Carl Sagan Vs. The Cthulhu Mythos?

[tbok1992]

This question has been itching at me a long time, but how do you think Carl Sagan would fare in the Cthulhu mythos?

Because, his position on that sort of thing was "The universe is vast, strange and uncaring, and that is awe-inspirign and wonderful," whereas Lovecraft's position was "The universe is vast, strange and uncaring and that DRIVES ME GIBBERINGLY INSANE."

Furthermore, Lovecraft was kind of a wimp, with phobias including seafood, ethnic minorities and a cold breeze, so it's no wonder he'd consider something that can be defeated by ramming a boat into it terrifying-to-the-point-of-insanity.

So, my question is, would Sagan have what is essentially an unlimited Sanity score or would the mythos eat him alive?

[Gettles]

Pretty well, I assume.

[Winter_Wolf]

If the creatures of the Cthulhu mythos were all real and as inimical to humanity as Lovecraft portrayed, I predict Sagan would begin in a state of "wow this is fascinating stuff!" and if he kept prodding and poking eventually he'd end up as one of the (possibly) crazy cultists. It would be worse if he wasn't crazy, because then he'd actually believe that letting Them in from Outside was the correct course of action.

The fact is, the Big Ones aren't anywhere near as scary as the things like shoggoths, because the Big Ones aren't necessarily evil or malicious, they just think of us as we think of dirt when we trod upon it. The other smaller ones, though--shoggoths, those chuul-like things featured in Whisperer in Darkness--they're actively malicious and want to do bad things to us.

...And I can't believe I used the word "fact" in relation to a theory about fictional creations. I am teh shamed.

[Mono Vertigo]

Furthermore, Lovecraft was kind of a wimp, with phobias including seafood, ethnic minorities and a cold breeze[...]

Sorry for derailing, but as a fan of Lovecraft('s works, not personality), I have the overwhelming urge to sig that and possibly quote that at a later time.

[hiryuu]

Nobody reads At the Mountains of Madness, where the big reveal is that all the monsters of the Lovecraft mythos are just misunderstood ancient aliens with no "magic." It is very important to remember we think in ways that are utterly different now: To the mind of a 1930s scientist, the things revealed are mind-blowing and are the equivalent of reality-shattering psychological nuclear weapons.

Scientists to the last - what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn - whatever they had been, they were men!

To us, almost one hundred years later, they're twitter fodder or creepypasta. The Pale Blue Dot poster would, in the 1920s, have been an unsettling, terrible thing teeming with the terrible promise that humanity, in the cosmic sense, was nothing more than a side effect, and a very tiny one at that.

Lovecraft wrote that to understand the level of scientific understanding of the universe to which the creatures in his mythos had ascended, we would have to become like them; he was writing about transhumanism before they'd even coined the term, and he was writing about it in a negative light. He looked ahead, realized where all this progress might lead, and became afraid.

We think completely differently now. We have become aliens. What Lovecraft called "cult behavior" is our normal behavior. We are all even part of a prosthetic brain hive mind that has no consciousness of its own and acts only on the whim of our collective desires.

Carl Sagan would take one look at an Elder Thing city and all he would do is try to figure out where he's going to put all his Nobel prizes.

[awa]

While i agree many of lovecrafts protagonists seemed to take their revelations hard for example the guy who found out he might possible be descended from an intelligent ape a few generations back had a fairly extreme response.

many of the things lovecraft feared such as being a human nonhuman cross are not scary any more so that probably would not be the sanity breaking event he though.

That said cuthulu was not killed by being ramming by a boat it was mildly inconvenienced and went back to bed.

I suspect he would be so excited by all the amazing potential that he would poke around until he found something "not meant for the minds of men" and became a cultist.

Of course a lot of the mythos creatures just killed you regardless if you were scared of them or not

[Ravens_cry]

Pretty well, I assume.

Where is that from?

