Kerghans last thoughts

To put it in a short mathematical way, the total amount of happiness (positive) in the universe is smaller than the total amount of suffering (negative) in it. Always was, always will be. So the sum of the happiness and suffering in the universe at any time is always sub-zero. kerghan checked what awaits every soul in the after life, and he saw, that every single soul there is at peace and enlightingment. So the afterlife is positive, or at least neutral on the chart. So Kerghan calculated, that sending the whole universe to the afterlife will increase the happiness for everyone. Kerghan, seing how this would be redeeming, decided that it is not only his choice but his duty to do so. As he saw it, he could take the freedom to force everyone to the happiness and not bother with those, who would consider it wrong only because they weren't aware what awaits them in the afterlife. Putting people to death seems wrong when death itself is a mystery, un unknown area, but it stops looking wrong when it is discovered that death is good.

 

And what if people want to continue living, despite of the fact that death is good? What about all those people who are happy to be alive, and want to continue being it for as long as they can? Are they to be mercilessly robbed of their chance to live just because others are tired of their life? With Kerghan, they won't even get the chance to debate their point. He would, without listening to anybody (and thus being completely ignorant to other perspectives than his), destroy all of life and the possibilities it brings just because he can't find any joy in it. What a poor, narrow minded fool he is. What a self-righteous little prick of a human, really, to think himself worthy of such a "duty" (to call it a duty is sick in itself).

If six people out of ten agreed on that the lot of of them should commit painless suicide because life sucked and death would at least be neutral, would it then be right of them to force the remaining four into suicide? Mathimatically, they would be right since they are the majority of the group (according to your reasoning). I, though, disagree with all my heart.

 

Yeah, I'm going to side with Wolfsbane on this one.

Nobody has the right to decide who lives and who dies, especially not on the scale of an entire world. Virgil himself says that while life can be horrible, there are things that make living totally worth it. And he's right. Life can be an absolutely emo bitch-queen from hell, but there's still some stuff that's worth dealing with the shit to experience.

You know. Love, friendship, good to mediocre sex, that kind of thing.

 

You want to be happy being alive as you are, but you have to remember that your happiness has a price. The price is the suffering of others. We're not talking about Earth (but we could of course, the problem is universal), but about Arcanum. The amount of happy people is always smaller than those suffering. The happiness of a single city dweller is most propably paid for by the suffering of several if not dozens of people living outside of the cities, being afraid of being attacked, robed, raped and killed by human/orc/ogre bandits, or simply attacked and killed by wild animals. They work by the sweat of their brow from dawn to night just to have something to eat, but even that isn't enough, so whole families suffer of hunger. They don't have any perspectives and they mostly die because of desease, thirst or hunger. That's the case for humans, as for wild animals, they don't have too much reasons to joy, all they get from life is fear of being killed and a constant battle to not suffer hunger. They try to survive with all their might only because of a survival instinct which they do not understand. The same goes in simplification for all of the suffering people, who try to survive for the sake of survival. Because they don't know, that death brings happiness.

I'll keep with Wolfsbane's example. As Kerghan said (and in the Arcanum world it is hard not to agree with him), you are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective, considering life as the natural state. Kerghans view is not that these six people out of ten people would kill the next four to force them to die. Why bother, they will die anyway, it's only a matter of time. The thing is that these six people would kill those four to prevent them from breeding children and ripping calmed souls from their happiness in the great sea of mirrored grey glass and force them to live and suffer, without asking them if they want to. Kerghan simply wants to end the circle of suffering and for the very first time in all existance, bring true justice and happiness for every single living being.

In a hypothetical situation, if it would be possible to make every single organism in Arrcanum sterile, Kerghan would go for it. This way he wouldn't kill anyone, everyone would will to the natural end of their days, no one could say that he is stealing their freedom to live (even though mathematically that freedom is extremely selfish and unfair), but no more souls would by forced to leave their happiness in the afterlive ever again.

 

Agreeing wholeheartedly with Muro,on this one..
Kerghan is the one who see's only light and a calming to a world of death,and struggle of that of race,tech,and magic if it is all but gone.
it is and ending that would start a lifeless new.

 

Points to ponder:
- Very, VERY few things in life are zero-sum games. Someone else's happiness needn't preclude mine. Is that smoking jacket made by orcish laborers bringing you true happiness? Really?

- 'Calm = right' is an expression of Kerghan's value system, not an absolute.

- Conflict the Creator and Conflict the Destroyer: not all conflict is negative. (Violence, on the other hand...)

