destruction of the entire Cath Bruig empire. It
: seems to me that magic and technology have come so far
: at this point that mutually assured destruction is the
: only policy left for the Hero to pursue. We can agree
: to disagree, but it's my feeling that the cycle is
: getting worse over time, and that the Leveller isn't
: strong enough to keep the balance in the face of human
: and dwarven ingenuity.
Let us agree to disagree, then. My feeling is that, as a rule, the development of technology and magic is self-limiting; without the Cath Bruig's mages and craftsmen, the next Leveller wouldn't have the tools to do nearly so much damage, and so a new empire would be able to arise. It also seems to me that, given the sheer terror the Myrkridia inspired, the ill-fated opponent of Moagim probably felt just as desperate as Alric did. But that's all my opinion.
: My theory was largely created to deal with the discussion
: over whether the cycle has been broken or not. From
: the human perspective, Alric's survival and the high
: quality of life in this "dark age" look like
: things that could break the cycle. From a godlike
: perspective I think it's just a minor glitch which
: will not keep the program from going ahead as
: scheduled.
I find it strange, though, that the most obvious way of correcting the program hasn't been used--simply to possess Alric himself, do some damage and get him killed.
: You make some good points, but I still think the ghols
: are in trouble. The dwarves have even more reason to
: hate them now and with the new dwarven technologies
: (which the ghols have only begun to understand, and
: apparently require non-ghol leadership to be
: effective), it's going to be one hell of a fireworks
: display for a while. With their godhead destroyed, the
: ghols have lost even their spiritual advantage
: (barring the idea that there might be more heads out
: there, which was suggested at one point but never
: really developed)--they're cut off from their old gods
: and their position as occupiers of half the dwarven
: homeland is at best a momentary thing. They've got it
: pretty good right now but they're about to become the
: targets of the biggest sh*tstorm to ever hit their
: race. Sounds like a dark age to me. Hey, has anyone
: ever suggested the parallels between the dwarf/ghol
: enmity and the Israeli/Palestinian debacle? That might
: be an interesting thread...
Oh my God, can you imagine the flamewar? "Hey, I think Arabs are very similar to Ghols, and Jews are just like Dwarves!" Now there's an issue you don't want to get into. :-)
I still think the Ghols are ahead in the game; the Dwarves were always far superior to them technologically, and even if they've got some new toys the Ghols now have some weapons that are on the same level. And as a historically nomadic race, the Ghols don't *need* a homeland like the Dwarves do. If they get beat on too badly, all they have to do is leave and they'll still be ahead, with their satchel charges and cannons and all.
And I doubt the Ghols were spiritually crushed by having their big rock blown up; pissed, yeah, but they don't seem to me like devout folk who can't live without religion. At least three generations have had a chance to grow up without ever having worshipped the godhead, too, so they're not feeling its absence.
: Hah! You found all the holes in my theory without even
: trying and you dug right in with your theoretical
: retractors... man, it's like open heart surgery
: sparring with you. Keep it up!
Open heart surgery will soon be a thing of the past, BTW; did you read about that? (Sorry to anyone who wants to shout "THIS IS NOT AN AOL CHATROOM!" at me. ;-)
: Sure, you can be one of our beta testers--I mean
: proofreaders! Really, thanks for saying that. As an
: aspiring (mostly read struggling) writer, it warms the
: cockles of my heart.
Yay! Prepare for interminable, insufferable, and frequently inaccurate criticisms of the science involved, though...;-)
--SiliconDream