[Friv]

Nobody reads At the Mountains of Madness, where the big reveal is that all the monsters of the Lovecraft mythos are just misunderstood ancient aliens with no "magic." It is very important to remember we think in ways that are utterly different now: To the mind of a 1930s scientist, the things revealed are mind-blowing and are the equivalent of reality-shattering psychological nuclear weapons.

This is going to be a quibble, possibly, but I don't think that was the big reveal of Mountains of Madness.

(Spoilering because it really is Lovecraft's best work and onlookers should read it.)

Spoiler

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The big reveal of Mountains of Madness was that there was a species so much greater than humanity that they created us for sport, who were so far ahead of us that we could barely comprehend them... and that such creatures were ultimately powerless against the uncaring passage of time. The shoggoths obliterated a species far advanced of us, making mockery of all of their progress and science. No one, in Lovecraft's world, is immune to the end of all things.

[Gamgee]

I found Mountains of Madness kind of boring. I just find horror in general kind of boring.

I lol'ed at the picture of Sagan. Seems about right. Thar be monsters out there, they just never tell you its us.

[Destro_Yersul]

Where is that from?

It's from Atomic Robo: Shadow From Beyond Time, volume 4, which is a rather awesome print comic written by the guy who did 8-Bit Theater. It's also the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread.

[Xuc Xac]

I guess you're pretty young. That's actually from history. I think that was a very special episode of Cosmos in 1981.

[Friv]

It's from Atomic Robo: Shadow From Beyond Time, volume 4, which is a rather awesome print comic written by the guy who did 8-Bit Theater. It's also the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread.

Yeah, me too. Although the quote I would have used, while slightly less memorable, is no less awesome:

Spoiler

Show

[enderlord99]

Carl Sagan would somehow trick Cthulhu into attacking his own uncle, and hope that the winner is the one he finds "inspiring."

[Destro_Yersul]

I guess you're pretty young. That's actually from history. I think that was a very special episode of Cosmos in 1981.

Assuming you mean me, I assure you the image is from Atomic Robo.

[paddyfool]

Now I'm wondering how easy it would be to make a Carl Sagan-esque character in Call of Cthulhu...

[Science Officer]

“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls." - Carl Sagan

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." - H.P. Lovecraft

I think rather illustrates the difference between the developer of Cosmicism and the presenter of Cosmos.

And now that I mention that...
"The cosmos Yog-sothoth is all there is or ever was or ever will be"

[awa]

the mountains of madness did not say the great ones were just misunderstood it didn't deal with the cosmic entities at all it dealt with the elder things and the shogoths as the only monsters.

love craft wrote science fiction and fantasy and put them in the same setting

[hiryuu]

the mountains of madness did not say the great ones were just misunderstood it didn't deal with the cosmic entities at all it dealt with the elder things and the shogoths as the only monsters.

love craft wrote science fiction and fantasy and put them in the same setting

No.

It only looks like fantasy to us. That was his point. Those people claiming to be wizards or mages are just witch doctors fiddling with machinery they don't understand. What we're calling "spells" is just a form of super math combined with technology that aliens use. To Lovecraft, magic was a cheap cop-out device and that's what he was trying to show.

Of course, he was also scared witless of Nikola Tesla. That is why we have Nyarlathotep - the first story in which that entity appears is pretty much just a description of a Tesla show that Lovecraft attended.

In At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft portrays all the occult symbols - including the Elder Sign and its variations - that appear in his works as symbology simply used as the elder thing language. The Elder Sign is just a drawing of their head! It doesn't even actually do anything that it's purported to do by cultists! The knowledge of the Necronomicon is ancient science, mutated by primitive minds into supernatural meaning. It should be noted that all "science" portrayed in his book is as accurate as the time knew it (voluminous aether, for example; they thought space was made of a type of matter that we didn't have here on Earth, that is why the aliens are all made of "matter, but not as we know it." Because they're from what Lovecraft thought outer space was like, and that things from either place couldn't last long in the other without precautions; even his misconceptions about Antartica were scientifically accurate at the time).

