Horror in the TS universe

[Max Schreck]

Well, does that sound scary or not?

I'm afraid not, Jürgen. That's not your fault, but Lovecraft's. For me personally, a giant batwinged squid isn't all that scary, no matter how many psychic emanations it sends out. Neither are fishermen slowly turning into fishmen in a small, New England coastal community.

I find H. P. Lovecraft's horrors pretty dated and absurdly ridiculous. Now, Call of Cthulhu is fun roleplaying game all the same, but it's not scary in my book, partly because of the pulp magazine horror it is based on.

The problem with the more hilarious than scary Cthulhu Mythos becomes even bigger, if we move the time scale up to the Transhuman Space setting. I personally do not find the image of a fishman (Deep One) very scary. Imagine my ancestors in a hundred years or so from now. "Fishmen? Didn't GenTech Pacifica abort that line three years ago?" "Yeah, but Avatar bought the patents to use in the pantropic programme on Europa.

Preservationists might be morally abhorred by fishmen, but gibbering in sanity-draining terror? I don't think so.

Anyway, this is getting way off topic. My personal opinion is that you can't mix SF and Horror by just adding a pinch of Cthulhu. They tried something similar with GURPS CthulhuPunk, and that book is now the crappiest part of my GURPS collection.

I had been thinking more in the lines that you started out with: using the normal elements of TS and twisting them into something horrific. That way we won't have the problem of supernatural elements in an otherwise hard science setting.

The problem with some of those approaches is that they are more thriller-oriented than Horror. I mean, biochauvinist Preservationist conspiracies (and their hyperevolutionist counterparts) are good fodder for a TS campaign and probably exciting too, but are they horrifying? Only if Watergate or Iran-Contra can be considered horror.

What I am trying to say is that just because something is upsetting, thrilling, intense, exciting or mind-blowing it isn't neccesarily Horror with a capital "H"; the genre (literary and cinematic) Horror is defined by more than just "excitement".

How about the serial killer? He/she definitely works without transgressing the laws of physics and in TS has a lot more options open to him (I'll call the serial killer "him" from now on, as in both fiction and reality, a serial killer is most likely male), such as uploading, xox'ing, mind switches and teleoperated murder. He doesn't even have to be human.

Imagine a personality construct on Jack the Ripper, made for either research in deviant psychology or as a character in a Slinky! The construct gains sentience equivalent to an LAI and decides that an existence in the flesh is infinitely more rewarding. It occupies a cyberdoll or a bioshell and goes out looking for the local equivalent of Whitechapel. The police have a very hard time of catching "Naughty Jack", as he (it?) jumps from body to body after each murder.

The player characters could either be police officers hunting for the killer, distraught relatives of victims or even potential victims themselves.

Max

[Jürgen Hubert]

I sense a challenge here. Maybe I should write something up for Pyramid...

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Max Schreck

I'm afraid not, Jürgen. That's not your fault, but Lovecraft's. For me personally, a giant batwinged squid isn't all that scary, no matter how many psychic emanations it sends out.

Actually, descriptions of Cthulhu himself are rather scarce. The idea that he is a "giant batwinged squid" comes merely from his idol, which was created by cultists who had never seen him personally. No wonder they used images and elements of creatures they knew...

Neither are fishermen slowly turning into fishmen in a small, New England coastal community.

"Shadows over Innsmouth" is a product of its time - especially the xenophobia that many people had succumbed to.

I find H. P. Lovecraft's horrors pretty dated and absurdly ridiculous. Now, Call of Cthulhu is fun roleplaying game all the same, but it's not scary in my book, partly because of the pulp magazine horror it is based on.

Maybe I have a different perspective on this, since I am an avid Delta Green fan and have been a member of the Delta Green Mailing List since nearly its beginning. But I have seen countless examples how the Cthulhu Mythos can be effectively adopted to modern times, and I have no doubt at all that the same can be done for the future.

The problem with the more hilarious than scary Cthulhu Mythos becomes even bigger, if we move the time scale up to the Transhuman Space setting. I personally do not find the image of a fishman (Deep One) very scary. Imagine my ancestors in a hundred years or so from now. "Fishmen? Didn't GenTech Pacifica abort that line three years ago?" "Yeah, but Avatar bought the patents to use in the pantropic programme on Europa.

Give me some time. I'm willing to bet that Deep Ones can be adopted to the TS era and still be scary.

