RuneScape Forum Archive | Second Age, Zarosian Humans

Pupppy

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I don't know, it seems really precipitate of Nabor, or of us even, to think that just because one chthonian individual had an uncontrollable hunger, then all of the race must of had as well.

If one human is a psychopath, does it mean that every one of us also are one?

And he was a psychiatrist for god sake, he of all people should have known that a select number of people have mental disorders.. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be such a cause for alarm, unless he took every case he found in his clinic to be so troublesome (ok, which might well be, if he only took the worst cases to investigate).

Anyways, my point is, if Nabor made such a drama for every little problem he found in there, he'd get Azzy and Zaros pretty tired of his empty threats, who would end up finally deciding to ignore all of his reports, even when some of them might of been legitimate trouble, such as conspiracies to to put down Zaros or to rise Xau-Tak.

07-Nov-2016 22:50:57 - Last edited on 07-Nov-2016 22:57:16 by Pupppy

Dec

2023

Cthris

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The Mather1 said :

On a brighter note however, it also carries the information that for all the corruption of the bureaucracy, benevolence was still existent within the church, as it suggests that his diocese may be keeping its people satisfied rather than just obedient.

I interpreted the letter in the opposite fashion.

The relevant text follows. "Our diocese is efficient, the taxes flow regularly, and the people are satisfied or, at least, obedient."

I don't believe it at all should be interpreted as suggesting his/her diocese is keeping people satisfied ? It shows a disconnectedness from the people and error in logic. From what he wrote, Madromurts measure of satisfiability is through a obedience/disobedience scale. This is quite the fallacy. His logic appears to be:

If satisfied then obedient
Obedient
-------------------------
Thus satisfied.

This is an example of the fallacy of affirming the consequent.

Madromurt doesn't actually know whether his/her people are satisfied, and which presumably is why he is relying on assumptions. Personally, I think a leader of a diocese who doesn't even know if his people are satisfied is a good indicator of error.

Original message details are unavailable.
It also again speaks of a degree of benevolence in the society, with Senecianus feeding Rowena and openly talking about such with his clients, and with his wariness of the fact that his size and form tends to intimidate humans.

It speaks anecdotally of a single benevolent demon, whom either did not possess the theory of mind to realize that humans name themselves, or thought so little of humans that it did not even occur to him that they were sophisticated enough to give themselves names. His ability to know what scares humans appears to contradict the possibility that he lacks theory of mind. Thus I am more willing to accept that he just thinks little of humans.

An anecdote is not a good indicator for larger society.

07-Nov-2016 22:57:05 - Last edited on 07-Nov-2016 23:12:06 by Cthris

Dec

2023

Cthris

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It is worth noting however, and I will continue to keep it in mind.

The Mather1 said :
.
It also gives us some brand new information; apparently the Chthonians' ravenous hunger was an unknown to the rest of empire, with Nabor only becoming aware of it following his interview with Senecianus.

I believe you misinterpreted the text. The relevant text is as follows. "More than this though, I wonder about what this means for the Cthonian population at large. How many more of them bear this repressed urge to devour which, once indulged, will break down all their mental fortitudes ."

Nabour was not wondering about how many Cthonian's had a ravenous hunger, but how many had a ravenous hunger that would cause mental instability once indulged.

I can further demonstrate this by demonstrating contradiction.

Hazeel's memory is a follows.

"... and without exception every Chthonian I have met slavered at the very thought of consuming its kin. There is a law in the empire against consuming humans, but I do not think they keep it very well, ...There are many forces that keep the streets of Senntisten clear of the homeless, and not all of them are economic.:

What you have interpreted is in contradiction with Hazeels memory. If Hazeel is aware that demons don't keep the law very well, then there must be a lot of Cthonians eating people. If lots of Cthonians are eating people then presumably a fair amount should know.

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Anyways, for my own opinions of the new scrolls.

While I enjoyed the lore and stories very much. I was especially interested in finding out about the Nomadic life of some of the menaphites, I am a little disappointed that we didn't learn much of anything about the empire. Here's hoping CoM will give rise to more details.

