18 KiB
Blood Offerings [MK]
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Author: u/Aabcehmu112358 Utter Fallacy*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3i0q4q/blood_offerings_mk/
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Score: 7
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Created: 2015-08-22T22:56:24
Post:
I am considering a fantastical history, which, along with a number of other changes, include that two (technically four) magic techniques are discovered by the early Estruscans, both requiring the sacrifice living (or at least largely undamaged) human blood and organs, up to and including the sacrificing of whole persons.
The first technique produces raw labor, directed by the conductors of the ritual. This can produce roughly 2 man-hours per mL of blood (though the exact amount varies, depending on contents of the blood, with the biggest impact being given by the number of erythrocytes), in the form of a cloud of wispy, indistinct laborers. This cloud will be dispersed by strong sunlight, and will rapidly fade away after about a day, regardless of what work they are made to do. This cloud can, where the equivalent man-hours of humans would be impeded by having to pack human laborers together, or by the working environment, work unimpeded. This cloud can be directed on the small scale by someone who carries a bone from the body of someone who was sacrificed, the overall task which it will work towards is determined what organs or body parts are sacrificed along with the blood. It is limited to gross labor, and cannot take require individual craftspeople, such as smithing, pottery, or similar task, not even in bulk, at least not without exceptional equipment. Heavy lifting, the diggin of ditches or canals, the building of walls, and mining are all suitable tasks, however.
The second technique is imbuement. This technique requires the sacrifice of a whole (healthy) human, and its effect changes drastically based on the target of the imbuement. Inanimate objects, when imbued, will become a servitor, and capable of moving itself with a similar wispy force to the labor cloud, and likewise limited in what actions it can perform, though rather than being to gross labor, it is instead limited to what the sacrificed person would consider the objects purpose. This severely limits the usefulness of servitors imbued into non-manmade objects. When an animal or plant is imbued, a familiar is created. This is a being, roughly human in shape, but which possesses thematic qualities related to the imbued organism in the sacrificed person's mind, and with a semi-intelligent personality that is formed of a composite of the sacrificed and the imbued (in the case of an imbued animal) or a greatly distorted version of the sacrificed's (in the case of an imbued plant). Finally, if the imbued is also a human, then the product of the ritual is a vampire. This being doesn't need to consume blood bodily (but see further information below), but does a few thematic abilities, such as unnatural paleness, immense strength, durability, and speed, the virtual halt of aging, and the loss of these abilities in strong sunlight.
While not considered a technique in and of itself, a separate, simpler ritual, requiring only the sacrifice of blood and no other body parts, allows for the 'recharging' of imbuements, which wear away over time as the servitor, familiar, or vampire is active, are attacked by strong sunlight, eventually braking if not recharged or kept in perpetual darkness.
Finally, also not technically considered a technique, if enough rituals are performed, in near enough in time and space, then births in a particular place and time will, with virtual certainty, kill the mother, and produce a 'red one.' Red ones are similar to ordinary humans in most ways, but their skin and hair are universally a bloody shade of red, they possess a much greater healing factor than ordinary humans (allowing for the regrowing of whole limbs with full functionality in a matter of months), a huge blood pressure and rate of blood production (which does not influence their health negatively, and provides them practical immunity to death from bleeding out, as long as they are not simultaneously starving or dying of thirst), and the inability to used as a ritual sacrifice (rituals involving the blood or body parts of red ones in any way will fail, and the blood of red ones can even dispel labor clouds or break imbuements). Additionally, the bodily fluids of red ones has a healing properties, though not the same scale as their own healing.
What are your thoughts on how this would impact history? I'm personally quite uncertain.
Comments:
u/ulyssessword [+4] (4 hours later)
roughly 2 man-hours per mL of blood
A standard blood donation is 500 ml every 56 days, which is 10ml/day, or 20 man-hours of labor per person per day. You have just more than doubled the productivity of the population. That's huge in a pre-industrial society.
[Imbuements] will eventually be broken if not recharged or kept in perpetual darkness.
Is there anything stopping them from carrying a cloak or other sun shade around? Is that the only way that they break? I could see a mine run by a few hundred imbued picks and shovels that never need recharging.
which possesses thematic qualities related to the imbued organism,
How are the thematic qualities determined? Are they a fact of the world, or are they affected by the beliefs of one or more people? If the qualities are determined by peoples' beliefs, then society would try to anthropomorphize things so that they have very strong, positive qualities. (eg. a dog familiar is perceptive in general (instead of just scent and hearing), a willow familiar is indestructible instead of merely flexible, a falcon familiar is fast in general (instead of only when diving) etc.)