His obfuscation was good enough that LATER writers made it actually magical. Do not mistake the Lovecraft mythos for the Cthulhu mythos. In the Cthulhu mythos? Sagan is boned, because there the author can just decide that nothing works ever and you have to insert magic because the physics in those stories don't work anymore. In the Lovecraft mythos? The frizzy hair guy on History Channel is right, and these entities can potentially be outclassed. Sometimes by their own, accidental creations.

[awa]

No. wow isn't it annoying when someone start their response with a single word no like the thoughts of the other individual are completely worthless and should be disregarded out of hand it bugs me.

What about the dream lands? what about the street (a terrible story by the way)? what about yig?



Now technically for some of that stuff paraphrasing girl genius any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. but by that logic "magic" does not exist in any medium a dnd magic is just science we don't understand and really arguing that is going to get neither of us anywhere.

[AuraTwilight]

What about the dream lands? what about the street (a terrible story by the way)? what about yig?

What ABOUT them? None of these contradict Hiryuu's point. Humans can't understand these events, characters, and places, but according to Lovecraft, they are natural, scientific occurrences in the Cosmist universe. That they contradict what humanity knows about the world DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING except that we're ignorant.

Now technically for some of that stuff paraphrasing girl genius any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. but by that logic "magic" does not exist in any medium a dnd magic is just science we don't understand and really arguing that is going to get neither of us anywhere.

Except settings where magic is truly random and beyond the world, and can't really be understood and has a will of its own and is possibly even blatantly divine. You know, like the World of Darkness, or Kult, or even just certain D&D settings.

[Coidzor]

Except settings where magic is truly random and beyond the world, and can't really be understood and has a will of its own and is possibly even blatantly divine. You know, like the World of Darkness, or Kult, or even just certain D&D settings.

If it were "truly random" no one would be able to use it.

[awa]

so occasionally a city block is just sentient and holds opinions about the people living on it?



the dream lands are a dimension that is entered by dreams

yig merely wills people to turn into snakes and they do if that's not magic then what is?

if your science fiction is so soft as to allow that then their is no difference between it and fantasy. your science is just magic by another name.

[AuraTwilight]

If it were "truly random" no one would be able to use it.

...predictably, no. There are settings where magic refuses to play by formulaic rules and has a Fairy Tale-like behavior. And most such 'wild magic' settings indeed are more low-magic, portraying magic as this thing beyond the grasp of mere mortals.

It's one of the oldest fantasy tropes; one D&D and games like it infact are defying.

so occasionally a city block is just sentient and holds opinions about the people living on it?

Or something CLAIMING to be a city block. Why Does God Need A Spaceship, etc.

the dream lands are a dimension that is entered by dreams

And psychic powers are a common sci-fi trope. Your point?

yig merely wills people to turn into snakes and they do if that's not magic then what is?

The man from the future presses a button on a plastic stick and light comes out of it like a magic wand. If that's not magic, what is?

if your science fiction is so soft as to allow that then their is no difference between it and fantasy. your science is just magic by another name.

Maybe from a human perspective, sure. But Lovecraft's point is that in these universes, these are scientific phenomena. Not because science is 'soft', but because humans are just so pathetic we haven't even scratched the surface of the universe. We are literally bugs, and our failure to understand something does not make it magic.

[Scowling Dragon]

Ive found a perfect analogy for this:

Like some people are Glass half full/Glass half empty there is this:

Some people believe that the earth is very small.
Others Believe its that the universe is very big.

Im more of the latter.

[awa]

so how is that different then magic.

or are you suggesting that all fantasy is in fact science fiction.

Gandalf is not a wizard he merely manipulates science beyond the ken of mortal men ect.

magic wand just a tool you don't understand ect.

your argument goes in loops it cant be magic becuase i say it isn't.

a few of his stories talk about science beyond our ken a lot talk about magic you are suggesting that only the science fiction aspect be considered cannon.

psychic powers in regular mundane humans is a sign your science fiction is extremely soft. psychic powers where normal unaided humans travel to other dimensions is called fantasy.