07-Nov-2016 23:08:59 - Last edited on 07-Nov-2016 23:15:56 by Cthris

Hguoh

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Pupppy said :
I don't know, it seems really precipitate of Nabor, or of us even, to think that just because one chthonian individual had an uncontrollable hunger, then all of the race must of had as well.

If one human is a psychopath, does it mean that every one of us also are one?

And he was a psychiatrist for god sake, he of all people should have known that a select number of people have mental disorders.. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be such a cause for alarm, unless he took every case he found in his clinic to be so troublesome (ok, which might well be, if he only took the worst cases to investigate)

Well he clearly wasn't completely correct (Hostilius, for example, didn't go mad from consuming things), but, given the feral state of most Chthonians now, I wouldn't say he was too far off.

Based on the Chthonian system of government, I'd hazard a guess that most Chthonians have such hunger and many/most of those require sufficient incentives against it to remain 'civilized.' Too little pressure against the hunger, and the disadvantages of giving in to the hunger fail to outweigh the benefits. Too much, and you rapidly deplete the population.

Hostilius seemed to have reached and maintained this delicate balance for his species (perhaps unsustainably given his interest in Zaros's offer). The Zarosian empire, on the other hand, exerted significantly less pressure against the hunger (the laws were believed to be loosely enforced at best). With the empire's division and subsequent collapse, the pressures would have dropped to nearly nothing, leading to the Chthonians' steady fall decline into their current feral state.

07-Nov-2016 23:14:04

Dec

2023

Cthris

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I unfortunately have to disagree with your assertion that it was a lack of pressure to not gorge oneself that lead to the feral state of nature that the Cthonians are in.

I believe that it is a far more likely case that the Cthonians are in the feral nature that they are due to two reasons.

During any war soldiers are needed.
The Cthonians went to war against the Avernic.
Thus they needed soldiers.

The Cthonians are able to spawn other Cthonians demons that are biologically designed to meet the spawn-father's need. (Will provide jmod quote should anyone require it)
If the Cthonians needed soldiers, and Cthonians build other Cthonians to suite their needs, then it follows that the Cthonians were spawning soldiers for their war.

Now nothing can come from nothing, thus spawning would presumably cost some sort of energy.
It would make sense that a Cthonian who is smart and strong would cost more energy than a cthonian who is just strong.
So it is most likely that the cthonians were spawning tons and tons of dumb Cthonians.

If there is a high number of dumb cthonians and a low number of smart cthonians then the dumb cthonians are more likely to survive.

This is where my second stipulation comes into play.

The dumb Cthonians have been cast into the abyss.
There is no food in the abyss.
Food makes Cthonians smart.
No food, no way to make dumb Cthonians smart.

Also keep in mind that Hazeel suggest that the Cthonians do not keep the law of not eating humans very well. Yet there is only one recorded case of a Cthonian going crazy from eating a human. It doesn't follow that eating humans make cthonians any more likely to become mentally unstable.

07-Nov-2016 23:54:56 - Last edited on 07-Nov-2016 23:58:49 by Cthris

Hguoh

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I'm not so sure of that. Aesa Fellsdottir's recollection of Duke Cacus's memories seems to corroborate my conclusion:

Cacus's master - Hostilius - was a thing even more massive, that Cacus could not hope to devour. That master laid down rules that forbade the consumption of exquisite kinflesh, so order and stability might flourish in place of anarchy and chaos. In return for acceding to and supporting this law, Cacus and those as powerful as he were granted high station in a devilish hierarchy that spanned their world. Cacus was made a duke among monsters, and ruled - for a time - over the demons he made into slaves.

In other words, it took a far superior power (Hostilius and the Dukes) to make the Chthonians suppress their desire to feed. Furthermore:

As for Cacus, he fought for his sundered home, lost, and was forced out. He eschewed his kin - who scavenged and picked over the remains of their once-master - and made his own way into the great beyond. There he stayed for an age, accompanied only by wretched self-pity and thoughts of revenge. He fed on the detritus brought to him on Abyssal currents, and scratched his inscrutable thoughts on parchment fastened to his own body, in order that they would not drift away. After long aeons, the ebb and flow of the Abyss brought him close to our world, and he was filled with hunger - both for living meat and for dominion over others.

