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How Would Kill A Sapient Idea?

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Vorgoth from The Aether Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#1: Jul 21st 2015 at 2:15:21 PM

Basically what it says.

The main villain of my story is The Hunger that Hunts is a sapient idea of hunger that stalks a small town and warps those who give into their hunger around it into monstrous thralls that can appear human before they attack. In order to stop it, it must die. So how do you kill it?

NOTE:As a sapient idea it cannot be killed through physical means as it has no form.

The Darkness is coming.
dragonkingofthestars The Impenetrable. from Under the lonely mountain Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
The Impenetrable.
#2: Jul 21st 2015 at 3:04:59 PM

I would try to weaponize my subconscious.

For example if this thing took place in the same world as Inside Out, I could lure it toward my fears and let it get stung to death by wasps, throw it into the dark pit of my mind and let it be forgotten, destroy it with an imaginary bomb, arm my imaginary friends to do battle with it, or toss into the abstract thought chamber and reduce it to the abstract concept of hunger.

Of course, I would need to be a psychic or someone keenly aware of there own mind and able to control it. You would have to practically be enlighten to pull it off.

Of course your other option would be to kill everyone who knows about it and it has affected so that nobody has any scrap of the thing in there head. An idea only exists as long as people remember it. A forgotten idea is less then mist.

edited 21st Jul '15 3:06:24 PM by dragonkingofthestars

Profile image made by Bulhakov
RBomber Since: Nov, 2010
#3: Jul 21st 2015 at 4:14:37 PM

Uuumm.... Override it with LOL Cats?

DeMarquis Who Am I? from Hell, USA Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
Who Am I?
#4: Jul 21st 2015 at 7:48:40 PM

Sounds essentially like demonic possession, in a universe where demons symbolize various negative emotions and character vices. So a magical ritual like an exorcism might serve to remove it from any particular person's head. To kill it you would have to remove any trace of the concept from any potential victim's mind. You could use some version of mass mind control to do it, but that's probably incompatible with the protagonist's espoused motivations and values. The alternative is to "implant" something incompatible with unnatural hunger into the minds of the population so that it cant find room inside anyone. Some sort of transcendent experience of self-satisfaction and contentment with one's place in the universe would do it. A sense of stoic endurance. How you implant that notion in everyone's head is a good question.

edited 21st Jul '15 7:50:12 PM by DeMarquis

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Demetrios Lord of the Jungle from Des Plaines, Illinois (unfortunately) Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
Lord of the Jungle
#5: Jul 21st 2015 at 8:30:13 PM

Would the sha from World of Warcraft be a good comparison?

Heaven is a tropical rainforest.
Luthen Char! from Down Under Burgess Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Playing Cupid
Char!
#6: Jul 22nd 2015 at 12:09:09 AM

The Oblivion War in the Dresden-verse is probably also an apt comparison. Even if we don't know much about it, since the main narrator (Harry) isn't actually in on the secret.

The other option is to spin the idea so hard it turns into something else. Humans are apt to change the meanings of things, and we find complete inversion pretty easy. (See auto-antonyms.) If memes work like genes (as they were conceived by Dawkins to do so) and the Hunger's modus operandi has drawn predatory attention to it, then it will adapt. Whether by drawing out the incubation period so an infection can't be caught before it's too late, or moving towards a more symbiotic relationship with its carriers.

You must agree, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity! My Tumblr
Belisaurius Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts from Big Blue Nowhere Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts
#7: Jul 22nd 2015 at 7:24:52 AM

I've found that the best way to kill an idea is with another idea that warps or negates the original idea.

You need a mental image of the idea being proven so solidly false and useless that the idea is abandoned entirely. You want to destroy the catholic church? Have it's priests caught doing perverse sexual acts to children. Want to destroy big business? Show that the CE Os are horribly incompetent and incapable of managing money. That crushing feeling of such an icon of the world being torn apart is what will kill an idea.

