What could weird science do?

[Pao]

Could Weird science create Shoggoth? Could Weird science built a cryosleep chamber?

Edited October 15, 2023 by Pao

[1d8+DB]

A Shoggoth?  I would say no; that's deep Mythos mojo there. A cryo-sleep chamber? Definitely.

[Pao]

Isn't Shoggoth just advance bio-technology?

[Pao]

Could Weird Science reverse engineer Migo lighting gun?

[Joerg]

If you listen to Sandy of Cthulhu, Sandy Petersen's youtube channel, or if you talk to him about using the Starspawn etc. as factions in his Hyperspace board game (and an upcoming game where you captain individual ships in that setting), yes, then Shoggoths are the result of one of the Mythos races' technology. In case of the Shoggoths, IIRC there is more than just bio-technology involved, but yes.

Could human-level weird science produce shoggoths? Not exactly that, but infusing science with things man was not meant to know might create its own horrors to destroy human civilization. Possibly rivalling ones.

[Pao]

14 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Snip

Would human-level weird scinece able to revesed engineer a lighting gun?

[John Hall]

The great thing about weird science is it's weird enough to do just about anything imaginable and unimaginable but flawed enough to yield unintended, horrible and horrific consequences. If it makes a good story for a mad scientist to tap into Mythos knowledge and spawn a Shoggoth in his lab, there's certainly a story hook to get the investigators involved when it goes on its inevitable sanity-bending rampage. 

The easiest limit Keepers can put on investigators delving too deeply into their own weird science experiments would be SAN loss during the research process. But I don't think there's any reason to put a limit on the weird science the Keeper can throw at the players in the name of good story-telling and hair-raising cosmic horror.

[TrippyHippy]

Didn't Adrian Veidt do something like that in Alan Moore's The Watchmen? 

[Joerg]

On 10/15/2023 at 4:58 PM, Pao said:

Would human-level weird scinece able to revesed engineer a lighting gun?

If you use a Mi-Go brain container or two, why not?

[SunlessNick]

On 10/15/2023 at 3:58 PM, Pao said:

Would human-level weird scinece able to revesed engineer a lighting gun?

I would think so.

[Pao]

On 10/17/2023 at 3:48 PM, Joerg said:

If you use a Mi-Go brain container or two, why not?

What is the propuse of Mi-Go brain container?

[Joerg]

To add another brain's capacity to the user's. Or several.

[Pao]

I feel like there other way of doing that, without harvesting people brain.

[David Scott]

On 10/15/2023 at 5:21 AM, Pao said:

Could Weird science create Shoggoth?

Sure, that would be great Pulp Cthulhu adventure against an evil mad scientist. The giant machine may just be porting them in from somewhere or building them from scratch. Will the investigators arrive in time to destroy the device or will they have to face the Shoggoth first...

On 10/15/2023 at 5:21 AM, Pao said:

Could Weird science built a cryosleep chamber?

Sure, but I'm not sure what you'd want it for.

On 10/15/2023 at 10:48 AM, Pao said:

Could Weird Science reverse engineer Migo lighting gun?

Sure, but remember it will electrocute you as well, so most of the weird stuff is your bulky rubber suit (and Mi-go would be after you).

I played a lot of TORG in the Weird Science of the Nile Empire and Terra, the background is also 1930s, so the material fits well with Pulp Cthulhu.

Weird science can do anything you want to forward the plot. 

Edited October 19, 2023 by David Scott

[David Scott]

Please note the confusing answer above is due to it's a Yithian Lightning Gun and a Mi-Go Electric Gun, so I went for electric gun.

[g33k]

On 10/19/2023 at 6:31 AM, Pao said:

I feel like there other way of doing that, without harvesting people brain.

But which is the more horror-centric way to do it?

And also recall that HPL was writing to the science (and pop-science speculation, sci-fi, etc) of his time.  Brain-in-a-jar was definitely "of his time."

Edited October 20, 2023 by g33k

[EldorfDragonsbane]

Could weird science create a Shoggoth?