Preservationists might be morally abhorred by fishmen, but gibbering in sanity-draining terror? I don't think so.

That depends on the other circumstances of the situation in my opinion...


Well, back to the original topic.

I had been thinking more in the lines that you started out with: using the normal elements of TS and twisting them into something horrific. That way we won't have the problem of supernatural elements in an otherwise hard science setting.

The problem with some of those approaches is that they are more thriller-oriented than Horror. I mean, biochauvinist Preservationist conspiracies (and their hyperevolutionist counterparts) are good fodder for a TS campaign and probably exciting too, but are they horrifying? Only if Watergate or Iran-Contra can be considered horror.

Depends on just where you are when the action occurs.

If you try to spy on the plotters and out-think them in a game of wits with high stakes, it is a thriller.

It you break into one of their secret labs, discover the effects of their viruses on the still-living victims, and are hunted by a group of killer bioroids while you are desperately trying to stop the impending catastrophe, it can veer into horror territory.

The Evil of the nefarious schemes should not be something abstract that upsets the characters on an intellectual level. No, they should be there at ground zero that they can see all the gory details, and get hunted by terrifying enemies before these details had a chance to sink in.

It is all in the delivery.

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

One of the last files that get through is a blurry image of some gigantic thing raising out of the waters of the Bay. Then, only static on all channels.

The next morning, the shocked world wakes up to the news that a nuclear weapon was detonated in San Francisco.

And the world will learn wether a nuke will still destroy Great Cthulhu. As far as I remember, he was nuked in a novel by AUgust Derleth in the 50ies while rising from a Pacific island. Given its nature and powers, it seems sensible to me that its project to eat the population of San Francisco should be accompanied by an immunity to the direct and indirect effects of a nuclear warhead. Thus, humanity will have to devise a way to destroy it by new TL 8 means - bioweapons for example.

But then the field of horror is left for that of post-apocalyptic supernatural warfare (sounds a bit like Rifts, now that I think about it), since there is hardly a room for hushing the affair up this time.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Max Schreck

I'm afraid not, Jürgen. That's not your fault, but Lovecraft's. For me personally, a giant batwinged squid isn't all that scary, no matter how many psychic emanations it sends out. Neither are fishermen slowly turning into fishmen in a small, New England coastal community.

I find H. P. Lovecraft's horrors pretty dated and absurdly ridiculous. Now, Call of Cthulhu is fun roleplaying game all the same, but it's not scary in my book, partly because of the pulp magazine horror it is based on.

Max

You are missing the point, Max.

Cthulhu and the Deep Ones are not the scary part. The scary part is how insignificant we are, how everything we have made and everything we stand for is simply irrelevant.

The scary part is not that humans are slowly turning into fishmen, but that rational human beings decided to sacrifice small children because they were experiencing an economic slump. The really, really scary part is that sometimes human beings do horrible things not because they are evil, but because they are human.

I've never feared Cthulhu, but I find the idea that people would worship him and work to summon him to be pretty creepy. A human being that is so embittered about his own lack of success in life that he is capable of working towards the end of EVERYTHING just so that he does not have to face his own inadequacy qualifies as scary in my book.

[Anthony]

There are plenty of possibly horrifying things about THS without involving anything supernatural at all. For example, say you come across a body with the brain and the top of the head missing. Did it get brainscanned and then the body dumped? Perhaps it was a bioshell that actually had a computer in there anyway? Or is someone just insane?

I recall someone talking about running a campaign in which the PCs had been downloaded into sentient snacks. Now there's a horror campaign for you...

[Howling Mad Murphy]

The absolute best piece of fiction by Lovecraft is "Colour Out of Space." That can never be dated. People today (and in 2100) might be desensitized to some of Lovecraft's more normal monsters, but trust me this is seriously scary.

[Max Schreck]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Actually, descriptions of Cthulhu himself are rather scarce. The idea that he is a "giant batwinged squid" comes merely from his idol, which was created by cultists who had never seen him personally. No wonder they used images and elements of creatures they knew...