I'm not too sure how to handle red ones or vampires.
u/Aabcehmu112358 [+4] Utter Fallacy (4 hours later)
Heightened productivity is expected, though it's important to note that non-lethal blood donation is only effective for recharging. There is no 'null' task for a labor cloud to do that doesn't require additional organs to distinguish it, and of course imbuements will consume the entire body of the offering.
Servitors, familiars, and vampires all 'consume' their imbuement whenever they are active (when the servitor is performing its task, and virtually all the time for familiars and vampires, excluding a non-instinctive but learnable meditative state. It's just that even if they're completely inactive, if they're in strong sunlight, they will continue to degrade.
Just like how the suitable tasks for a servitor are determined by the beliefs of the offering, so to are the thematic abilities of a familiar. You're point still stands though, and it seems likely that those who are given to be an offering for a familiar are going to trained to attribute as many positive attributes to what they are going to offered for.
u/fljared [+2] United Federation of Planets (2 days later)
The average human has about 5 liters of blood in their body. Assuming you can't "store" someone's blood for a later sacrifice, you have 10,000 man-hours of work. For an eight hour work day, that's 125 days of work, or less than half a year. Given that a dead person can't work, you'll need to pay for years of missed work to make it "worth it" for anyone you might want to hire to do this (Someone on the poverty line who wants to leave a nest egg for the family, or something), not counting the cost of death.
So generally, free market usage, even in a society comfortable with human sacrifice for material goods, is out. Any society that uses this will probably be somewhat tyrannical AND want something done fast. Large building of structures could be a use- Things that would take over a century now take a year, and things that took millenia now only take decades. You could build yourself a new great lake with daily sacrifice and be buried in that. (Suck it, pyramids!)
u/Aabcehmu112358 [+1] Utter Fallacy (2 days later)
That's all true, for labor clouds at least. It seems like it'd take some sort of aspiring tyrant who is okay with human sacrifice using blood offerings to conquer Etruria in order for it to be used, since from what I understand of their religion, mistreatment of the bodies of the deceased was forbidden.
Beyond labor clouds, though, servitors, familiars, and vampires can all run on non-lethal blood recharges, and all of them potentially provide work that the offered and the imbued couldn't do beforehand.
Out of curiosity, any idea how red ones could play into things, economically speaking?
u/TennisMaster2 [+3] (3 days later)
What immediately comes to mind is that a cooperative society in which regular sacrifice is considered culture would thrive. I will describe one such scenario below, assuming we begin in pre-history:
First - who would be sacrificied? My initial thought was the elderly, ala Bostrom's "The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant", before their health starts to fail; their bodies may have accumulated wear, but physiologically the elderly would have been healthy, because otherwise they'd shortly become dead. However, this wouldn't work until writing came about, as the elders would have all the knowledge. Babies would.
To keep the birth rate constant, girls would be turned into vampires young - probably from 12-17. They would be turned in pairs, each becoming a vampire as a result of another's sacrifice; they could be further tied to the village by keeping secret whose child was used for each vampirization. The culture would be heavily promiscuous, basically allowing the vampire girls to copulate as they will, sneaking into men and boys' tents at night. During the day, they'd sleep and do tasks in sun-tight huts.
Protection from other tribes would of course be paramount, and for this some men would also be turned into vampires. They'd watch over the tribe at night, and do things in sun-tight huts during the day, when not sleeping.
The rest of the babies would be used for sacrifice. The first ones would be for building a safe fortress. The next wave would probably be allowed to live to build up the population. Some would be imbued in tools or animals for the purpose of securing a stable food supply, and maybe move berry trees or roots producing tubers within the fortress compound.
Once they invent writing, the elderly can be used as sources for specialized imbuements, since they have a mind that can specify, or as blood banks. By this point, red ones will have been born. They will become the martial force by day, further reducing or potentially eliminating the need for recharging the vampires. The red ones will also be the healers of those not imbued. The elderly, if not healthy, can first undergo a treatment of red ones' blood. When finished, they will be healthy, and can be eviscerated and bloodlet for labor hours, then rejuvenated with the blood of red ones.
The blood of red ones could also be used as a valuable trading commodity, or means of spreading the Etruscans' reputation as formidable healers. This would allow them to form ties of friendship with societies without, alleviating the burden of attacks from pillaging peoples.
At some point the women will run out of eggs. According to this, it would be after about 325 years, assuming each female vampire is impregnated immediately after giving birth. After such long service, I presume they will become emeritus: still just as promiscuous, but revered and allowed to do as they wish. I suspect they'd turn their focus to whatever hobby or hobbies occupied their daytime hours in the latter period of the last 325 years; after that amount of time, their society would have advanced enough for hobbies to become possible.
