Why are there no survivors from before the 1950s?
This came up in another thread, and I'd like to know if there is an official explanation for this.
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maybe because the game based on slasher movies there was many slasher movies before the 50s.
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The entity feeds off survivor emotion and feelings mostly, Gonna guess that they get drained pretty fast but nothings says no one from that time period doesn't have anything left
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Generator will be much scarier for then than Killer
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Imagine a caveman trying to fix a gen. Yeah, doesn't make sense, does it?
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It seems to me that its just not something they made, there are no rules for it they just haven't.
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The way we fix gens now doesn't make sense lol. Stick your hands in some gears until something happens or it explodes slightly
It would be fun if the next non-licensed survivor was just a normal dude from Pompeii though.
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Maybe something like Leonardo Da Vinci as a survivor or something, idk.
And the animations are only the way they are just because of limitations (self imposed or otherwise) and gameplay is only a guideline for how things actually go. Would you like to have to find new parts scattered across the map, or find a gen that cannot be completed, no matter the time put in it? I didn't think so.
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Just realized this could lead to a potential Samurai Jack situation which would be amazing 🤣
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For the most part, the Entity doesn't like taking survivors from worlds where magic is a widely known phenomenon. I think Kate represents the upper limit for the amount of magical knowledge in a single person that the Entity is willing to abduct. Additionally, it seems that worlds that don't grasp the power of magic are the exception, not the rule.
Societies with little technology will almost always believe in some form of magic as an explanation of the world around them. Most universes in the omniverse go on to codify those rules in their academies of magic. In order to find someone ignorant of magic throughout the omniverse, you would need to find a society that failed to codify these rules, and instead used other methods (conventional physics) to understand the world around them. Think of Kate, whose ancestors absolutely believed in the power of magic, verses Kate herself, who perceived her gift as a "Muse," a much less overtly magical understanding of her gift than the Seer classification of her ancestors.
Even in the advanced parts of our world, the complete disbelief of any kind of magic whatsoever is a recent development. If we're willing to classify religious beliefs that have metaphysical elements as magic, then it's only recently that the general public stopped believing in--for example--demonic possession as being the leading cause of severe mental illness.
It could be argued that it was only after the 1950s (or any given survivor's local techno-cultural equivalent) that people become so completely, irreparably separated from all forms of magic that they became ideal targets for the Entity. This would also be a nifty way to understand why there's no one in the Entity's realm that was born in one of the many modern day villages that still live now the same as they did 3 millennia ago.
This also implies some interesting things about the time periods the Entity grabbed the killers from. It implies that the Entity has a higher tolerance for magical knowledge in its killer servants than its survivor cattle. The Hag and Plague, in particular, explicitly knew about the existence of magic as a concrete force in the world long prior to coming to serve the Entity, and Frank strongly suspected magic's existence. In killers, does the Entity consider knowledge of magic without significant training in magic desirable, even? That's getting too speculative for me, but it's an interesting new question that my explanation raises.
@bjorksnas The Entity grabbed Plague after it grabbed Legion, despite the Plague being thousands of years earlier than the Legion. The Entity exists outside of time and is not be bound by any requirement to only grab survivors from a linear timeline which it must also travel along. In other words, the Entity could grab someone in 2007, wait 3 centuries, and then grab someone from 2004.
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Where does it say the Entity doesn't snatch people who believe in magic? Also, Kate isn't really 'magical' either, as I don't think we ought to take the whole muse thing literal.
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This is a horrible excuse
Imagine a random person who has no knowledge of generators trying to fix a gen. Yeah, doesn't make sense, does it? Oh wait
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The text regarding the Entity snatching people only from magically illiterate socieities is in Arcus 557 of Tome I. I'd also like to correct something I said earlier. I said that Kate's families were Seers or something, but after looking that up, that's not true. Having relooked over Kate's memories, I realized that I was misremembering Kate's Memory 3255, which essentially confirms that Kate has some degree of natural magical aptitude, by describing the artists of the modern day as being people who would have been shamans in ages past.
