Cthulhu Tract

[Fri]

Hey, does cthulhu go to Friendly Banter or Media Discussion?

(Wow, that question is more disturbing than what I intended)

Anyway, you've known about the chick's tract right?

Well, this is something more interesting.
Cthulhu Tract (http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/index.html)

[Thiel]

That's actually kinda cool.
A shame nobody told the dude that the constellations can't realign themselves in the perfect pattern again.

[Innis Cabal]

where are the people passing these out infront of resturants and sports games?

[turkishproverb]

That's actually kinda cool.
A shame nobody told the dude that the constellations can't realign themselves in the perfect pattern again.

Lovecraft would disagree with you.

[hamishspence]

the closest thing to realigning constellations is the precession of the Earth's axis: moves in a circle, comes back to the same spot. The point is its not the constellations that "move" but the earth.

Now if Call of Cthulu was made into a movie it would definitely be a media topic.
Shadow over Innsmouth was made into a movie: Dagon. Not seen it, i do not know if it is good or not.

[Thiel]

Lovecraft would disagree with you.

But Lovecraft didn't know a thing about modern astronomy.


the closest thing to realigning constellations is the precession of the Earth's axis: moves in a circle, comes back to the same spot. The point is its not the constellations that "move" but the earth.
Actually, everything moves in relation to each other.

[hamishspence]

yes, but thats not the main kind of "stars are right" theme that crops up in fantasy novels. The main idea is the stars returning to an alignment that occured, say, 23000 years ago, or whatever the precession time was.

The circular (approx) movement of the Sun round the galaxy is less relevant, since stars move much faster relative to each other.

The proper movement of the stars fairly close by (10000 l.y odd) is relevant, but how relevant will vary. Constellations will distort some, but not always all that much: might still mostly be roughly recognizable.

on the other hand, I'm not sure how realistic the astronomy related theories for the alignment of real world monuments are: Great Pyramid, Sphinx, etc.

[endoperez]

But Lovecraft didn't know a thing about modern astronomy.



I don't know how much astronomy has changed in the last hundred years, but he at least thought of himself as an amateur astronomer, and astronomical theories (like existence of a ninth planet) were widely debated in his time.

According to wikipedia he even wanted to become a professional astronomer, but had problems learning higher mathematics which were required for it.

[Kane]

Most entertaining.

"He's safe. ARE YOU?"

Here is the trope. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SealedEvilInACan) Does anyone know of any older (non-religious) sealed-evil-in-a-can?

[hamishspence]

genies or Efreet are pretty classic Evil in a Jar, not sure what predates them.

[Guildorn Tanaleth]

where are the people passing these out infront of resturants and sports games?

I once knew a guy who passed Cthulhu Tracts out to people. Do you know where he is now? He's dead!

*waits to see how many people get the reference*

[bosssmiley]

But Lovecraft didn't know a thing about modern astronomy.

He knew that Yuggoth was a planet, which is more than modern astronomers seem to. :smalltongue:

[Evil DM Mark3]

Thing is, this makes more sense than about 40% of Chick tracts.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Parodying Jack Chick tracts using Lovecraft has been done before:
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g133/minussmile/CthulhuChickTract.gif
http://www.unhelpful.org/chyx/
(Scroll down for the Dark Dungeons parody.)

[chiasaur11]

Hey, is that by Fred Van Lente, the genius behind Action Philosophers and the very good current Power Pack mini serieses?
Awesome.

Still you gotta love the Galactus one of these.

[Jayngfet]

The stars literally can not realign themselves, I believe that the word supernova comes up, one was recorded nine hundred years ago so bright you could read and write by night with no difficulty, that one star is irrevocably gone, crab nebula in it's place.

That one star stopped Cthulhu.

[hamishspence]

thats why I stressed that it was the planet that aligns itself: and even then, a few stars will always be out of place. Or missing.

[Tragic_Comedian]

That was bloody great. Take that, Jack Chick! You are the subject of disdain, mockery, and a witty Lovecraft-themed parody! One thing does kind of freak me out, however. Take that and compare it with practically ANY Chick Tract, and there isn't that much difference...

[The Vorpal Tribble]

The stars literally can not realign themselves, I believe that the word supernova comes up, one was recorded nine hundred years ago so bright you could read and write by night with no difficulty, that one star is irrevocably gone, crab nebula in it's place.

That one star stopped Cthulhu.
Cthulhu has been defeated... by crabs! :smalleek:

[Thiel]

I don't know how much astronomy has changed in the last hundred years, but he at least thought of himself as an amateur astronomer, and astronomical theories (like existence of a ninth planet) were widely debated in his time.

According to wikipedia he even wanted to become a professional astronomer, but had problems learning higher mathematics which were required for it.

It has actually changed quite a bit. We have, amongst other things, proved the existence of other galaxies and discovered a boat-load of Pluto sized TNO's.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Now if Call of Cthulu was made into a movie it would definitely be a media topic.
Shadow over Innsmouth was made into a movie: Dagon. Not seen it, i do not know if it is good or not.Call of Cthulhu is a movie, made a couple years ago in intentionally old-timey silent movie style (they figured even modern special effects couldn't do Big C justice, you see, so they went for the nostalgia factor). I have a DVD of it sitting in my room, waiting for the stars to align me to get around to watching it.

And literature falls under Media Discussion anyway.

As for the stars aligning, it is true that the state of celestial bodies is in constant flux, with everything moving in relation to each other, stars exploding, etc. But do you think the Old Ones care?

(Cthulhu is an Old One, right? I always get my mythos terminology mixed up.)

[hamishspence]

great old one, yes. I notices Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five series draws from to same Aligning stars concept, and not in a good way. It has been overdone.

I get the impression that some of the concepts are actually partly from other authors than Lovecraft: August Derleth was the one who suggested the Great Old Ones were divided by elements; earth, air, fire, water, and put the war between them and the Elder Gods (esp Nodens) front and centre.

Personally, I think its interesting how many fantasy setting, often aimed at fairly young ages, draw from the Cthulhu mythos slightly. Its becoming more mainstream.

[WalkingTarget]

I get the impression that some of the concepts are actually partly from other authors than Lovecraft: August Derleth was the one who suggested the Great Old Ones were divided by elements; earth, air, fire, water, and put the war between them and the Elder Gods (esp Nodens) front and centre.

Yeah, Derleth was the original fanboy. I understand that he's actually well thought of in some fields (he wrote a lot of detective and historical fiction at least) but I really dislike his personal additions to Lovecraft's world (he was even the one to coin the term "Cthulhu Mythos"). The man's personal Christian beliefs didn't mesh well with Lovecraft's "mechanistic materialism" either. His practice of writing and publishing "posthumous collaborations" with Lovecraft was extraordinarily shady. Basically, he'd take a story fragment, sometimes as little as a single sentence, written by Lovecraft and would then flesh it out into a full story that he'd publish as "by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth". I've read a fair number of these and I can't remember a single one that I liked. Most of the time, even in his non-collaborations, he tries to mimic Lovecraft's writing style (big mistake) instead of shooting for the right tone and message (which largely gets garbled due to his shoehorning in of elemental affinities and good/evil forces, all of which is absent in Lovecraft's own writing). As much as I dislike his writing, however, I have to give Derleth credit for getting Lovecraft's work out into the world (even if he didn't technically have the legal right to do so).

Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and various of the other members of the Lovecraft Circle had much better additions to the Yog-Sothothery that HPL started. Most of them added to the whole cycle instead of just reusing and redefining Lovecraft's creations (I guess Derleth at least added Ithaqua and Cthugha, even if only for a few more "Elementals" to have running around). Other authors adding to the whole was kind of the point, initially, as they all treated it as sort of an elaborate in-joke to include each other's creations in their own. Heck, Robert Bloch and HPL wrote several stories that included fictionalized versions of each other that wound up getting killed in fairly gruesome ways. I guess a point could be made that most of these authors wrote stories that used the Mythos, but Derleth tended to write stories about the Mythos, which de-mystifies it.

Then the Call of Cthulhu RPG got published which used a lot of the Derleth Versions of things (minus some of the Elemental stuff) which worked even more to get it into the mainstream. I was lucky enough to have run a CoC campaign where only one of the players had read any Lovecraft at all and none of them had played before. I bound large sections of the rulebooks in strips of paper to designate them off-limits to the players (even through casual browsing) so only that one guy had any idea as to what they could expect. It was a blast. :smallbiggrin:

[Jayngfet]

Even if you count planets and planetoids they Cthulhu isn't coming back any time soon, we've got about eleven of those, with erratic orbits (http://yogini.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/eris_orbit.JPG), and years lasting upwards of five hundred of ours, lining them up just right for a millisecond is impossible.

Did I just kill catgirlthulhu?

[Closet_Skeleton]

This "Cthulu tract" is inaccurate, since life on earth was created by material Elder Things rather than Cthulu's lot of nonmaterial things.

[GolemsVoice]

Ha Ha Ha! How foolish your babbling sounds. You say, the stars can never realign themselves, and they call ME insane? ÌNSANE!? Where is your puny science when all but the faithful will be devoured by the awakening, unspeakable gods waiting to feast on your souls? Ha? Where?
And Cthulhu doesn't go into Media or Banter. He goes into your dreams.

[Winterwind]

I always assumed that the stars only had to align themselves in a way that was right, not necessarily in the same way as they did the last time.
Which would be perfectly possible, in spite of supernovae and other obstacles. In fact, that supernova might well have been the first step to producing a constellation that allows the Great Old Ones to live again. :smallamused:

I never liked those non-Lovecraftian additions to the mythos either; it just doesn't fit at all that there should be some higher entities who side with mankind. Also, Nodens? How could anyone who read The Strange High House In The Mist assume this was a sympathetic being?

As for that tract... brilliant. So sending this to my fellow CoC players. :smallbiggrin:

[chiasaur11]

Ha Ha Ha! How foolish your babbling sounds. You say, the stars can never realign themselves, and they call ME insane? ÌNSANE!? Where is your puny science when all but the faithful will be devoured by the awakening, unspeakable gods waiting to feast on your souls? Ha? Where?
And Cthulhu doesn't go into Media or Banter. He goes into your dreams.

We'll beat these horrible eldar things hated by both God and men....
WITH SCIENCE!

The science will be in the form of giant robots. And Cyborg dinosaurs.

[Nerd-o-rama]

We'll beat these horrible eldar things hated by both God and men....
WITH SCIENCE!

The science will be in the form of giant robots. And Cyborg dinosaurs.Hell yeah, CthuluTech!

[Winterwind]

We'll beat these horrible eldar things hated by both God and men....
WITH SCIENCE!

The science will be in the form of giant robots. And Cyborg dinosaurs.Considering the vast majority of all scientists who appear in Lovecraft's stories have the nasty tendency to stumble upon secrets never meant for mankind and either die or go insane, or correlate facts that bring them upon the trail of something horrible that makes them die or go insane, I would actually expect scientists, drooling and sputtering unspeakable heresies, to form the Great Old Ones' avangarde. :smallamused: