Whew! I was worried for Nisha. I do NOT want to see what Zoltan will become if she is crippled or killed.
I mis-read a paragraph. I initially thought the dopur got its hooves on opposing banisters and slid the fuck down.
A ring of those walking carpets surrounding a village and slowly - over days - closing in is quite creepy. That's patience, not a creature acting on immediate instinct. Brrrr. Kinda like how the single creepiest Dalek in post-2005 Doctor Who was the "Ironside" who let 11 smash it with a bat when every instinct was screaming to exterminate (then the New Paradigm debuted and immediately proved themselves impatient and stupid, but that's a different discussion).
Horror themes from the younglings? Can't say I'm surprised. "Post-Covid" and a new potential world war, among other things... We had a good run from about 1990-2015 where, while the world remained imperfect, things were objectively getting better. 25 years of improvement and growth came to a screeching halt (also a different discussion).
For now I'll just be satisfied two fictional characters seem headed for recovery. 👍
That was my understanding of the 1990-2015 period as well (I was 10 in 1990, for reference). Retrospectively, I now realise that my perception of "everything getting better" was also due to my particular perspective as a white, English, straight, middle-class man. It wasn't so rosy for everyone.
I think what changed around 2016 is that a lot of the societal problems affecting specific groups suddenly expanded to include a lot more people. That horrible sense of not fitting in, of not being able to trust your neighbours of your government or the police, of feeling like an outcast in your own country: that all hit me around 2016 - for obvious reasons - and that sense of impending dread has remained ever since. From an empathy point of view, it's oddly valuable to help me partially understand how certain minorities have felt *all the time*. That acute sense of "I am not safe within my society". Bit of an awakening for idle/naive people like me who had always assumed that the world was great for everyone, just like it was for me.
Which loops back around to the kids in the workshop. They've had covid, Brexit, Trump, austerity, Ukraine, and now a cost of living crisis on the end of it all. Some of that they'd only have been vaguely aware of, given their ages, but that sense of anxiety filters down through parents and news programs and playgrounds. Combine it with the helplessness of being a child, where you don't yet have any direct agency, and it's not great.
Back to the chapter at hand: Yeah, the idea of the dopur (or a horde of dopur) having deliberate patience and strategy is pretty chilling, I thought. Something I've always liked in scifi/horror movies is when you see how hard it is to kill/escape from ONE creature - the first bug you see in Starship Troopers, or the single xenomorph in Alien - and then the next scene shows A WHOLE BUNCH of them. It creates a visceral "oh crap" moment. That's not quite the case here, as we're only dealing with the single creature, but Vahko's stories I hope are evocative of how BAD things can get.
When I say from 1990-2015 things objectively improved, I am speaking literally, on macro/global scale, not from my viewpoint as a cis/het upper-middle class white American male. One of many talks given at/by the Center for Inquiry (I used to be the videographer who did the monthly seminars) was the yearly "Things are getting better" breakdown. In 1990 40% of the world population lived under the poverty line established by the UN. In 2015 just 7% of the world population lived under that poverty line. That's 7% too many, but 7% is a billions less than 40%. That's objective improvement. In 2021 that poverty number was back at 10%. That's objectively getting worse. From 1990-2015 child mortality went down, global vaccination rates rose, leading to fewer cases of disease. Global lifespan increased, global hunger decreased. LGBTQA rights actually went from non-existent to extant in most of the world (although, here, again, is room to improve). Most countries on the World Freedom Index (started in 2000) got freer from 2000-2015. Since 2015 lifespans have begun to drop again, vaccinations are down poverty is rising, and countries are becoming less free. Shit really is getting worse.
The USA, pre-Trump was #13 on the World Freedom Index. For 2022 its #19. With what the US SCOTUS has done this year, next year it'll be out of the top 20. Ireland is #5. I note here that the Freedom Index is put together by a US right-wing/Libertarian think tank with a Canadian right-wing/Libertarian think tank and a German right-wing/Libertarian think tank taking much of the raw data from the US CIA. When Irish ask Laura and I why we moved from California to Ireland we site this particular index and end with, "So, you see, we traded up and moved to a better country! Even the US CIA says so!"
