[WB] Notes Towards the Lovecraftian Apocalypse

[TheCorsair]

What the Lovecraftian Apocalypse is not

The Lovecraftian apocalypse is not a dramatic final stand against the forces of darkness come to end the human species. Watership Down is a far more accurate way to conceive of what it will look like. The early chapters of that novel are about a lone, crazed rabbit who is (yet again) having visions of the end of his world. He and a few believers escape, shortly before the warren is destroyed by forces the rabbits cannot understand. The air turns deadly, and hideous alien things tear the very ground apart, and the living and the dead alike are dragged from an earth that is turning upside down and falling into the sky.

Or, put another way, a construction crew that barely acknowledges the rabbits as anything but a speed bump as they break ground for a subdivision.

 

[TheCorsair]

Historical Support

It’s important to remember that the awakening of Cthulhu and the rise of R’lyeh is not going to be an ecological and existential catastrophe for the planet Earth that will rip the dimensions asunder and rewrite the natural laws of the planet. Cthulhu and their kind arrived around 350 million years ago, during Roemer’s Gap in the Carboniferous, and settled on the southeastern coast of Gondwana In fact, it is possible that their conflict with the Old Ones allowed more modern fishes and tetrapods to evolve in the absence of Old One predation and interference.

It is unclear when R’lyeh shut down and became the sunken tomb-city of the dead but dreaming Cthulhu. Assuming that R’lyeh was settled in southeastern Gondwana, it is likely the city was fully submerged between 150 and 120 mya. There is no reason to believe that having their city below the ocean was any particular inconvenience to an advanced starfaring civilization, at least as long as the stars were right. A likely candidate for the stars no longer being right was the entrance of Earth’s solar system into the Local Bubble - a volume of space some 1,000 light years wide in which the interstellar medium is significantly thinner, and which has an increased rate of star formation at the periphery. This bubble was created between 20 and 10 mya by a series of supernovae in the Pleiades moving group, but Earth’s solar system did not enter it until approximately 5 mya. The conditions of the Local Bubble could easily constitute the stars being “wrong”.

To put things in perspective, this would mean that R’lyeh became a tomb-city for the dead but dreaming Cthulhu in the middle of the Messinian, approximately when Hominini began radiating into Panina and Australopithecines.

The point to all of this is, of course, to demonstrate that R’lyeh’s rising would in all likelihood not be a planetary destruction event or even a mass extinction event. Cthulhu and their spawn lived on this planet for approximately 345 million years without devastating the ecology or destroying the entire planet, and there’s no reason to suppose this would change simply because the city reactivates.

 

[TheCorsair]

Cthulhu And Humanity

Cthulhu failing to be a mass extinction event does not mean that humanity will have an easy go of it when R’lyeh rises, any more than the rabbits did in Watership Down. Cthulhu does not see any real distinction between our ancient Australopithecine ancestors and Homo sapiens. We do not appear sentient to Cthulhu, any more than termites or beavers or chimpanzees appear sentient to us. If Cthulhu notices us at all, we are simply part of the environment. Cthulhu wouldn’t go out of their way to destroy us, but Cthulhu also wouldn’t think twice about bulldozing a human city or nation to get access to land or resources necessary for R’lyeh’s expansion. It’s doubtful that Cthulhu would be unnecessarily cruel about what is done to clear the land; more likely, they would be utterly impersonal and utterly uncaring. We’re not important.

Part of the reason Cthulhu doesn’t recognize humanity as sentient is because, despite what the cranks and woo peddlers sell, we are not a psychically active species. We cannot communicate in any intelligent way, just in vocalized grunting and whistling and modulated electromagnetic frequencies. (That last may, possibly, earn us a R’lyehian designation of “possibly evolving towards sentience”. However, speculation on R’lyehian attitudes towards humanity beyond uncaring disinterest is unwarranted.) It is possible that a few R’lyehians may be concerned about the impact of R’lyehian telepathic communications on H. sapiens, but for the most part they don’t care any more than H. sapiens cares about the impact of sonar and engine noise on the communication networks of the great whales.