In any event, Kate isn't magical in the sense that she understands the practice of magic, no, but Kate's connection with her muse is said to connect her to other worlds, and allow her to see things that others cannot in Memory 3255. In the hours leading up to Kate being abducted by the Entity, she begins to hear a horrific, terrifying song. Either the Entity has chosen to torment Kate with a song (the Entity has never, to my knowledge, taunted someone like that for hours before abducting them), or Kate was able to perceive the Entity's attention and interaction with the world to some small degree, which manifested in her mind as a musical tune.
Despite her talent, at the end of the day she's got no training in it beyond maybe using magic to subconsciously increase her ability to write music, on occasion. That's why I said that I think Kate represents the upper limit on how much magical knowledge a human can have to be eligible for abduction, because she's still got a near-zero amount of magical skill, but it's also a non-zero amount of magical skill.
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It probably takes a lot of energy to move from dimension to dimension and forward and backwards on timelines, my guess is on the dimensions it frequents(idea wise this works because spirit/oni) it just heard a rad tale about aldris and was just like time to change it and take them into my employ and grabbed jane as a snack before heading out to grab plauge.
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real business reason?
cute outfits for young adult girls sell like hotcakes
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haven't unlocked that one yet.
But I think you are taking things a little too literal. I don't think pre-1950s would count as 'magically literate', nor that Kate's muse isn't more metaphorical. I mean, I'm an author, and I don't think I'm actually somehow connecting to another world for my stories. (not out of the possibilities though, but unlikely)
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Memory 3225 is very conclusive in saying that Kate has some kind of magical ability to perceive beyond what normal humans are able to perceive.
Here's the citation for the Entity only grabbing people from worlds that don't have magical education.
While people from before the 1950s wouldn't have been magically literate in the sense of having applicable knowledge, they would have at least believed in the power of magic and spirituality to have a real impact on the Earth. The Entity is going to generally target people who struggle to understand "... the metaphysical relationship between their thoughts and the world they live in." People in the developed modern day would fit that bill more than any other group in history, I think. I don't think public belief in the power of the supernatural or collective unconscious over death, success, or disasters has ever been any lower.
@BigTimeGamer That is a good Doylist answer, but because this is a lore thread, I'm trying to dig into a Watsonian reason.
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There is such a thing as learning, and I used a caveman as an example of a person who could not learn it. Similar things would occur with anybody before the invention of cars, as they wouldn't have any reference for what a generator like that is.
For example, 16th century individuals would not have a clue what a gen is... the only exception that might work would probably be Leonardo da Vinci, but that was because he was a genius for his time. Sure, some of the principles were wrong, but I am sure he could learn to correct those when in contact with others.
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The thing is, we do not know anything about how the entity takes people besides very specific cases. For instance, you say that Plague was taken after legion... how do we know that? There are countless more killers in the fog then we see in game. How do we know that your claim is true in this case? And not, that the Plague was taken before legion, but just not known?
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Question is: Do people from 'nowadays' really struggle metaphysical shenanigans less well?
I mean, if that were the reason, why the heck would the Entity get Bill, Ash and Cheryl? sure, they are all licensed chars, but I dare say the memory and observations are all severely 'unreliable narrator'.
like, with kate... it's a memory. so, isn't it more her interpretation of things? same with the arcus. they are, for all we know, written by someone quite full of themselves. Look at the real world and how some people are certain the pyramidic structures around the world are an evidence for aliens, because 'people in that day could never have had the knowledge and technology to achieve this'
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After the '50s, belief in magic definitely declined. Saying that someone with any form of atypical psychology is demon possessed is now considered backward and taboo. The belief that science can rationally explain everything that occurs in the world has never been higher, even if some people don't trust the scientists themselves, they still believe in the method.
Left 4 Dead's zombies are scientific, no magic required. He wouldn't break the no magic rule. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Ash doesn't ever actually use magic except once or twice to summon or banish things with the Necronomicon. He doesn't understand the principles of magic, he's just following the notes by rote I do believe. When it comes to actually fighting and interacting with the world, he prefers using his chainsaw, shotgun, and occasionally his car to actually achieve his goals, typically.
I haven't played Silent Hill, and it seems like Cheryl is a violation of this rule. But the devs really couldn't ever turn down having a SH survivor, the series is just too iconic. So even with licenced content, only one of them breaks my rule, and if I knew more about the series I could maybe even argue against that one. As it stands, I'll concede that Cheryl is a lone violation of my rule.
