Re: [WorldofGlorantha] Re: Greg: That's not an answer

On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 18:01 +0000, Rick Meints wrote:
> I'm pretty sure I said what THE GL SECRET is in my last post:
> The godlearners messed with the cosmos so much that the comos went
> back to the way it was before they had messed with it, destroying
> the godlearners in the process.

I think the "secret" itself was that they knew how to muck with the cosmos like that. The fact that the cosmos snapped back isn't a "secret," per se, is it? I mean, people remember the GLs, even if they don't quite remember who they were. And there are all sorts of 'archaeological' evidence of their existence (depending on who you believe): the existence of Tradetalk, the Puzzle Canal, the destruction of the Waertagi fleets, Zistorwal, etc.

So it's not quite like reinstalling the OS on a computer. I think it's more like raking the sand traps on a golf course. The footprints are no longer there, but you can see clear evidence that 'something' was there at one time. I suppose over time even those traces get erased.

The interesting thing to me is that there is no evidence that the same kind of exploitation isn't possible again. Maybe that's what leads to the Illiteracy Period - someone mucks about and poof... literacy disappears. So perhaps what happens at the end of King Of Sartar is that Argrath liberates the world by severing the connections with all the Other Worlds, thus no more GL-like fiddling.

Sure the GLs 'secret' has been wiped out, but the vulnerabilities in the cosmic OS are still there. Or was there a hotfix/patch released and auto-installed?

:-)

> I got this answer after taking Greg to task. I politely said that,
> as the publisher of Heroquest, I should know. He told me I would be
> disappointed that there wasn't something more profoundly clever and
> brilliant about it. He also said this secret was already in print in
> the Mongoose 2nd age book. I haven't specifically checked that.

I think once upon a time I might have thought "maybe the God Learners figured out how to make permanent changes in the mundane world through heroquesting" but then quickly decided "Nah... it can't be as simple as that." Oh well.

-- 
"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?
But that's exactly what our government did." - Henry Waxman (D-CA)