Which would indicate that even Cacus, one of Hostilius's Dukes, was driven to the verge of madness after the collapse of Chthonian society.

08-Nov-2016 00:24:10 - Last edited on 08-Nov-2016 00:27:30 by Hguoh

Hazeel

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In Broken Home, he said it was the guilt that drove him insane. Given the lack of moral conscious for most Cthonians, as well as the fact that most, if not all, of them view humans as unintelligent animals, I doubt many of them would break down from consuming them. 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-Nov-2016 00:24:54

Hguoh

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Hazeel said :
In Broken Home, he said it was the guilt that drove him insane. Given the lack of moral conscious for most Cthonians, as well as the fact that most, if not all, of them view humans as unintelligent animals, I doubt many of them would break down from consuming them.

Chthonians don't have consciouses?

Strange:

Finally, its eyes glazed over with hopelessness, as the beast came to the realization of its fate, and its powerlessness to avert it. Even I almost balked at our new lord's actions, not wishing such a cruel torture on even my most ruthless opponents - except perhaps Duke Picus and his blasted omens. I wondered at Zaros's motives.

That was Duke Nemesis.

Granted, that's only 2 Chthonians, but we don't really get to interact with ones that aren't feral that often.

08-Nov-2016 00:44:59

Dec

2023

Cthris

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Hguoh said :

Which would indicate that even Cacus, one of Hostilius's Dukes, was driven to the verge of madness after the collapse of Chthonian society.

No not really.

I will deal with Cacus first.

First of all, there is no clear indication of the moment of his divergence from sanity. Maybe he was already messed up before the fall of the empire, maybe he used to much of his essence to create spawns. Who knows when, and how he became messed up. "He eschewed his kin" seems to imply he already had an atypical thought pattern.

Secondly, co-relation is not causation. You cannot infer that the lack of the empire caused Cacus to become insane.

Aesa's account does not collaborate your claim any more than it collaborates mine.

In regards to the first part of your response. I shall need you to elaborate on how that implies that the Cthonians can go from a state of non feralness to a state of feralness due to unregulated consumption.

Even if A causes B, it is not necessarily so that not B is the result of not A. ( A > B =/= ~A > ~B)
So even if you do prove that (A) regulated rules cause non-feralness (B) you cannot prove that not A means not B.

For the record, defining a society as having anarchy and chaos also does not imply that the individuals who make up the anarchy and chaos in said society were feral. To assume so would be to take up the fallacy of composition. For example, each member could be so atavistic that it causes all attempts to form a society to fail, and thus cause the society to resemble chaotic and filled with anarchy.

08-Nov-2016 01:01:26 - Last edited on 08-Nov-2016 01:04:14 by Cthris

Hguoh

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Cthris said :
First of all, there is no clear indication of the moment of his divergence from sanity. Maybe he was already messed up before the fall of the empire, maybe he used to much of his essence to create spawns. Who knows when, and how he became messed up. "He eschewed his kin" seems to imply he already had an atypical thought pattern.

Come on now, let's see the full line:

As for Cacus, he fought for his sundered home, lost, and was forced out. He eschewed his kin - who scavenged and picked over the remains of their once-master - and made his own way into the great beyond.

Eschewed is a fancy word for leaving behind. It's not that he had an atypical thought pattern, he just refused to live in Hostilius's corpse with the rest of them.

And as for a precise moment when he went nutty, here's the very next line:

There he stayed for an age, accompanied only by wretched self-pity and thoughts of revenge. He fed on the detritus brought to him on Abyssal currents, and scratched his inscrutable thoughts on parchment fastened to his own body, in order that they would not drift away. After long aeons, the ebb and flow of the Abyss brought him close to our world, and he was filled with hunger - both for living meat and for dominion over others.

He started tying his notes to his body, anticipating his insanity, and by the time he came near Gielinor again he was driven by hunger.

08-Nov-2016 01:19:05

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