This is material from the Ice Cave. It has been trimmed but not formatted.
From: "Andrew D. Gable"
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 14:07:49 -0400
First off, a preface. This probably doesn't mean anything, but when I first read "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" back in eighth grade, my first mental image of the Deep Ones was something along the lines of a Shoggoth.
Based on what I know of Yidhra (sketchy, to say the least), she seems to me like an Uber-Shoggoth. The female analogue to Ubbo-Sathla.
Geez, great minds think alike. I always saw parallels with Shoggoths and protomatter, Proto-shoggoths and Protomatter Spawn. I came up with an idea that the creation of protomatter and protomatter implants is an attempt by the Fun Guys to create their version of Shoggoths.
The Mi-go obviously have some control over "independent" protomatter (witness Operation CONVERGENCE), so here's the devious plot I've come up with: the Mi-go are endeavoring, first of all, to create a stable form of protomatter. After they figure out how to get it stable, they'll modify it slightly, injecting some DNA of their choosing. Then, at a specified time, the protomatter'll launch an assault on the person's genetic make-up, putting in its own stuff. Thing is, what would the Mi-go want to turn us into?
It seems to me this plot could also be exploited by the Brothers of the Yellow Sign.
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 21:50:43 +0200
From: Davide Mana
Andrew wrote something that started me thinking along a new line. All this is crazy and highly apocryphal, and there are much more questions than answers, I fear, but humor me for a while.
Q: can you "seed" protomatter with DNA?
Protomatter, being… well, _proto-_ stuff, it should be rather low as far as internal organization goes.
Now, what if you can simply inject it with the apropriate DNA in order to induce the required organization? And then, after that, the inseminated protomatter goes on replicating in its newly informed way?
DNA is a wonderful expert system - it can follow the program, and yet update it (and itself) to take variations in the environment into account. DNA as software for protomatter machines?
All those Ultra-Darwinian egoist-gene theories that are generally frowned upon by palaeontologists and see all life as just some special effects helping DNA to replicate itself might hold a much more sinister truth than we think.
A handful of palaeontologists are interned every year as they snap under pressure (the families think they are somewhere on sabbathical) trying to understand the complex link/feedback between environmental pressure, evolution and genetics.
If somebody simply designed DNA as a tool with in-built evolutionary capabilities, everything's suddenly very very simple.
Now, how's that for a basic overview of minimum Elder Thing technology? Were they a race of genetic engeneers so advanced they simply created a DNA for the tool they needed and then used it to infect protomatter as needed? We know precious little about that, but we know they used shoggots, that are probably just a step above protomatter. Shoggots could be the minimum organization form - sort of the Elder Thing swiss army knife tool. The kind of thing you'd carry with you to camping.
On the other hand, when we say Protomatter, we think Mi-Go - because of their dealings with MJ-12 and all the rest.
We know they're smart.
And devious.
And we know they can create synthetic beings.
Q: do the MiGo have access to Elder Thing technology? Complete, no holds barred access to ET technology?
Now what if the Funguys do not have _complete_ control over the process?
You have to admit those funny-looking, five-fold simmetrical critters were pretty advanced, back then long time ago. And from the data in "At The Mountains of Madness", it seems the Elder Things were closer to us, as far as psychological makeup and general outlook on things, than the Funguys will ever be.
We shared "something" (curiosity? will to live? soul?) So what if the Mi-Go are so active and enquiring where humans are concerned because they have access to the end results of the ET technology, as a form of scavenger technology, but not possess the base know-how to duplicate it. Maybe they hope to find something within us…
Project Genome: does DNA carry an attached help-file?
Think about all this, gentlemen.
And flame me gently.
From: Mark McFadden
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 16:32:28 EDT
« I came up with an idea that the creation of protomatter and protomatter implants is an attempt by the Fun Guys to create their version of Shoggoths. »
Or reverse-engineering shoggotech.
We might not be the only reason the Fun Guys stick around a dangerous neighborhood.
From: Robert Thomas
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 10:48:42 GMT0BST
Davide wrote and caused the lights in my head to start flashing (either that or it's this hangover):
Q: do the MiGo have access to Elder Thing technology?
Complete, no holds barred access to ET technology?
Now what if the Funguys do not have _complete_ control over the process?
You have to admit those funny-looking, five-fold simmetrical critters were
pretty advanced, back then long time ago. And from the data in "At The
Mountains of Madness", it seems the Elder Things were closer to us, as far
as psychological makeup and general outlook on things, than the Funguys
will ever be.
We shared "something" (curiosity? will to live? soul?)