Vorgoth from The Aether Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#8: Jul 22nd 2015 at 9:26:06 AM

In order of who posted after me

1.Maybe that is if you can trick it

2. No just No

3. Demons do exist but they are different as they have forms so exorcism and such wont work. Plus it consumes ideas it doesn't like in its victims who are immune to mind control

4.Kinda if the sha were formless and could posses multiple at once.

5/6.That would work it would be hard because you need a lot of people to changes it meaning and 90% of the villagers are its thralls. Destroying what it represents is impossible as hunger is a integral part of living things.

Also would anyone want to help me develop a setting? Its called Lavora its in the world building forum on the same page as this thread.

edited 22nd Jul '15 9:37:01 AM by Vorgoth

The Darkness is coming.
Error404 Magus from Tau Ceti IV-2 Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
Magus
#9: Jul 22nd 2015 at 4:02:59 PM

Only thing I can suggest is nuke the entire town.

Either that, or generate another sapient or semisapient idea, engineered the prey on and kill the first one, then self-destruct, essentially.

Tungsten74 Since: Oct, 2013
#10: Jul 24th 2015 at 4:51:42 PM

Hold on, is the thing you're talking about an actual idea? Or is it an invisible, intangible "presence" that mutates people that get close to it? Because you seem to be calling it the former, while describing it behaving like the latter.

If it's the former - an infectious idea that afflicts people simply by their being aware of its existence - then you'd pretty much have to kill everyone who has been made aware of the idea, and then kill everyone involved in killing afflicted individuals, including yourself. Or, depending on what level of awareness is required to mutate a person, you could set up some kind of elaborate double-blind purge system, so that the people destroying afflicted individuals don't become aware of why they're doing what they're doing. This of course assumes you don't have access to some sci-fi/magic mumbo-jumbo that can induce selective amnesia, in which case you just need to make sure you mind-wipe everyone involved (including yourself) once the initial purge is complete.

If it's the latter - an intangible force that acts independently of infectees - then you're pretty much fucked unless you have some kind of sci-fi/magic doodad that can affect intangible entities, like the Ghostbusters' proton packs or something. Because in that case, it would be more like fighting a malevolent ghost or demon than a "sapient idea".

IndirectActiveTransport You Give Me Fever from Chicago Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
You Give Me Fever
#11: Jul 25th 2015 at 3:36:50 PM

Kill every heterotrophic organism in existence if the sapient idea refuses to leave you alone, aka the "We Win, Because You Didn't" approach.

Contract another, preferably bigger, sapient idea to kill it. This is the "Dr. Suess" approach.

Deprive it of sleep, the "Soviet Torture" approach.

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes
RBomber Since: Nov, 2010
#12: Jul 26th 2015 at 2:02:18 AM

If we took Richard Hawkins idea that meme is some kind of life form, and if your... thing is something like that, I stands to my point that override it with some kind of other meme, to make it ineffective/ harmless/ impotent, is generally a rather good idea.

That's why I suggest LOL Cats.

Tungsten74 Since: Oct, 2013
#13: Jul 26th 2015 at 3:08:26 AM

[up] That's not what meme theory is about.

Meme theory is a scientific framework that views the dissemination of cultural information as operating on similar principles to the Darwinian disemination of genes. Meme theory is primarily concerned with the mechanisms by which "memes" propagate within human society. It doesn't argue that memes are actual, living organisms, except in as much as living organism's drive to reproduce and propagate genes can be used to model information exchange.

Moreover, you can't "override" a meme with a different meme. Memes are ideas, and I'm sure you're aware that you can hold two conflicting ideas in mind at a time. Like the ideas "vegetarianism is good" and "vegetarianism is bad". Even if you believe one or the other, you can still be aware of the opposite belief without your head exploding.

