So I'm here thinking, most of the issues the Skaven face are because they're living in cramped conditions, and have issues with over population and food shortages.
What exactly is stopping them from moving onto the surface to live there? I they tell us the reason why they're underground, but how much of that is actually true and how much is just to paint themselves as the victims?
I mean, I think the problem there is that you're using the universal "they." Not just a majority but a vast supermajority of the population has essentially no say in what's happening and likely very little knowledge of the 'aboveground' at all.
(Sometimes there are objective things that objectively stop them from living on the surface, sometimes there aren't, but either way most Skaven probably don't know much about the surface.)
Even the food shortages issue, it's hard to tell how much this is some "objective" reality and how much it's the ones at the top not caring if everyone else starves because they can just eat them/use them as cannon fodder.
I mean, I think the problem there is that you're using the universal "they." Not just a majority but a vast supermajority of the population has essentially no say in what's happening and likely very little knowledge of the 'aboveground' at all.
(Sometimes there are objective things that objectively stop them from living on the surface, sometimes there aren't, but either way most Skaven probably don't know much about the surface.)
Even the food shortages issue, it's hard to tell how much this is some "objective" reality and how much it's the ones at the top not caring if everyone else starves because they can just eat them/use them as cannon fodder.
You mean that the vast majority of Skaven slave who greatly outnumber their leaders and could revolt whenever they want, have no say in what happens.
I honestly doubt that the vast majority of Skaven have zero knowledge of the surface given that their entire reason for being underground is that they fought a war against the elves and were banished underground.
At least that's the reason the skaven themselves state, assuming that it's true that is.
You mean that the vast majority of Skaven slave who greatly outnumber their leaders and could revolt whenever they want, have no say in what happens.
I honestly doubt that the vast majority of Skaven have zero knowledge of the surface given that their entire reason for being underground is that they fought a war against the elves and were banished underground.
At least that's the reason the skaven themselves state, assuming that it's true that is.
Slave revolts are difficult to pull off. Like, can they be pulled off? Yes, but just assuming that the only difficulty faced is, "Oh, you outnumber the oppressive elites, therefore you revolt successfully" is kinda... weird?
Also Skaven lifespans tend to be around twenty years, and information control is... pretty central to any sort of "Skaven as Fascist" portrayal.
E: Like for god's sake, we've seen this before. Huge oppressed underclasses have failed to revolt (or failed to successfully revolt and then been forgotten) all throughout human history without them therefore not actually being oppressed.
E2: Historically almost all slave revolts and peasant revolts have failed. Using that to argue that actually the peasants didn't lack power or else they'd successfully revolt would be seen as pants-on-head stupid if said about human societies.
You try revolting when you and your buddies are perpetually starving and are facing crack armies of Stormvermin, Clan Skyre Weapon teams, and Moulder abominations. I'm sure it would ~terribly~ inconvenience the Gray Seers when they have to ship in a new batch of slaves to scrub away your gore soaked remains
Even setting aside real-world sociology and history for a bit it should be transparently obvious that the Skaven major clans and the Council of Thirteen are more then capable of brutally crushing major slave revolts. Even without getting into the fact that they're backed by a literal God with all the boons that involves. It's fundamentally absurd to pretend that the majority of Skaven society has any means to express their agency at all, they could be replaced with pacifists and it wouldn't change Skaven society in the slightest. Not when it actively empowers the Skaven who fit the mold and brutally suppresses those who don't.
Slave revolts are difficult to pull off. Like, can they be pulled off? Yes, but just assuming that the only difficulty faced is, "Oh, you outnumber the oppressive elites, therefore you revolt successfully" is kinda... weird?
Also Skaven lifespans tend to be around twenty years, and information control is... pretty central to any sort of "Skaven as Fascist" portrayal.
E: Like for god's sake, we've seen this before. Huge oppressed underclasses have failed to revolt (or failed to successfully revolt and then been forgotten) all throughout human history without them therefore not actually being oppressed.