Cthulhu doesn’t care about the “Cthulhu Cult”. Cthulhu doesn’t lead the cult, or speak to the cultists when they meet to worship and offer sacrifice, and isn’t going to teach them new ways to kill and revel. The Cthulhu Cult is a group of functional lunatics led by a group of barely-functional lunatics who interpret the random impact of R’lyehian communications on their brains as “divine revelations”. They are not necessary to help Cthulhu rise again, and in fact are utterly powerless to speed up the rise of R’lyeh in any way, shape, or form. And when R’lyeh rises they will not be honored as good and faithful servants and invited to sit at Cthulhu’s right hand In fact, they’re the ones most likely to be killed by Cthulhu when they gather at the risen island of their lord- for the same reason you would exterminate a swarm of field mice that invaded your home, even if you have no particular grudge against field mice as a concept.

 

[TheCorsair]

R’lyeh Rises!

So what happens when R’lyeh rises? Well, even assuming that the island is the size of New Zealand, it’s unlikely to cause a significant change in sea levels. New Zealand has a surface area of about 104,000 square miles, and the Pacific has an average depth of 2.5 miles. So, with these numbers in mind, R’lyeh would displace approximately 260,000 cubic miles of ocean. Earth had approximately 333 million cubic miles of water, meaning that it would displace some 0.078% of the Earth’s water. Given that the average depth of the ocean is 2.3 miles, this would result in roughly a 9.5 inch rise in sea level - noticeable, but not catastrophic. It might result in tidal waves, though, and that could be catastrophic for the Pacific Rim.

The telepathic communications of the R’lyehians would be far more destructive to humanity. Even blocked by thousands of miles of ocean and stone and dirt, Cthulhu’s “sleep mode” mental activity was potent enough to impact human dreamers who are less psychically inert than the average human, and their brief awakening in 1928 was enough to drive the same types of humans to psychotic breaks and even suicide. A fully-functional R’lyehian civilization would doubtless be much worse. Based on the ranges of their slumbering thoughts, the R’lyehian psychic field would initially wreak havoc in all of North and South America, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands as anyone with any psychic sensitivity is bombarded with incomprehensible alien thoughts and images. These individuals - typically extremely creative people - would suffer from extreme hallucinations and seizures. There would be a x10 increase in mental disorders, meaning 3.3% to 7.5% of the populace in the impacted area would suffer from schizophrenia, 95% of the population would suffer from one or more depressive illnesses, and the entire population would suffer from one or more anxiety disorders. Appropriate medications could help alleviate the symptoms, but it is unlikely that humanity could maintain long-term habitation of the impacted regions.

Humans with Ghoul or Deep One DNA would fare better, as these creatures are either more resistant to psychic bombardment (Ghouls) or better adapted to deal with psychic bombardment (Deep Ones). However, it is likely that the psychic bombardment would trigger transformations earlier than normal, increasing the Deep One and Ghoul population. It is unlikely that Cthulhu cares for or notices these species any more than they notice or care for H. sapiens.

 

[TheCorsair]

Can We Fight Back?

Remember the Watership Down comparison? How effective would it have been if Fiver had successfully rallied the warren to attack the earthmoving equipment?

There is nothing humanity could do to prevent Cthulhu from rising, or to defeat R’lyeh once it is risen. R’lyeh is most likely a Kardashev III civilization, making them functionally godlike to humanity. Our most powerful nuclear weapons wouldn’t even be firecrackers to them, and our conventional weapons aren’t even noticeable.

Yes, I’m aware that the Alert rammed Cthulhu in 1928, discorporated them, and sent them back into stasis. Although, to be honest, it’s far more accurate to say the Alert rammed something that was later identified as Cthulhu. It is equally likely that the thing the Alert encountered was not Cthulhu at all. Consider this scenario: the stars came right enough in 1928 for R’lyeh to power up enough to deploy something comparable to the Perseverance rover we sent to Mars. This probe is the bit of R’lyeh that surfaced, and it deployed a Cthulhumorphic drone similar to the Ingenuity drone we deployed on Mars. The purpose of the probe and the drone were to to determine if the minor increase in power levels - the “stars coming right” - was sufficient to fully reactivate the island. The destruction of the probe form was inconvenient, but did not prevent R’lyeh’s reactivation. Had the stars been right in 1928, human history would be extremely different despite the actions of the Alert.

 

[TheCorsair]

I would love constructive criticism and feedback on this.