Quote Originally Posted by Zalabim View Post
The dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. The Eternals mission on Earth lasted ~7000 years. They could have finished over 9,000 planets just since then. The standard cycle from seed to emergence of a celestial is described as eons. That's 1,000,000,000's, billions with a B, years. So while I don't see any reason for the process to be changed if it is cyclical, the Eternals have definitely not been at this for billions of years.

The Eternals are an example of a Celestial creation trying to avoid the problems with the Deviants. They do not evolve or reproduce. They are static and finite, and they still turn out to not do their job or turn on the Celestials directly. So you can't just wave your hands and say Celestials should have fixed it like it's so easy. The Deviants are self-replicating, rapidly-evolving, predator-hunting organisms. You can wish they wouldn't attack some kind of species that doesn't even exist when you create the Deviants, but there is no easy way to describe that objective, and it's impossible to encode that objective permanently into their being.

Now while the Deviants didn't do everything exactly as planned, they can still be viewed as a positive feature by putting pressure on the desired species to grow, adapt, and evolve, as well as providing a way in to the nascent culture for your later insertion of Eternals to further guide their development. The Celestials are already lying to most of the Eternals about the purpose of their mission, killing Deviants to protect humans, so it's no stretch to include a fictionalized story about why they have to kill Deviants in the first place. Plus I'm sure some writer wanted to have a point about how both sides of the conflict are created and used by the Celestials to their own secret ends.

I'm sick of people failing to understand simple science fiction and blaming it on the fiction, instead of their own failing education. You don't have to like the story. Just don't wear your ignorance out by stretching it all over the internet.[EDIT:]I think there has to be a better way of explaining this.
In Greek a philosophy prior to plato they were obsessed with this new technological and sociological invention which was money in the form of coins you carry in a purse or clothing or on one’s tongue. Coins were a 220 year old invention when Socrates died, and Plato was obsessed with them for Coins allowed power to not be limited to your city, or your cities army but instead we are now talking many cities in a greater world-Kosmos-universe. Philosophy but also Athenian Tragedy Drama, and Comedy Drama were technological and sociological inventions to grapple with how coins changed everything with society in the last two hundred and twenty years. (Athens did not mint Owl Coins until 110 years before Socrates death, and they were farmers until 80 years before the guys death, their neighbours across the sea and the south of them had coins 150 to 220 years before Socrates death so at first they were distrustful of coins and then learned to love them when they started to become an empire during Socrates life who died at age 71)

So before Plato lots of the philosophers who took up the issue of coins talked about the Limited and the Unlimited Philolaus, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, and others as key concepts. Thus those early Greek Philosophers (who were not Athens based) prior to plato believe humans and also money are both limitless and limited at the same time. We are trapped in a circle of reincarnation (ouroboros eating its own tale like a snake and the wheel of fortune go here.) The city or a family may reproduce infinitely, but an individual human life is limited, and you either go west to these blessed isles after death, or one is trapped in a cycle of reincarnation where after you die you become an earth spirit (a daimon to bless / curse friends and family) and eventually you get a new body again.

At the same time a coin can be exchange dozens perhaps a thousand of times buying goods and services so often, yet it is merely 1 unit of account being exchange. The coin is limited and limitless at the same time.

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The Deviants are the Unlimited, infinite potential but the potential evolves and changes and thus not even the Celestials and their God Like power can foresee what the Deviants can do. The Deviants are the tolkiens elves.

The eternals are limited but reset-able, they are the tools that sculpt the infinite and are disposable. The eternals are the mortal men doomed to die. Thus their only fate is to accept their fate or to do a rebellion and craft their own purpose.

Do the eternals accept they are part of a much larger system or do they rebel?