 

Possibly if the scientist has enough knowledge in bio-chemistry. You have to rememebr according to HPL in At the Mountains of Madness, the shoggoth were mentiond as being created as a slave race by the Elder Things, who also may have or may not have created most life on earth from their experiments. So taking this in account then yes a weird (mad) scientist may be able to create a shoggoth, though would they be able to control it, hard to say, though I would lean to the answer being no they wouldnt be able to control it, case in point Victor Frankenstein wasnt able to control his creation, even though he created it.

 

Same goes for the Yithian and Mi-Go technology. If the scientist was intelligent (lucky?) enough or had access to the proper materials they could possibly duplicate the technology, though again would they fully understand how said technology works?

 

Ultimately if you are the Keeper its your decision if it happens. Who's to say that the Scientist didnt use both Weird Science and a bit of Mythos in his creations.

[EricW]

Weird science could cure something considered incurable - and it wouldn't take much of a nudge in many cases.

Someone asked a while ago on another forum whether rock legend Freddy Mercury could have been saved from dying of HIV, by medical technology available in 1991. The answer surprisingly might be yes. 

A study was published a few years ago, and more recently in Nature, that people who receive bone marrow transplants, effectively an immune system transplant, can have permanent remission from HIV. A small percentage of people are naturally immune to HIV due to a mutation in the receptor site which HIV uses to enter cells. If you receive an immune system from someone with such a mutation, you also apparently acquire the immunity from HIV. Bone marrow / immune system transplant has been a standard treatment for some forms of cancer since it was discovered in 1956.

Similarly, it wasn't so long ago that Barry Marshall proved to the world that stomach ulcers are a bacterial infection. For decades previously scientists believed stomach ulcers were a disorder caused by excessive stomach acid production. 

Just the other day I learned there is a repurposed medicine which appears to be an effective antidote against death cap mushroom poisoning. Actually the weird thing is the antidote isn't really what most people would consider to be a medicine, it's a medical dye used to improve some forms of medical imaging. 

My point is, a scientist who somehow obtained glimpses of future breakthroughs could deliver sensational medical cures, in most cases by repurposing existing treatments. 

How far would a dedicated, passionate doctor be prepared to do, for glimpses of knowledge which could save thousands, or even millions of lives? Would they struggle with their conscience, telling themselves the next time would definitely be the last, losing sanity every time they consort with whatever mythos madness is giving them their unnatural medical insights? 

We already have a grizzly historical example of doctors consorting with criminals to advance medical science. Doctors in the 18th and 19th century paid body snatchers good money for stealing fresh corpses for research. The doctors paid the best money for really fresh corpses, so some body snatchers went the extra mile to ensure the best quality. I wonder how many doctors ignored their doubts and misgivings when dealing with such people?

Edited October 20, 2023 by EricW

[EricW]

On 10/16/2023 at 12:58 AM, Pao said:

Would human-level weird scinece able to revesed engineer a lighting gun?

Human science already knows how to make a lighting gun, the missing piece is making it man portable.

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by EricW

[g33k]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

Human science already knows how to make a lighting gun, the missing piece is making it man portable.

A very interesting article, TYVM!

Worth noting:  most of the projects listed there are 10+ years old... how has the engineering (observing that it's just engineering now, the basic science having been completed) advanced since???
<chirping crickets sound>

I mean, not to sound all conspiratard-ish, or anything...  but srsly??!?

[g33k]

On 10/19/2023 at 12:54 PM, g33k said:

 

(Mouse error, deleted)

Edited October 20, 2023 by g33k

[g33k]

On 10/16/2023 at 1:10 PM, John Hall said:

The great thing about weird science is it's weird enough to do just about anything imaginable and unimaginable but flawed enough to yield unintended, horrible and horrific consequences. If it makes a good story for a mad scientist to tap into Mythos knowledge and spawn a Shoggoth in his lab, there's certainly a story hook to get the investigators involved when it goes on its inevitable sanity-bending rampage. 

