Eclipse Bell in Arda
Next Post »
+ Show First Post
Total: 4883
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

Maybe they could make some kind of filter where only people who'd welcome the conversation can be psioned.

Permalink

They would spend more than an hour considering that.

Permalink

Then she can consult Maitimë on wording the suggestion and actually make it -

Permalink

They spend a week considering it and decide to maybe roll it out eventually after some caution, but for now no talking to the dead.

Permalink

 

Okay.

Sigh.

Permalink

Yup. 

Elf emigration to Endorë shouldn't provoke any particular dangers, and humans and hobbits and Dwarves are supposed to start existing in Arda someday and they seem likelier to start doing that in Endorë than Valinor, so they keep up with plans to relocate a substantial share of the Noldor. She checks in with the kids more, in case there are other dangerous ideas they're not thinking of.

 

 

And a couple months later - oh, you're going to love this - I want to just scream at everybody 'do you have any idea what we're trying to do here' -

Permalink

What is it I'm going to love so much?

Permalink

Elves have learned about abortion! Elves are upset about abortion! Elves did some math and decided that abortion was the leading cause of death among humans, what the Halls, why wasn't all Elf energy going to save human babies? There are several thousand angry and upset internet essays and some pro-life group decided this was fertile ground and met the Elves for an interview and got an explanation:

A child's soul doesn't stop growing, if they're killed, but it grows without them, isolated from the world, experiencing it but unable to take part in it, unable if they're young enough even to make sense of the call to Mandos (or, in the case of Men, on to the next life). Murdering your child in infancy is condemning them to a half-existence maturing in total isolation, able to witness the world but not do anything to affect it, until they presumably eventually are old enough to understand and follow the call, unless you've managed to impede their development so much they never do. Several Elves expound on this quite passionately. The video has a hundred million views.

Permalink

Oh fuck. What makes them think they even know the metaphysics they're drawing on -

Permalink

I mean, that's how it works here, you have to reembody Elf children really quickly, they have absolutely no reason to extend that to humans but here we are -

Permalink

Did the Valar have the courtesy to announce the thing about how they had to specifically block psion communications with the dead - not that I expect that to have that much traction with the sort of humans who are piggybacking on this -

Permalink

They thought it'd just upset people to announce that it had been briefly possible.

Permalink

Well, this mess is upsetting people too.

Permalink

Yep, I noticed. It seems reasonable to make it known that you can talk to Elf dead until they've reached the shelter of Mandos but not to human dead at any point - I'm assuming people've tried -

Permalink

Yeah. - People claim to succeed too but they're frauds, I don't know how easy Elves'll be to convince on that point, humans are vulnerable to wishful thinking -

Permalink

I think 'humans just cease existing when they die' will be - hard for a lot of people to take seriously as a concept -

Permalink

Well, you have to agree it's kind of awful, and Elves thought we did until we found the Valar and they were like 'of course not, all your dead are right here', so people are inclined to match to that -

Permalink

Well, I would very much like it if these people would stop terrorizing not only people who've had abortions but also the bereaved of infant mortality and miscarriage, so if they can be convinced... for that matter it would be an improvement if they all converted to Christianity on the subject, modern strains are pretty gentle on the stories about the fates of young dead souls...

Permalink

Yes, I know. I can order them to stop, persuading them will be harder, converting them to an Earth religion - I don't see an avenue to do that assuming it's not in fact true -

Permalink

It's not but neither is the thing they're saying!

Permalink

'humans work like Elves and are harder to find for some reason' is less of a stretch than - than whatever beliefs are associated with your religions -

Permalink

Standard line is 'there's an afterlife, it is Actually Nice except for how it conspicuously doesn't interact with alive people, except maybe for people we don't like it is unpleasant', except babies generally don't run into problems with the 'people we don't like' part, except when they do, which is why I specified modern strains - I don't seriously think we should try to convert any Elves to Christianity piecemeal or otherwise, just, human memes are robust against human biology in a way that Elf ones are desperately not.

Permalink

Yeah, you wouldn't be very successful very long telling humans that their afterlife is horrible. - what happens if we ask the Valar to comment -

Permalink

Well, Hypothetical Valar?

Total: 4883
Posts Per Page: