RuneScape Forum Archive | Godhood and Genetics

Jun

2010

Half Centaur

Posts: 6,959 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Alright, so I've been seeing a few interesting theories now after the big Khazard reveal, and I'd like to take this chance to dispel some misconceptions- because people seem to think it's a really big deal or something.

We already know, from Mod commentary, that God's are still kind of members of their original race. Just like their race + Godhood powers.

So, think of Saradomin as a Human +. The '+' denoting all the special powers granted by godhood. Same thing goes for Armadyl being Aviansie +, and Bandos being rhino +.

All these races are inherently mortal races. "What do you mean by that Half?" I'll tell you-

They are born in a completely biological matter- there is no magical "cost" to a birth. They're just like humans in the real world- and while they may have exceptional magic ability, they have no extra powers beyond what we would normally expect from their race.

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Then there's mahjarrat. The mahjarrat are born with an innate divine access. It "costs" energy if you will, for them to have offspring. If you check Seren's memories from FotG, you can see this is true-

"Even when she does lapse back into semi-consciousness all she does is wail and scream and hurt herself. For such times, I taught the tribes how to drain some of her energy and use it create more of their kind."

They're ritual of enervation, as they call their naughty time, is essentially a means of siphoning energy from Mah, to keep themselves alive. This energy would then be sacrificed up again to Mah when she was falling into Nightmares (dreaming up Muspah).

So imagine that each Dream of Mah (including Zaros and Seren) have a set amount of divine energy they are born with. When a new mahjarrat is born, they take some energy from Mah to facilitate this. When Mahjarrat die- they give it back. "We call it being a hero"

"That's interesting, we call it utter stupidity"

08-Dec-2016 20:34:32

Jun

2010

Half Centaur

Posts: 6,959 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

On Gielinor, their energies depleted naturally- judging from CoM, it was Mah draining the Mahjarrat- and this process only accelerated and spread to Zaros and Seren, once Mah woke.

So, as the divine energy depleted, they would need to sacrifice one another in order to redistribute the energy and keep themselves strong.

From all of this, we know that, divine energy has been a crucial aspect of their life cycle- and you can't just create another Mahjarrat without more of it. Same should apply to gods, as they also consist of divine energy.

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So, when Palkeera birthed Khazard- it left her weak, due to the drain on her own energy- which perhaps Zamorak supplemented at some point to help her, just as we know Zemouregal Senior assisted in the process on Freneskae.

Khazard was born with the same powers of a normal mahjarrat, so same amount of energy, just a more noteworthy parentage.

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Then there's Tumeken and his kids. In order to give birth to gods, I imagine Elidinis and Tumeken had to invest their energy into their children as well. This only makes sense- otherwise, you'd imagine they'd have many many more kids after all- from a purely utilitarian stand point, they were at war and if they could just create more gods who would fight with them- they'd probably do it. So would any god for that matter. There needs to be some cost in terms of energy, otherwise its just too easy.

Perhaps Tumeken replicated this process once more in the creation of the rest of the pantheon- as a way to build on this idea of investing his energy in other beings. "We call it being a hero"

"That's interesting, we call it utter stupidity"

08-Dec-2016 20:34:45 - Last edited on 08-Dec-2016 20:43:10 by Half Centaur

Hazeel

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Given that the oracle refers to Khazard has having some kind of special potential to reach as opposed as the Mahjarrat as a whole, I think he has gained something from having a God as a parent. It certainly begs the question of where this potential comes from....and trust me, as his mentor, I can tell you it isn't his charisma or hard working attitude. Runescape doesn't need a hero...it needs a villain. An all encompassing force of evil that will remain ever-threatening and use chaos to make the peoples of Gielinor tolerate each other, grow strong together, and fight side by side against this evil. I am that villain.

08-Dec-2016 21:42:15

Oct

2005

Wahisietel

Posts: 3,426 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hazeel said :
Given that the oracle refers to Khazard has having some kind of special potential to reach as opposed as the Mahjarrat as a whole, I think he has gained something from having a God as a parent. It certainly begs the question of where this potential comes from....and trust me, as his mentor, I can tell you it isn't his charisma or hard working attitude.

Vague dialogue written in 2006 is probably not relevant. Especially since Khazard wasn't even implied to be a Mahjarrat until 2007. You never were our brightest star, Khazard. 'Vermin slaughtered like lambs'? What does that even mean?

08-Dec-2016 21:58:34

Dec

2023

Cthris

Posts: 5,206 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I'm not a fan of linking godhood and genetics.

Some quick 101 genetic science. In each cell you have chromosomes. Different species of animals have different numbers of chromosomes. Most humans have 46 fyi. When cells replicate, they also replicate the chromosomes so that every cell has chromosomes. All living organisms come from a single cells that was created through either sexual or asexual reproduction. Let's just ignore asexual reproduction for now because it's probably not relevant. In the case of sexual reproduction, the chromosomes your original cell has comes from two haploid cells from each parent organism. These are half cells in the sense that they contain half the chromosomes from each parent. Chromosomes contain dna, which are complex chemical structures containing genes. Genes release specialized proteins which contain information to tell the cell to build further proteins in a special way, which then are used as building blocks to build individual bodies. Now this part is important. Genes perform a function, and as such they contain information. This information is stored in their structure, and as such they take up space . For the record, not all genes actually do anything. Some have to receive special instructions from epigenetic proteins to turn on.