Note all percentages given above are rounded to an integer. Note there's a point or two in variation, depending on who did the counting. Still, I stand by 1990-2015 being an amazing, global period of overall growth. And three things messed it up. The newly-energized idiots in your country, the newly-energized idiots in the country of my birth, and the ex-KGB guy who spent 25 years planning his moves while ongoing global prosperity made us complacent. We'll let the implied politics (and the warning signs dating back to 2008 or so) there slide for now as, on most of these topics you and I are pretty much in agreement...
So, yeah, the poor kids you're mentioning - they don't know what they missed out on, but are reeling from multiple global crises, multiple local crises, and their parents being in "WTF HAPPENED?" shock. Sucks for us and them. We can but hope the forces of somewhat-sanity which had worked to improve the world can rally again. It's not easy when a small, but very rich and quite powerful sociopaths wield so much disproportionate power. Musk can suck it.
Yes, Vakho's tale is effective. The "one almost killed us, oh, shit!, there's a whole bunch of then!" trope works for good reasons. Especially when the baddie is smart... You brought up the Alien franchise; as scary as the xenomorphs are, the scariest image in the whole franchise (for me) is in the much maligned "Alien: Resurrection" when Brad Douriff's corporate scientist dude straps people into harnesses with eggs and they freaking super-slo-mo a facehugger. The Xenomorphs are scary because they are implacable, impartial and uncaring forces of nature. Yet, as scary as they are they are not evil - they are just fulfilling their life cycle. That human trying to harness the unharnessable with forethought and deliberation... That is evil. Didn't work out so well.
It would be a lot harder than taking down a human, but probably not impossible. And in their natural habitat, dopur ordinarily hunt in packs - in which case basically ANY creature is screwed, once you're surrounded.
Then again, most koth can fly away, so as long as they're not taken by surprise they'd probably have a good chance of escaping.
Whew! I was worried for Nisha. I do NOT want to see what Zoltan will become if she is crippled or killed.
I mis-read a paragraph. I initially thought the dopur got its hooves on opposing banisters and slid the fuck down.
A ring of those walking carpets surrounding a village and slowly - over days - closing in is quite creepy. That's patience, not a creature acting on immediate instinct. Brrrr. Kinda like how the single creepiest Dalek in post-2005 Doctor Who was the "Ironside" who let 11 smash it with a bat when every instinct was screaming to exterminate (then the New Paradigm debuted and immediately proved themselves impatient and stupid, but that's a different discussion).
Horror themes from the younglings? Can't say I'm surprised. "Post-Covid" and a new potential world war, among other things... We had a good run from about 1990-2015 where, while the world remained imperfect, things were objectively getting better. 25 years of improvement and growth came to a screeching halt (also a different discussion).
For now I'll just be satisfied two fictional characters seem headed for recovery. 👍
That was my understanding of the 1990-2015 period as well (I was 10 in 1990, for reference). Retrospectively, I now realise that my perception of "everything getting better" was also due to my particular perspective as a white, English, straight, middle-class man. It wasn't so rosy for everyone.
I think what changed around 2016 is that a lot of the societal problems affecting specific groups suddenly expanded to include a lot more people. That horrible sense of not fitting in, of not being able to trust your neighbours of your government or the police, of feeling like an outcast in your own country: that all hit me around 2016 - for obvious reasons - and that sense of impending dread has remained ever since. From an empathy point of view, it's oddly valuable to help me partially understand how certain minorities have felt *all the time*. That acute sense of "I am not safe within my society". Bit of an awakening for idle/naive people like me who had always assumed that the world was great for everyone, just like it was for me.
Which loops back around to the kids in the workshop. They've had covid, Brexit, Trump, austerity, Ukraine, and now a cost of living crisis on the end of it all. Some of that they'd only have been vaguely aware of, given their ages, but that sense of anxiety filters down through parents and news programs and playgrounds. Combine it with the helplessness of being a child, where you don't yet have any direct agency, and it's not great.