That's why I said you've either got to kill or mind-wipe everyone who's been exposed to the idea. Memes are extremely hard to get rid of once they've taken up residence in a person's mind. Sure, you could try to distract yourself from an idea, but no matter how hard you try to suppress it, the idea will always be floating around in your memory somewhere. And if that idea is actively dangerous to be aware of, that's a serious problem.

If you want some good examples of this kind of problem, look up the SCP Foundation, search for objects tagged "memetic", and look at their containment procedures.

Vorgoth from The Aether Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#14: Jul 26th 2015 at 4:07:06 AM

Tungsten: It is a sapient idea that infects those who give into their hunger "near" it. Example: being gluttonous in the town=infected.

Indirect: You cant to the first because well this thing is nowhere near the strongest idea. And killing on a mass scale will piss them off and it doesn't sleep and nastier things can be contracted ONLY NASTIER THINGS.

The Darkness is coming.
Tungsten74 Since: Oct, 2013
#15: Jul 26th 2015 at 5:59:47 AM

Okay then, a few options:

1. Make everyone in the town aware that the "idea" exists and the way it works, and tell them not to give in to any feelings of hunger (or other desire) they may feel.

2. Evacuate the immediate area around the "idea", so that no-one is at risk of being turned, whether they give in to hunger or not.

2b. If the "idea" moves around making local isolation impossible, evacuate the entire town instead.

3. Capture or destroy the "idea" using weapons capable of affecting intangible entities, if any exist.

Interestingly, the way you describe it makes it sound like there's something rotten in the town's soul, which is somehow manifesting in reality. If that's true, then I'd say the best option would be to dig into the town's history and try to find out what the rot actually is, and purge it if possible. Then none of the above options would be necessary.

Think of it like treating the symptoms versus treating the cause.

edited 26th Jul '15 6:03:15 AM by Tungsten74

Vorgoth from The Aether Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#16: Jul 26th 2015 at 3:21:54 PM

Tungsten those ideas might work especially the one involving the rot on the towns collective unconciseness that forms the Hunger that Hunts. Not spoiling what formed it but cannibals were involved.

The Darkness is coming.
dvorak The World's Least Powerful Man from Hiding in your shadow (Elder Troper) Relationship Status: love is a deadly lazer
The World's Least Powerful Man
#17: Aug 2nd 2015 at 1:29:26 PM

Recognize it as a bad idea and introduce a better one. Why try to kill and eat someone when its much easier to just make a sandwich? Why relentlessly overconsume if that means going broke and not getting to eat tommorrow? If you eat your friend, you're never going to see them again.

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!
Yewleaf Anti-conformism through conformity Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
Anti-conformism through conformity
#18: Aug 2nd 2015 at 9:10:38 PM

Things are killed by denying them whatever substances or processes they require to live. Oxygen, brain matter, whatever. So, what does your sapient idea need to stay alive. Fresh victims? People who know about it?

~Hey Yew! Don't tell me there's no hope at aaaaallllllll!~
DeusDenuo Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
sliceofpi that guy from two places at once Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
that guy
#20: Aug 30th 2015 at 5:30:22 PM

make everyone forget about it via some form of loclaised amnesia

this is my signature, there are many like it, but this one is a ripoff of something else
Vorgoth from The Aether Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#21: Aug 31st 2015 at 3:23:31 PM

Ello! I like all these ideas

note it needs hunger to live

The Darkness is coming.
Yewleaf Anti-conformism through conformity Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
Anti-conformism through conformity
#22: Aug 31st 2015 at 9:40:01 PM

Then let them eat cake!...And chicken and noodles and turkey and anything else that'll leave them too stuffed to move. By force if you have to but preferably by buffet. If it's after physical hunger then just feed everyone within the estimated area it can travel too before it dies, with a bit of a buffer for insurance. No hunger, no Hunger.

edited 31st Aug '15 9:44:50 PM by Yewleaf

~Hey Yew! Don't tell me there's no hope at aaaaallllllll!~
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