(Continued)

08-Dec-2016 22:16:08

Dec

2023

Cthris

Posts: 5,206 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Now in regards to RS gods. One attribute of Godhood is the ability to shapeshift. This ability cannot be contained within a gene. Gods can shapeshift into near anything. If we link the shapeshifting ability to a genetic capacity and claim that the genes are capable of telling the cells to produce an infinite, or near infinite amount of different kinds of proteins used to create the various forms they take, this must mean that the genetic information must be contained in some or all of the genes. But information takes up space, thus the individual gene bands must be massive, possibly even infinitely big. (Since we haven't actually seen any limit in the types of materials a god could shift shape into) Infinitely big or even massive (and I'm talking massive genes like at least one being as big as a house taking into consideration all the types of materials their cells would have to make, including metal) wouldn't even work because there is no way the gods could take on forms as small as they have taken. Of course you could suggest they just have massive amounts of normal size genes, but then there's the problem with massive sized dna strands and we are stuck with the same problem.

Further problems would include that the one haploid would dwarf the other haploid making reproduction hard... if not impossible. Not to mention, that if a diploid cell was even created, it would be near impossible for it to sustain itself through normal cell replication since it would have to replicate massive amounts of genetic information.

there would be no way mortal cells would be able to replicate

(Continued)

08-Dec-2016 22:27:46 - Last edited on 08-Dec-2016 22:28:17 by Cthris

Dec

2023

Cthris

Posts: 5,206 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Personally for me, I think it is far more believable that godhood does not lie in the dn. Instead I think all the information for godhood is contained within the divine energy. That would make Gods beings of pure energy.

The mahjarrat are a good example of this. In Children of Mah, when Mah was draining the mahjarrat of their energy, one at least was forced to revert to skeletal form. this indicates that mahjarrat flesh is not made of proteins. (Because flesh proteins wouldn' decay that quickly due to an outside force.) Instead, it seems like their flesh is made from pure energy, which also explains why they can shapeshift.

Now if Godhood is separate from dna, which it has too as shown above, then godhood would not be passed down through breeding.

Now you might raise the point about Elidness. You might say, "But Cthris, Elidniss passed down godhood through birth, doesn't this prove your point wrong?"

No it doesn't. See we don't know how Elidness gave birth. My own personal belief is she ascended while pregnant, and the energy transfer partly went to her unborn twins making them demi-gods. Thematically it makes sense, seeing as she is the god of fertility.

So yeah, that's why I don't think Gods can pass on godhood through genetics.

08-Dec-2016 22:36:59

Hazeel

Posts: 6,735 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Wahisietel said :
Hazeel said :
Given that the oracle refers to Khazard has having some kind of special potential to reach as opposed as the Mahjarrat as a whole, I think he has gained something from having a God as a parent. It certainly begs the question of where this potential comes from....and trust me, as his mentor, I can tell you it isn't his charisma or hard working attitude.

Vague dialogue written in 2006 is probably not relevant. Especially since Khazard wasn't even implied to be a Mahjarrat until 2007.

I recall that some of the oracle dialogue--including the "dream", the "daughter", and Wen were added significantly later. Runescape doesn't need a hero...it needs a villain. An all encompassing force of evil that will remain ever-threatening and use chaos to make the peoples of Gielinor tolerate each other, grow strong together, and fight side by side against this evil. I am that villain.

08-Dec-2016 22:46:55

Oct

2005

Wahisietel

Posts: 3,426 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hazeel said :
Wahisietel said :
Hazeel said :
Given that the oracle refers to Khazard has having some kind of special potential to reach as opposed as the Mahjarrat as a whole, I think he has gained something from having a God as a parent. It certainly begs the question of where this potential comes from....and trust me, as his mentor, I can tell you it isn't his charisma or hard working attitude.

Vague dialogue written in 2006 is probably not relevant. Especially since Khazard wasn't even implied to be a Mahjarrat until 2007.

I recall that some of the oracle dialogue--including the "dream", the "daughter", and Wen were added significantly later.

Only the Wen dialogue, pretty sure the rest has been there since the Dragon Slayer rework in 2007 (I was wrong when I said it was 2006, so apologies.) I'll have to check in OSRS at some point.

Anyway, back on topic, but do we even know if Amascut and Icthlarin are actually Tumeken @ Elidinis's biological children? Or that they weren't born as mortals, and didn't ascend until later? You never were our brightest star, Khazard. 'Vermin slaughtered like lambs'? What does that even mean?

09-Dec-2016 01:01:13

Jun

2010

Half Centaur

Posts: 6,959 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hazeel said :
Given that the oracle refers to Khazard has having some kind of special potential to reach as opposed as the Mahjarrat as a whole,

What are you talking about?

Is it this line from 2006?

"The final dream will reach its full potential"

That really says nothing of Khazard being special in anyway, to be honest. For all we know it has more to do with the Lunar clan than the mahjarrat.

Cthris said :

So yeah, that's why I don't think Gods can pass on godhood through genetics.

Glad we agree. I only wanted to use in-universe sources though, rather than rely on actual real world science. "We call it being a hero"

"That's interesting, we call it utter stupidity"

09-Dec-2016 02:16:45 - Last edited on 09-Dec-2016 02:18:12 by Half Centaur

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Godhood and Genetics