That's not entirely true, Jürgen. When Johansen the sailor and his shipmates uncover R'lyeh and awaken Cthulhu, he pursues them to the boat. As Johansen desperately tries to get away, we get this description:

The awful squid-head with writhing feelers came nearly up to the bowsprit of the sturdy yacht, but Johansen drove on relentlessly. ("The Call of Cthulhu")

Sounds like a squid-head to me. Furthermore, it is stated that the idols and bas-reliefs on R'lyeh, which are not made by men, but by Cthulhu and his ilk, resemble the clay idol recovered by Legrasse:

The rest followed him, and looked curiously at the immense carved door with the now familiar squid-dragon bas-relief. ("The Call of Cthulhu")

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Maybe I have a different perspective on this, since I am an avid Delta Green fan and have been a member of the Delta Green Mailing List since nearly its beginning. But I have seen countless examples how the Cthulhu Mythos can be effectively adopted to modern times, and I have no doubt at all that the same can be done for the future.

Delta Green is an ingenious setting, no doubt, and don't get me wrong: I love CoC as much as the next roleplayer. I just don't find it scary and I don't think it is a fitting horror setting for Transhuman Space. TS is hard SF, Lovecraft is fantasy, even the more "scientific" of this works, like "The Whisperer in Darkness", "At the Mountains of Madness", "Shadow out of Time", etc.

Time travelling psionic entities and "aether-flying" mycoid beings from Pluto, while a great idea for other settings, just don't fit right for TS, in my opinion. If other can make it work, take it and run, but it's just not my cup of Transhuman Space.

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

If you try to spy on the plotters and out-think them in a game of wits with high stakes, it is a thriller.

It you break into one of their secret labs, discover the effects of their viruses on the still-living victims, and are hunted by a group of killer bioroids while you are desperately trying to stop the impending catastrophe, it can veer into horror territory.

Very true, but they'd better be darn scary bioroids, and not just some Felicias with autoweapons. Then we would be back to William Gibson future-thriller, which is fine by itself, but not horror. Maybe the killer bioroids could be made with fish DNA, so they would be half men, half fish and then... ;-) Just kidding.

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

It is all in the delivery.

That's also very true and almost anything could be made horrifying given the right mood, ambience, GM, etc., I'm just not the right GM for that, I think. My hat's off to you, though, if you can make Lovecraft work.

Originally Posted by Icelander

You are missing the point, Max.

Cthulhu and the Deep Ones are not the scary part. The scary part is how insignificant we are, how everything we have made and everything we stand for is simply irrelevant.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it says that about a zillion times in every CoC supplement I own. "Mankind is an insignificant little speck in the bleak, uncaring cosmos". I know that it is supposed to be a frightening thought, but for some reason it doesn't hit home with me; maybe because it is stating the obvious, at least to an atheist like myself.
Besides I think that that particular part of Lovecraftian nihilist philosophy is what meshes worst with TS.

TS is about scientific progress (and dangers), transhumanism, colonial spirit, wanderlust, what it means to be human (or not to be), not about tentacled horrors from beyond that make man pale into insignificance. TS is a chaotic and varied enough setting that it does not need the Cthulhu Mythos for adventure or even horror. In the worst case scenario, I think that the TS setting would just collapse if cthuloid horrors were introduced.

"I thought this campaign was about hard science, but now we've just met a non-Euclidean, time-warping, tentacled blood-sucking sea urchin! That's it! I'm out of here!"

Originally Posted by Icelander

The scary part is not that humans are slowly turning into fishmen, but that rational human beings decided to sacrifice small children because they were experiencing an economic slump. The really, really scary part is that sometimes human beings do horrible things not because they are evil, but because they are human.

Oh, yes, that's true, and now we're getting somewhere. Wouldn't it be possible to create a horror story (in general or specifically for TS) revolving around a child-sacrificing cult without having batrachian abominations jump out of the water? I absolutely agree with you, humans are scary, but paradoxically humans play such a small role in the Cthulhu universe. You said it yourself: humans are insignificant.

Originally Posted by Howling Mad Murphy

The absolute best piece of fiction by Lovecraft is "Colour Out of Space." That can never be dated. People today (and in 2100) might be desensitized to some of Lovecraft's more normal monsters, but trust me this is seriously scary.

I don't have to take your word for it, Murphy, as I've read it. While a mildly interesting read (and one of the more SF-oriented pieces of Lovecraft's), it still meshes badly with the hard science setting of TS.

A living vampiric colour? How would that come about? I realise that there are many things we do not know about the universe, but in hard SF things should be at the very least barely plausible.