The easiest limit Keepers can put on investigators delving too deeply into their own weird science experiments would be SAN loss during the research process. But I don't think there's any reason to put a limit on the weird science the Keeper can throw at the players in the name of good story-telling and hair-raising cosmic horror.

Thank you; this helps me articulate something I haven't seen in this thread.

One of the key elements of "Cosmic Horror" is that there is much that is simply beyond the reach of mankind; "weird" or not, human science just cannot achieve some things (generally, horrific things; but not always).

The more of the Mythos that comes within reach of humanity, the less Cosmic Horror the setting holds:  even if it has come with some SAN-loss, a human who is still (mostly) sane, and has a reliable Shoggoth-creation process in-hand (particularly a process that others can use, with minimal SAN-loss to them) has advanced humanity's reach, has gained us all some mastery over the Mythos...

[EricW]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Thank you; this helps me articulate something I haven't seen in this thread.

One of the key elements of "Cosmic Horror" is that there is much that is simply beyond the reach of mankind; "weird" or not, human science just cannot achieve some things (generally, horrific things; but not always).

The more of the Mythos that comes within reach of humanity, the less Cosmic Horror the setting holds:  even if it has come with some SAN-loss, a human who is still (mostly) sane, and has a reliable Shoggoth-creation process in-hand (particularly a process that others can use, with minimal SAN-loss to them) has advanced humanity's reach, has gained us all some mastery over the Mythos...

I think there is a lot to be said for keeping the horror low key. Consider one of HP Lovecraft's most engaging and terrifying stories, "The Picture in the House", about someone who stops at the wrong house. No cosmic world ending horror, just an ignorant backwoods hermit who found the wrong book, who couldn't even read the words, but just from looking at the pictures lost his sanity to a fragment of mythos insight.

Or one of my favourite horror stories, Stephen King's "The Tommyknockers", about a woman out walking her dog one day in the woods, who stumbles across a mysterious rock sticking out of the ground, and decides to try to dig it up. Stephen King is a master of this kind of horror, he takes an everyday setting and changes just one thing, just one small thing wrong or out of place, from which the rest of the story flows. (BTW the movie is much better than the book, one of the few cases I'd recommend the movie. King wrote the book when he was high on cocaine, and it affected his writing).

The whole point of keeping the horror low key is IMO it makes the horror more relatable, more real. Anyone can imagine stumbling across something odd in the woods, or stopping somewhere to call for help if your car breaks down on a bad night. 

The British series Doctor Who forgot this lesson, it went from Horror at Fang Rock in 1977, about a lighthouse which wasn't functioning properly, to cosmic end of the universe horror with every episode. The special effects are amazing but it's less relatable than the doctor turning up somewhere ordinary, where there is a little problem, which turns out to be a clue to something worse. 

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by EricW

[g33k]

28 minutes ago, EricW said:

I think there is a lot to be said for keeping the horror low key. Consider one of HP Lovecraft's most engaging and terrifying stories, "The Picture in the House" ...

A fair point... more than fair!

However, I'll assert that topic at hand -- Shoggoths, weird science, &c -- is inherently not low key.

There's scope for both, I think.  But the "low key" stories aren't likely to feature Shoggoth's, Lightning Guns, and other examinations into the limits of humans' intentional reach deep into the weird.

[EricW]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

A fair point... more than fair!

However, I'll assert that topic at hand -- Shoggoths, weird science, &c -- is inherently not low key.

There's scope for both, I think.  But the "low key" stories aren't likely to feature Shoggoth's, Lightning Guns, and other examinations into the limits of humans' intentional reach deep into the weird.

He he - the Tommyknockers is weird science, mythos weird, devastating and terrifying weird science, an entire town slowly coming under the influence, everyone building insane and mostly lethal science fiction tech gadgets in their garden sheds. 

It also produced one of my favourite movie quotes. The main protagonist in the story had a steel plate in his head, everyone in town thought that is why he wasn't falling under the malevolent influence, the plate was blocking the signal. But someone he helped finally realised the truth - "It was never the steel plate in your head, it was the iron in your head". 

Edited October 21, 2023 by EricW