 

On a small scale, dependance doesn't exist. If I feel happy, while there is an X amount of suffering in the world beyond myself, but if I somehow menage to refuse my happiness and be sad, the X amount wouldn't reduce at all. But on a larger scale, the fact itself that I wish a world in which I'm happy when others suffer to continue, and refuse to choose a just happiness for everyone makes my selfish happiness in life being paid for by the suffering of others.

It isn't just simple calm as we know it. It's peace with the universe, truth, enlightingment. It's being free of any emotions, feelings ans needs. It's a complete nirvana for the soul. It may seem cold for a living person, but it is the opposite of the tortures which life gives to the soul. But as I said before, even if we don't call such state for every single soul a positive thing but "only" a neutral one, it's still better that the negative sum that life gives.

Forgive me, but I'm afraid I don't understand what are you willing to say. Could you please rephrase that?

 

Some people (especially philosophers and evolutionary biologists, in my experience) will argue that in fact our every action is selfish. According to such people even a seemingly altruistic act, like giving a meal to a homeless stranger, is at its core fueled by a desire to improve the conditions of the world for oneself (e.g. via karma) or for the sake of one's own gratification or conscience. Such people might tell you that life itself is inherently selfish. I imagine they and Kerghan would hit it off right away!

The smoking jacket example was meant to illustrate that many people confuse having material comforts with being happy. We may scoff at corporate CEOs who quibble over whether they should receive 3 million or 4 million USD each year, but so the Nigerians may laugh at Americans who worry about whether they should make 30,000 or 40,000 USD annually. The Nigerian makes the equivalent of 300 USD per year. And yet that country's people report higher levels of contentment and satisfaction with life.

If Kerghan's conclusions are correct, his proposal is certainly the equalizer to end all equalizers, isn't it? It's also a matter of perspective, as Kerghan presumes that order is the natural state. That's an interesting conclusion to draw in a world in which the arcane twists reality itself.

Positive conflict breeds creativity and transformation, with all parties in the conflict gaining more than their original stake in the conflict. This is Conflict the Creator. Some conflict breeds violence and narrowing of the mind, with all (or even just some) parties losing their legitimate goals and thus their happiness. This is Conflict the Destroyer. Kerghan seems to be overcome by the latter, Zen Virgil by the former.

 

I may as well be one of those people. But if we consider it truth, every choice would still be a choice between selfishness which benifits only the performer of the action, and good selfishness, which benifits other people. Kerghan's main goal may be considered the ultimately posotive selfishness.

Yes, it's a common mistake, which I'm trying not to make or use in a discussion. There are numerious examples of proof that money don't give happiness, sometimes they even dissuade from it, especially when we make bad decisions fueled only be our wallet o, greed or something about that. But a bare minimum of wealth is strongly required to even have the chance to be happy. it's hard to feel anything more than instinct when whe have to spend all our day on trying to get anything to eat and prevent ourselves from dying from starvation. Maslow's hierarchy of needs pretty much sums it up.

Perhaps Kerghan's point of view fits even more in our universe than in Arcanum's one. Here some of the questions which every seeker of the sence of life are "Are there any gods? Were we created on a purpose?". Kerghan's view of life being an accident seems more in a place for my atheistic outlook than for a world in which gods are clearly real and the All-Father exists without a doubt, which also makes it sure that he did have a plan when creating the world and the life in it (a good plan, a bad plan, but a plan for sure). Kerghan must know that, but he puts himself above the gods, claiming that he knows better than the gods what's the best option for life in Arcanum. It's arrogant, which doesn't mean that he's not right. He actually does care more about the good of everyone than them. he's like an Arcanum version of Prometheus.
Also, Kerghan presumes that order is natural, while life and the chaos it bring is the abomination. But he has his reasons. Most propably, the endless sea of grey mirrored glass existed forever, it must have been there before life itself came into being. The universe itself was dead (both in Arcanum terms like in real life) when life just accidently emarged from the neutral world of pure phisics and chemistry, becoming a organised form a chaos within it. But still, order precedid it, so it's more of a natural state of being.

Zen Virgil believes that what doesn't kill him, makes him stronger, better and even happier, since he gains perfection with every experience. Kerghan's responce to this is:
What's the sense of this form of gaining a fraction of true peace and enlightingment during life when the whole amount awaits us after death. And with life existing, one can become partly enlightened during his life, but then dies, wanders to the grey see, once again after some time he is taken to the realm of living, resets, forgetting his previous life and once again makes the same mistakes, possibly finds the same or similar enlightingment during life, but loses it at the end of it, and so on. it's a vicious circle, which Kerghan wants to end. It just doesn't seem that life would give any permanent benifits which aren't available after death and which actually wouldn't be lost when death comes for us.

