9.8 KiB
Egypt necromancy mind exercise
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Author: u/hoja_nasredin Dai-Gurren Brigade*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3nus8c/egypt_necromancy_mind_exercise/
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Score: 12
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Created: 2015-10-07T16:03:49
Post:
Let's do a mind game/world building.
We take a real human society, we introduce ONE magical element and see how it evolves. If you can think of a way to abuse this element the said society also thought of it.
So let's begin: We have the Egypt (Desert, bronze age, shores of a river) and we introduce necromancy.
When someone dies his mind can be recorded in a small ankh. Then with a ritual the body is brought back as a mummy and the mind is uploaded back in it. It is a complicated procedure that can result in a mummy that is the same person he was before death or a half lobotomized zombie.
How the warfare changed? Who would end up as a ruling party? What happens to religion? How does everyday change? How the food production/goods manufacturing/building changes?
You can't add new magical powers/races/elements whatever. You can decide how the necromancy element works with unmentioned circumstances (E.g. I try to resurrect animals)
Comments:
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+24] Mouse Army (45 minutes later)
Lets channel the Hanson! Robin Hanson answered this already for some scenarios in his EM city treatises.
It all depends on chance of success and cost of ritual. What are chances and factors for getting lobotomized zombies?
Does the ritual only cost labour or are scarce materials involved?
A) If there is high chance of success for full restoration and its cheap to do, well population density is a lot higher and no longer restrained by arable land. Also labour is really really fucking cheap since the mummies dont need to eat and thus can work for nearly free; their only limit is that probable the whole dynasty needs to help feeding the meatlings; maybe the whole point of the meatlings will be to produce new meatlings. The economy is big and comparatively rich.
B)If success is highly likely and its expensive, well the rich have huge dynasties full of mummie ancients, we see huge trade to get the rare material component into the country and if the ressurected dont produce value of some kind Egypt is going to get bankrupt at some point. I have no clue how ancient state bancruptcies look like; probable they cannot afford an army and get invaded.
C) If chance is low and its expensive, the rich will try less and get even less back; thus there is some kind of trade, but not enough to ruin the country. Its kinda what historically happened! The ultrarich built giant monuments, but never successfully revived someone, and as far as I know that did not play a role in the downfall of Egypt. (whereas there are a number of cultures where wasteful but unproductive pastimes were directly involved in the untimely doom of that society.)
D) If chance is low and its cheap- well everyone has lobotomized slaves working for them, thus standard of living is high, but lower than A) - since fully trained humans make infinitely better slaves than lobotomized ones.
u/Endovior [+3] (a day later)
I'd be inclined to assume that the ritual process isn't random, so much as it is a matter of skill and preparation. Some degree of mummification COULD, after all, happen naturally under desert conditions, but the state of the art involved chemical preparations, inside and out (decomposition was averted by the removal of internal organs, particularly those related to digestion).
As such, there's a definite hierarchy of mummies (as reflects the historical process). Anyone can be mummified on the cheap with a crude, simple ankh and some basic preparation of the body, but that gets you a stupid and relatively fragile mummy. More elaborate (read: expensive!) preparations, including a higher-quality ankh, the storage and preservation of the original organs in canopic jars, and the treatment of the body with herbs and spices gets you much better continuity of consciousness/identity, and a tougher, 'healthier' body that can handle more stresses.
Accordingly, you get sort of a mix of B and D; the rich have huge dynasties of mummy ancients, and there are plenty of dumb slaves available for simple or dangerous tasks.
u/None [+5] (2 hours later)
Let's get everyone back if it isn't too expensive. Even if 3/4 are half lobotomized zombies, that's still great. We can use zombies to work our fields and fight our wars while we party, oh yeah!
Fast forward to uprising of half lobotomized zombies. "Shit, we can't fight them, we spent lifetimes partying, how do we fight?" dies a most horrible death
Half lobotomized zombies take over. They have no idea how to run a country. Everything collapses.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (2 days later)
This is depressingly plausable in this setting
u/JackStargazer [+3] Primordial Apologist (2 hours later)
Who would end up as a ruling party?
This is an important issue, how hard is it to re-kill a mummy? Because if it is significantly difficult, then you have an Immortal God-Emperor who never dies and also never passes on power, protected by equally difficult to kill guards. They also might be at least slightly crazy from the revivification process.
Cane they be resurrected multiple times? If the mummy dies again, can it be fixed?
Basically, we're a Necron Dynasty now.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+3] Mouse Army (3 hours later)
Also important, even living humans experience significant wear and tear in their joints/teeth/bones.
Unless magically preserved, the mummies joints will very soon be seriously untrue, bones will need to be glued/mended etc. Mummy upkeep might take some serious amout of GDP. Also certain kinds of labour (anything manual or involving damage to the body, sparring, building walls/pyramids) would still be constrained the amount of young bodies that were available.
u/JackStargazer [+6] Primordial Apologist (3 hours later)
Also true. I think we either have to take that into account, or assume that the bodies have at least as much self healing capacity as a normal human body. otherwise most of what is mentioned in the OP becomes impossible, as all the mummies fall apart with a century even with light use.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (12 hours later)
This would mean every human body has about 100 plus years and a predominance for mummies that retain their intelligence and are rich being prone to NOT MOVING IF POSSIBLE.
Leading to them being knowledge pools or mental labor types, like mathematics, planning or bureaucracy.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (14 hours later)
Now when you said knowledge pool I immediately thought of something different.
u/autowikiabot [+1] (14 hours later)
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#### Elder brain (from Forgottenrealms wikia):
An elder brain is the final stage of the mind flayer life cycle. The elder brain lives in a brine filled pool in the centre of a mind flayer city, where it guides its community by filling them with dark dreams of illithid domination. Although its intellect is of godlike proportions, its only physical attack is by using its tendrils to lash out or grapple an opponent. Therefore mind flayers protect their elder brain by securing it in a well protected cave inside the city. Its strong mind-affecting powers stem from the brains of longdead mind flayers making up the viscious mass of the elder brain. Being composed of many brains as energy source for its intellect it can communicate telepathically with any creature within 350 ft (107.73 m) distance. ^Interesting: [^Brain ^golem](https://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Brain golem) ^| [^Elder ^orb](https://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elder orb) ^| ^Yshiggol ^| ^Encephalithid
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u/hoja_nasredin [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (3 hours later)
I immagine if you destroy the brain it dies.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (3 hours later)
How well known is that? Can you just install a new brain, since the ankh is clearly a backup?
u/hoja_nasredin [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (16 hours later)
I just imaginied that all copies were disrcutive. Simply because the idea of multiple me running around scares me and I can't figure out how a society would adapt to that.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (23 hours later)
But you can back up a mummy again, right? Or is the second death permanent?
u/hoja_nasredin [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 days later)
I would immagine if people wanted to kill a mummy they will tkae care at destroying the ankh that recorded the mummy mind.