Just a rough brainstorming.
u/Aabcehmu112358 [+2] Utter Fallacy (3 days later)
Addressing these point by point:
It does seem likely that a society that takes advantage of the rituals will prosper, in comparison to one that does not, and so would grow to be more numerous and dominant in their (quickly growing) area of influence.
Two notes. The first, wouldn't it be possible for the elders to pass their knowledge on to the first vampires? That seems like it would happen much sooner, since it fits neatly into the paradigm of oral history. The second, babies are smaller than adults, and have smaller blood volume per body, which does increase the number babies that are needed.
I'm not certain I understand how halving the girl population helps stabilize the birth rate, besides eliminating the risk of death in childbirth, and having more years of life to have children with. Maybe that's enough? And, if they're spending all day inside preserving their imbuement, it sounds like they've got plenty of time to learn from the elders.
Out of curiosity, if all of the young girls are already vampires, why would they need to turn men? I admit the girls may be untrained or pregnant, but superhuman strength, speed, and durability seem like they might account for that. Speaking of battle and war, though, captives from nearby italic tribes could be another good source of offerings.
Using familiars to aid in the caring of livestock and crops is an idea that I hadn't thought of, but it seems like it could work.
Most of this seems quite reasonable, though a note: if the elderly are treated by red one blood, there'll be a wait time of around 3 months before they're safe to use in a ritual, as the red on erythrocytes die and are replaced with native cells.
Blood trading definitely seems likely. As it gets farther from Etruria, I cam even see the idea that it is blood being taken as metaphorical, after the words are translated and retranslated.
And, the status of emeritus does seem likely. Even if they can't have children, they still have value as a superhuman.
u/TennisMaster2 [+3] (3 days later)
I'll do the same.
Your first note does make sense, yes. I imagine the culture would still value reverence of elders, though, so it would take two to three generations before the initial vampires took over that role - by which point, the role of elder may not be necessary. The fortress would have been completed, and the vampires could spend their days teaching the young, meaning some or most of the adult population of that third generation would be well educated.
The second is indeed true.
In this scenario, I find it likely the female vampires would be pregnant for 10-11 months out of the year, every year. The birth rate would either improve or stay constant. With hardier mothers, the babies might survive better, and if not, then the tribe would sacrifice those that look like they will die anyway, and keep those that look strong. If a baby they decided to let live is about to die, they can sacrifice it for an imbuement without any cost (from what I understand of the system).
The men would mainly be insurance and redundancy. The females would be nigh always pregnant, and as you pointed out, would carry on the tribe's legacy of knowledge. The females would be at risk of death in battle, meaning if they die, the tribe wouldd need to both vampirize a new pair, have one of them become x months pregnant, and learn x amount to make up the loss. If a man dies, they're only down one imbuement. The men could also fight during the day to defend against an attack, and would not have the added complication of pregnancy when being recharged. The females would also spend much or some of the evening fornicating, as that would become culture, meaning they could not stand vigil.
While they would be capable of both performing their duty and standing watch at night, I don't think it likely their society would shift three very important roles onto any one segment of the society. It'd be too risky.
Battle would indeed be a source of sacrifice, but I don't think they would seek out battle until after the fortress and steady food sources were secured. The risk of creating a blood feud the tribe wouldn't want to deal with would be too high to be worthwhile, and pre-historic societies generally didn't war unless they wanted things from another tribe or were too proximate to other societies and couldn't just move.
I saw your comment on the 3 month recovery. The elders would be cleaned out of blood and not immediately essential organs, meaning kidneys, liver, appendix, heart, maybe some skin, and intestines; as much as they could take without the elder dying within minutes. They'd then survive off the blood of the red ones for a couple of weeks or however long until fully healed, then wait out their three month blood fast doing whatever.
I view the emeritus status more as having served the tribe (or full-fledged civilization by that time) to the point where they could serve no more. They would have no obligations, as might be expected if their status came from superhumanity. I'm sure there'd be a sizable segment of the population that would be superhuman, as it's likely the society would raid for sacrifices when short of ready-to-die elders and needing specialized imbuements.
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (14 days later)
With hardier mothers, the babies might survive better, and if not, then the tribe would sacrifice those that look like they will die anyway
Hans... are we the Babyeaters?
u/Aabcehmu112358 [+1] Utter Fallacy (3 days later)
Very interesting! It's late, but I'll return tomorrow to discuss these ideas.
u/None [+2] (4 hours later)
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u/Aabcehmu112358 [+1] Utter Fallacy (4 hours later)
It takes a normal human around 3 months to 'recover' from blood-to-blood contact with a red one, and generally by that point there aren't any red one erythrocytes left in them.