There are no FTL drives in TS, because no one today would be able to satisfactorily explain how it would work. I think the same hard SF lithmus test should be applied to all other things in TS. There are no force fields, light sabers, contra-gravity, etc. for the same reason. In my opinion a living colour or Cthulhu or the Great Race fail the same test: they all break the laws of physics. Now, I'm not saying that if someone wanted to introduce some or all of these elements that it would be "wrong". It's their game. It just wouldn't be official, canon hard science Transhuman Space anymore.

In canon TS there is no room for Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth or the Fungi from Yuggoth (Pluto), especially since mankind has sent cybershells to Pluto in 2100.

We're getting off-topic here, so this will be my last comment on Cthulhu. I realise that some of you love ol' tentacle head, and that's fine, we don't have to agree on everything. Let's return our focus and energy to the Transhuman Space setting.

Love,

Max

[DryaUnda]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Cthulhu isn't just some Gozilla-like monster that will stomp on humans, gobble them up, and otherwise do large amounts of property damage. No, He is something far more terrifying.

Oh.

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

First, psychic emanations of His impending arrival will ripple ahead in time before Him. At first, only artists, drug users, and other sensitive people will feel anything and have strange dreams.

That's 90% of San Francisco right there...

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Many of the disturbed people form small groups and cults, dressing strangely[.]

Also not unusual for San Francisco.

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Then, one night, highly abnormal weather is reported around San Francisco.

Unusual weather is considered the norm around here.

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

One of the last files that get through is a blurry image of some gigantic thing raising out of the waters of the Bay. Then, only static on all channels.

The next morning, the shocked world wakes up to the news that a nuclear weapon was detonated in San Francisco.

Well, does that sound scary or not?

Yes, but not because of the destruction. For me, the horror is that humanity remains ignorant of the actual problem. Same thing with the Armitage example I gave above.

Could be a spoiler here, highlight the text below to read it
Near the end of the movie I mentioned is a montage consisting of the protagonists fighting for their lives, a newly elected politician looking friendly and harmless while waving to a crowd from her motorcade, and said politician's covert genocide of (to use TS terminology) SAIs cyberdoll-type cybershells. These particular cybershells are capable of carrying children to term, which the newly empowered political faction feels takes away something Speshul™ from humanity. Sure, the heroic couple survives to have a family together, but nobody's ever aware of the crime that was committed.

Originally Posted by Max Schreck

The problem with some of those approaches is that they are more thriller-oriented than Horror. I mean, biochauvinist Preservationist conspiracies (and their hyperevolutionist counterparts) are good fodder for a TS campaign and probably exciting too, but are they horrifying? Only if Watergate or Iran-Contra can be considered horror.

Putting aside the fact that government corruption is a real problem, I understand where you're coming from. Horror is a matter of perspective; a black op has a different experience with bigotry than a social outcast who can't even change a tampon in peace. To get horror at any power level, you need to:

• Get the players to care on a personal level what happens.
• Keep the PCs in constant range of the enemy.
• Always make the enemy a threat on both the tactical and strategic level, never something you can easily shoot your way through.
• Make the enemy genuinely evil; not just unappealing, but mean and insane as well.

To me, Exogenesis Station is the ideal setting for psychological horror in Transhuman Space.

[Max Schreck]

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

To me, Exogenesis Station is the ideal setting for psychological horror in Transhuman Space.

Yes, and it'll work both ways, too. The characters can either be "norms" (and here I mean biological entities able to pass for human and with a "human" mental makeup, e.g. baselines, upgrades and most paras) shocked by the radical, blasphemous, unholy, benighted, sacrilegious, unspeakable (yes, the whole Lovecraftian row of adjectives) practices on Exogenesis. They could even be the first EDI strike team sent in:

"What was that?"

"A rat, I think"

"That's no rat! Oh, my god, the Rat King!"

Blam! Blam Blam!

Or, alternatively, the characters could be the poor, oppressed infomorphs and uplifts suddenly under the iron heel of Nanodynamics and their EDI fascist thugs:

"You can't kill them! They're alive and sentient! 'I think, therefore I am,' Descartes said. That means they're just as 'human' as you."

"Yeah, shut up! No need to get riled up about a pair of octopus freaks! Besides, what do you care? You're just a program pretending to be a real person."

Of course, this being Transhuman Space, there is no need to portray as black-and-white as I did above, nor indeed as pulpy. A group of adventurers (yes, they also exist in TS) could stumble into the conflict and see it from both ways.

Max