[Terraoblivion]

It should be noted that all "science" portrayed in his book is as accurate as the time knew it (voluminous aether, for example; they thought space was made of a type of matter that we didn't have here on Earth, that is why the aliens are all made of "matter, but not as we know it." Because they're from what Lovecraft thought outer space was like, and that things from either place couldn't last long in the other without precautions; even his misconceptions about Antartica were scientifically accurate at the time).

Uhhh, you do know that the time we're talking about for Lovecraft is the 1930s, right? As in well after special relativity, upper atmosphere balloon flights and advanced theories about rocketry being developed. Oh, and decades after Amundsen went to the South Pole and back again.

Not just that, there never was a concept like voluminous aether, there was luminiferous aether which wasn't restricted to space, but was rather postulated as the medium that light traveled through in general. It was pretty much abandoned even by its proponents by the general acceptance of relativity as early as 1911. And again, it is something that has nothing to do with the difference between Earth and space.

[awa]

also the street never speaks to anyone it becomes aware watches the inhabitants who live on gives a raciest message the end. their is no one for it to lie to or mislead.

[AuraTwilight]

so how is that different then magic.

or are you suggesting that all fantasy is in fact science fiction.

I'm not.

Perhaps it'd be important if we define what "Science" and "Magic" mean. For the sake of the argument I define Science as anything where things can be empirically tested and built upon formaically. To practice Science is to design theories based on precedence and evidence and to say "Since Event X occurred under Conditions Y, Event X will always occur if performed with Conditions Y."

Gandalf is not a wizard he merely manipulates science beyond the ken of mortal men ect.

magic wand just a tool you don't understand ect.

your argument goes in loops it cant be magic becuase i say it isn't.

How does Gandalf use his magic? He's essentially an angel or demigod that participated in the creation of Tolkien's universe and is essentially just repeating actions he helped invent, which are categorically unavailable to anyone else even if they DID understand the process by virtue of Not Being Gandalf. He's more of an artist than a scientist.

a few of his stories talk about science beyond our ken a lot talk about magic you are suggesting that only the science fiction aspect be considered cannon.

You're putting words in my mouth, grow up, please.

You can whine at me all you want, but Lovecraft defined his universe as not having paranormal or explicitly supernatural elements because he declared magic to be an anthropocentric delusion for giving meaning to a meaningless world.

psychic powers in regular mundane humans is a sign your science fiction is extremely soft. psychic powers where normal unaided humans travel to other dimensions is called fantasy.

Cool thing I never said any of that, so it's irrelevant. Even if I did though, 'soft' science fiction and 'hard' science fiction are only divided by one qualifier: How much the elements within that world adhere to our own real-world universe. A 'hard' science fiction exploring the possibility of humanity getting around the speed of light without violating it is an example.

However, 'soft' science fiction is not strictly just invoking magic and calling it science. A novel about a hypothetical universe where certain laws of physics are modified, such as the Planck Constant, would qualify as soft science fiction even if it otherwise invoked no 'magical' elements.

also the street never speaks to anyone it becomes aware watches the inhabitants who live on gives a raciest message the end. their is no one for it to lie to or mislead.

I'm aware. Have you considered that the observer in the story is simply mistaken about its own identity?

[Coidzor]

...predictably, no. There are settings where magic refuses to play by formulaic rules and has a Fairy Tale-like behavior. And most such 'wild magic' settings indeed are more low-magic, portraying magic as this thing beyond the grasp of mere mortals.

It's one of the oldest fantasy tropes; one D&D and games like it infact are defying.

This is not the same as "truly random" however, as there'd be no way to work out a system of how to begin "practicing" magic.

[awa]

edit You actually did say that

And psychic powers are a common sci-fi trope. Your point?
.

right here.
by your definition virtually all fantasy settings are just soft science fiction.

have you considered that a scientist spending a few days looking at a carving on a wall might have misinterpreted the info ?

You can whine all you want but some talked about science some talked about magic

since the vast majority of mythos magic cannot be empirically tested it must then not be science

how is Gandalf ability to use magic tied intrinsically to his nature any different than any of the powerful god of love craft?

were arguing around in circles and I no longer care to do it.