Ah, and there is one more argument of which I forgot. in his great speach, Kerghan said "Have you ever spoken with the dead, called to them from this side, pulled them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is that they feel? Pain. Piain, when torn into this wakefulness, this reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped. Pain of having to live." There is no discussion about that. Every non-necromancer has the possibility to talk to Charles Brehgo and experience his pain. The curse doesn't cause it, it only chaines him to this world. The pain comes from being still partly alive. A necromancer can conjure numerous spirits and observe how they all suffer and beg to release them back to death. Not a single one feels happy about being in the world of taking a breath of live. These souls know both life and death and so does Kerghan, how can living people accuse them of being wrong while not knowing how wonderful death must be? It seems that the living try to stick to life as much as possible mostly because they don't know how intensively life sucks compared to the afterlife.

 

Just a quick note, Pelonius Schuyler doesn't feel pain at all, he just talks to you. You can also say this to Kerghan.

 

I'm aware of Pelonius. I believe this exception has place due to the fact, that he was a skilled necromancer, had experiance with dealing with conjured spirits, possibly had some personal experiences about it (like Kerghan, but on a smaller scale) therefore can somewhat manipulate with his state and can control himself when being summoned from the dead. It's not like he's enjoing being conjured, he just can bear with it. Kerghan also is just like a conjured soul in the shell of his body, since he also knows what death is about, yet he doesn't scream about the pain, he simply is aware of it.

I never had the dialogue option to tell Kerghan about Pelonius, though. Does it have a skill check?

 

Yes, that's what I thought as well. At least that it was because he was skilled that he was like he was. But I don't think he felt pain, otherwise the Living One would notice and not be able to say he had talked to souls who felt no pain.

I'm not sure. I was full everything because I had cheated to get some different conversations. But, I hadn't even talked to P. Schuyler yet I could still say it. I wonder if it was another soul? Bates, perhaps. He doesn't scream about pain, he just sounds weak.

 

Kerghan doesn't seem to be in pain too. I know it's not the exact same case, but maybe necromancers are used to it, in opposition no normal conjured spirits.

Well that troubles me. His case is strange, since, if I recall corectly, every other conjured soul except for Pelonius was in pain, while Bates was just depressed. Maybe it was just Troika's intention to put emphasis how tired and full of grief he is after a life with constant fear for life and feeling not fair because of the whole steam engine affair. As he said, it torments him every day. Maybe the sadness is in his case more noticeable for him than the pain, at least for some time while his previous life keeps having less and less meaning for him.

 

I imagined it was a but of some kind, but they did make it so he could talk after dying so it can't really be. You're probably right. Maybe his pain in life was so great that the pain of coming back isn't nearly as bad and he's used to it.

I think an interesting thing in Arcanum would be to die and then have someone conjure your spirit and talk to you, so your character could explain to the conjurer how it is. It would be a fixed thing to happen, say if you had a white Necromancer with you to resurrect you afterwards.

 

Since Geoffrey is the only follower skilled in the arts of dark necromance, I don't know if he would even bother to conjure the player's spirit. He would rather reanimated his corpse and make it dance caramelldansen.

Anyway it all in all is an interesting option, yet the way it is it's still good, since we have numerous sources of information about the afterlife, yet never do check them out ourselves. This way we have to believe (or not) what Virgil/Kerghan tell us about it, and imagine it in our own way.

 

Well, I meant an encounter like with Kerghan in Arcanum. He'd blast your followers to unconsciousness and then talk to you, but instead of that, he'd just kill you and conjure your spirit. Then your white Necromancer would resurrect you when s/he woke up.

Just an example, it wouldn't have to be Kerghan. But you're right, we're told how it is from other people. I never found Virgil after he left, though.

 

What about the fellow in the cave at the crash site. Was he in pain? Could not be bothered starting a new game to check. From memory he wasn't in pain, just was not allowed to proceed to the afterlife.

 

Okay, that's ONE. Now try doing it to 6/7's of the entire game's population.

 

Charles Brehgo was in a lot of pain as well.

I once killed Arbalah for him, then told him so he could be released. He laughed at me for killing a good guy. Then I brought him back to this world and told him I could do it whenever I wanted, just to watch him suffer. He wasn't laughing then.

 

Brehgo is a fine example of the suffering we are talking about. He was surely put at the Crash Site so the player wouldn't miss him and even if not being a necromancer, would know how souls feel when brought back to Arcanum, therefore when the end of the game comes and he hears Kerghan's speach, he would know that he's telling the truth about that one. After all both Brehgo and Fahrkus are in pain, even though all Arbalah's curse does is chain them to Arcanum, not give them pain. The pain has it's origin elsewhere.