Back to the chapter at hand: Yeah, the idea of the dopur (or a horde of dopur) having deliberate patience and strategy is pretty chilling, I thought. Something I've always liked in scifi/horror movies is when you see how hard it is to kill/escape from ONE creature - the first bug you see in Starship Troopers, or the single xenomorph in Alien - and then the next scene shows A WHOLE BUNCH of them. It creates a visceral "oh crap" moment. That's not quite the case here, as we're only dealing with the single creature, but Vahko's stories I hope are evocative of how BAD things can get.
When I say from 1990-2015 things objectively improved, I am speaking literally, on macro/global scale, not from my viewpoint as a cis/het upper-middle class white American male. One of many talks given at/by the Center for Inquiry (I used to be the videographer who did the monthly seminars) was the yearly "Things are getting better" breakdown. In 1990 40% of the world population lived under the poverty line established by the UN. In 2015 just 7% of the world population lived under that poverty line. That's 7% too many, but 7% is a billions less than 40%. That's objective improvement. In 2021 that poverty number was back at 10%. That's objectively getting worse. From 1990-2015 child mortality went down, global vaccination rates rose, leading to fewer cases of disease. Global lifespan increased, global hunger decreased. LGBTQA rights actually went from non-existent to extant in most of the world (although, here, again, is room to improve). Most countries on the World Freedom Index (started in 2000) got freer from 2000-2015. Since 2015 lifespans have begun to drop again, vaccinations are down poverty is rising, and countries are becoming less free. Shit really is getting worse.
The USA, pre-Trump was #13 on the World Freedom Index. For 2022 its #19. With what the US SCOTUS has done this year, next year it'll be out of the top 20. Ireland is #5. I note here that the Freedom Index is put together by a US right-wing/Libertarian think tank with a Canadian right-wing/Libertarian think tank and a German right-wing/Libertarian think tank taking much of the raw data from the US CIA. When Irish ask Laura and I why we moved from California to Ireland we site this particular index and end with, "So, you see, we traded up and moved to a better country! Even the US CIA says so!"
Note all percentages given above are rounded to an integer. Note there's a point or two in variation, depending on who did the counting. Still, I stand by 1990-2015 being an amazing, global period of overall growth. And three things messed it up. The newly-energized idiots in your country, the newly-energized idiots in the country of my birth, and the ex-KGB guy who spent 25 years planning his moves while ongoing global prosperity made us complacent. We'll let the implied politics (and the warning signs dating back to 2008 or so) there slide for now as, on most of these topics you and I are pretty much in agreement...
So, yeah, the poor kids you're mentioning - they don't know what they missed out on, but are reeling from multiple global crises, multiple local crises, and their parents being in "WTF HAPPENED?" shock. Sucks for us and them. We can but hope the forces of somewhat-sanity which had worked to improve the world can rally again. It's not easy when a small, but very rich and quite powerful sociopaths wield so much disproportionate power. Musk can suck it.
Yes, Vakho's tale is effective. The "one almost killed us, oh, shit!, there's a whole bunch of then!" trope works for good reasons. Especially when the baddie is smart... You brought up the Alien franchise; as scary as the xenomorphs are, the scariest image in the whole franchise (for me) is in the much maligned "Alien: Resurrection" when Brad Douriff's corporate scientist dude straps people into harnesses with eggs and they freaking super-slo-mo a facehugger. The Xenomorphs are scary because they are implacable, impartial and uncaring forces of nature. Yet, as scary as they are they are not evil - they are just fulfilling their life cycle. That human trying to harness the unharnessable with forethought and deliberation... That is evil. Didn't work out so well.
When Vahko is concerned about these things, that's not a good sign. I wonder if a dopur could take down a koth?
It would be a lot harder than taking down a human, but probably not impossible. And in their natural habitat, dopur ordinarily hunt in packs - in which case basically ANY creature is screwed, once you're surrounded.
Then again, most koth can fly away, so as long as they're not taken by surprise they'd probably have a good chance of escaping.
Surrounded, stunned, and eaten by a pack of living rugs. What a way to go.
Be quite comfy, at least.