As for your unreliable narrator allegations, I don't really understand where you're coming from. The guy who writes the Arcus entries is a scholar from some kind of magi-tech Clarke tech civilization who seems to have been given the unenviable assignment to make an expedition into the Entity's realm. He's more than qualified to make observations about what's occurring in the realm.
With Kate, the allegation is a little less ridiculous, but I still strongly disagree that it's unreliable narrator. Just reading the text to me makes it clear that it's meant to be taken as a literal and truthful statement about her abilities. Throughout the entire tome, she's clearly getting visions precipitating her own abduction, almost certainly as a result of an ability to perceive the Entity's presence. Kate's not portrayed by the text as a conspiracy theorist or a lunatic, she's presented by the text as someone with a deeper connection to the supernatural than any other survivor seen thus far.
There is no basis in any of Kate's flavor text, anywhere, to allege that she has some kind of psychosis or tendency towards delusion necessary to erroneously make this kind of conclusion. If anything, she's quite humble and introspective, spending a great deal of time examining her inner motivations. If it was even someone like Ace making the memory, I'd almost understand because Ace does seem very full of himself, but there is no basis in Kate's character to say that she'd fall prey to this kind of delusion. Her worst flaws seem to be a failure to live up to her potential and greed; and neither of those flaws would instigate her to have this kind of delusion.
@Raven014 To some degree, I think the various patches of dbd represent the progression of time after the realm. I base my belief that the Plague came later in the Entity's local time than Legion partly on the Plague being released later than the Legion. When the Plague was released the devs spoke a lot in streams about the then-upcoming release about the Entity's ability to go to places and eras unbothered by the normal constraints of linear time. So partly on the kind of things the devs said during the Plague's release, and partly on the fact that the patches to the game are the only thing that seems to measure time somewhat consistently within the realms.
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Being a scholar doesn't equal being a relatable narrator.
Just, again, look at real life, and how often scholars are biased by their own culture, experience and upbringing.
I mean, there still ARE scholars that claim women (cis women that is) are naturally and scientifically weaker than cis men and are unable to withstand pain as much as men. There's scholars that do claim Black people are naturally less intelligent than white people. if you are autistic, you can't get a diagnosis if you grew up in a supportive environment, because scholars insist you can not be autistic if you don't have trauma. and they are dead serious about it.
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At this point your argument against him is that the narrator could be lying, without establishing any reason on why he would lie except some vague, politically-charged (thanks for bringing politics into this, btw /s) declarations of how some scholars have been wrong. You can't just say "unreliable narrator" to wipe the text clean of things that you don't like. Truthfully, I can now only think that you're going to dismiss every piece of evidence you don't like.
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wrong.
He's not 'lying', Lying requires the intend to lie.
He's biased. That's what I'm saying. He (is it a he actually?)... They have their experience and understanding of how the world works. They're not a neutral source of information. No story from the archives is. Because every memory, every observation went through the 'filter' of a person with their own idea of things.
So saying that there's no survivors from before 1950 because 'they believed in more magic' then basing that on the understanding of things from someone for whom magic is an everyday thing, and claiming that as a 100% fact, that's what I'm wary off.
But if your world is only either-or, then i understand why you think there's any story free of politics.
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Everyone's biased, but that doesn't mean that every conclusion that every person comes to is false. You need a better way of arguing that he's unreliable than "everyone's biased." At that point, I could just say that everyone in dbd is just misinterpreting the Entity, and that the Entity as actually a benevolent god trying to help people deal with their emotional trauma.
Also, I never said that stories are free of politics, nice strawman. Everything's political, it's true, but it's political in the sense that stories are informed by our worldview and ideologies. What I didn't like was you bringing up hot-button issues into what a conversation that has relatively few overt political issues being talked about.
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Stories are informed by our worldview. you are saying it yourself.
So, why should the memories etc not be taken with a grain of salt? That's all I'm asking.
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Because a scientist being biased by their worldview doesn't invalidate their ability to make truthful scientific observations. It's not that hard to understand. And you're not taking the log with a grain of salt, you've been dismissing it entirely. I don't think I have much more to add to this conversation anymore, unless someone brings up a different point.
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