So what if the Mi-Go are so active and enquiring where humans are concerned
because they have access to the end results of the ET technology, as a form
of scavenger technology, but not possess the base know-how to duplicate it.
Maybe they hope to find something within us…
Project Genome: does DNA carry an attached help-file?
May be this is the explanation for their interest in understanding in the mental processes of humans. Given the Mi-Go metal process as outlined in DG they think in staright lines; A-B-C-D-E, and if they don't know C they can't get to E whereas us monkey boys can skip straight on to E via our metal setup.
Right then my point if you accept that the Elder things had a similar metal process to humans and you accept the hypothesis that any truely "open" system is capable of these leaps in logic. Perhaps the Mi-Go are so desperate to understand human metal process in order for them to be incorporated into the Mi-Go mind to allow them to begin to understand how the elder Thing tech they have acquired functions, to make the logically inferred leaps and allow the Mi-Go to become an open system which is what they have lost as a result of the way they have decided to evolve themselves as a species.
To create an analogy it's like a caveman given a torch, he can press the buttons and turn it on and off but has no method to understand how it works so when the light he depends on breaks he can't fix it.
Personally I can't see the elder Things including help files with DNA any way and if they did how much help would they be? Anyone ever tried to use the windows help files, better to just mess around in my opinion at least you learn something :-)
How about a situation where the Mi-Go are dependant on one specific Elder Thing device which is starting to go wrong? Are they doing what they are doing to fix the equivalent of a torch?
Anyway great thread so far, one for the cave I feel.
(And it's here indeed! The Editor)
From: POOH
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 17:46:27 -0400 (EDT)
Re: Similarity of humans and Elder Things.
How about this for style.. humans ARE Elder Things?
Perhaps Elder Things wanted a fresh start, or saw a need to change the style of their race… or… well, I'll leave further musings to others.
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 14:36:33 +0200
From: Davide Mana
Will came dangerously close to the Truth when he wrote
I generally assume that we are at least the moral inheritors of the Elder Things.
As already said, they seem to be incredibly close to us as far as mental processes and emotional activity are concerned.
The unpleasantness described in "At the Mountains of Madness" (we dissect one of them, they dissect one of us and kill the rest in a fit of rage and frustration) looks more like the kind of border incident that happens when intelligent races meet that the basic, deliberate and malicious attack the other Mythos critters usually reserve for us.
And their reaction makes sense from a human point of view, as do their historical basrelief make sense to the eye of a human observer.
So, like it or not, we are walking in their footsteps.
And maybe they designed things to go this way.
I'll put more theories and wild guesses about Elder things in a following post.
From: Mark McFadden
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 02:30:01 EDT
« So, like it or not, we are walking in their footsteps. And maybe they designed things to go this way. »
If we are only walking in their footsteps because we chose the same path, that's good enough for me. I swear, those leathery five-sided frond wavers are about the closest thing to a friend we're going to find in a CoC universe. The fact that we can understand their art and their angles don't bite our faces off is a good sign.
And if the enemy of my enemy is my ally, then short of getting kissy-face with them, we're already on the same side in some important relationships. Too bad they are all dead.
(wait for it)
(now)
OR ARE THEY??!!??
?
DUNdunduuuuuum
From: POOH
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 10:24:44 -0400 (EDT)
For what it's worth, part of my Endtime stuff includes technology and aid from the Elder Race. Notably, weapons designed to affect beings which are vulnerable to the Elder Sign.
It's not a HUGE load of help, but it's there…
Even if the Elder Race helps, though, remember that even at the height of their civilization, their wars with the other races were generally stalemates.
From: "Shoggoth"
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 23:40:22 +0200
Only a simply (yet not completly related to the original post) idea that came to me looking at the post..
The elder things came from other planet…but is not said in any site that there are not more of then wandering on the space…
What if the original few Elder Things were only an Outpost , or better , a tool to make the planet more habitable for the second wave?
Yes..I'm re-reading the Ender's game trilogy again (is hard to find the fourth book) , and the ungluing virus seems me a bit familiar
Date: 15 Apr 99 11:46:19 +0100
From: Peter Devlin
Too bad they are all dead.
?
Actually they're not :-) They're just waiting for the planet to be cleared off so they can reclaim suitable areas for themselves.
From: "Shoggoth"
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 03:11:33 +0200
And if the enemy of my enemy is my ally, then short of getting kissy-face
Too bad they are all dead.
Sure are they ALL dead?
I think not…even in our planet can be vestiges….and of course , there are more suitable planets to stablish an outpost…
What if the other outpost send a commando to see what happened to the "lost colony" ?