E2: Historically almost all slave revolts and peasant revolts have failed. Using that to argue that actually the peasants didn't lack power or else they'd successfully revolt would be seen as pants-on-head stupid if said about human societies.
Historically speaking slave and peasant revolts constantly, and secondly, yes a lot of revolts fail, but there are ones that do succeed.
Saying that slaves or peasants shouldn't revolt because revolts failed in the past, isn't a good reason, it's a logical fallacy that historically speaking the slaves and peasants wouldn't actually know.
You try revolting when you and your buddies are perpetually starving and are facing crack armies of Stormvermin, Clan Skyre Weapon teams, and Moulder abominations. I'm sure it would ~terribly~ inconvenience the Gray Seers when they have to ship in a new batch of slaves to scrub away your gore soaked remains
Even setting aside real-world sociology and history for a bit it should be transparently obvious that the Skaven major clans and the Council of Thirteen are more then capable of brutally crushing major slave revolts. Even without getting into the fact that they're backed by a literal God with all the boons that involves. It's fundamentally absurd to pretend that the majority of Skaven society has any means to express their agency at all, they could be replaced with pacifists and it wouldn't change Skaven society in the slightest. Not when it actively empowers the Skaven who fit the mold and brutally suppresses those who don't.
Skaven slaves tend to get forced to march into certain death against empire or dwarven artillery, where's the difference if they decide to just turn around and hurl themselves at the ones forcing them to fight the empire or dwarves or whoever?
Where's the difference? either way they would be dying enmass.
Historically peasant revolts did not have to deal with a ruling class that could literally compel the largest mob to slaughter itself in a murderous frenzy, or inflict 60% attrition via a magical plague in under a day. To say nothing of summoning literal avatars of a godling.
That said if you're going to blithely ignore / casting doubt on Loathsome Ratmen And All Their Kin, Children of the Horned Rat, multiple Skaven Warhammer Army Books, et al when they specify that Skaven are quite literally driven by their hunger and constantly on the edge of a mass starvation further discussion is kind of a moot point as. Well. You're already ignoring the vast bulk of Skaven lore because it's inconvenient.
My question is less, "Is the Under-Empire as it is constantly on the edge of starvation" and more, "Is that something that actually has to be so?"
Most famines and starvation times have a large logistical element, around either difficulties involving the distribution of food or around who it is distributed to (and who it isn't), as well as decisions made about how to use resources. See: all the famines caused by deciding to go with cash crops instead of food crops.
In such a case, I question the extent to which mass food shortages are a result of just the "material realities" of the situation as opposed to the Under-Empire being a shitty, terrible polity that doesn't value the lives of its members and wouldn't really care to actually labor to solve food shortages anyways.
Skaven slaves tend to get forced to march into certain death against empire or dwarven artillery, where's the difference if they decide to just turn around and hurl themselves at the ones forcing them to fight the empire or dwarves or whoever?
Where's the difference? either way they would be dying enmass.
Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that rebellions against the system as a whole never work but they occasionally end battles with surviving Skavenslaves and thus the average slave logically takes the option that results in a possibility of survival instead the one that's certain death?
Or the fact that as The Laurent said they literally don't live longer then 20 years (frankly the life expectancy of the average slave is probably even lower then this) and thus are hideously vulnerable to propaganda from their immortal/semi-immortal ruling caste?
Or that there is a non-zero chance that they're hopped up on some chemical concoction/spell to drive them into a frenzy?
You're going out of you way to ignore canon to pretend that the people in the setting with the least agency are somehow perfectly actualized autonomous actors. This like libertarian brain but somehow even worse then normal because it's about hyper-oppressed slaves with everything stacked against them. You don't need to be a social science major to see how much Skaven society is built around brutally oppressing and subjugating the average Skaven. I don't know why you're so insistent on ignoring that.
Wasn't there something about "putting out the sun"?
I can't remember where I could have read that, but I recall that as one of the general goals of the Skaven as a faction, meaning the Grey-Seers and Council Of Thirteen.
Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that rebellions against the system as a whole never work but they occasionally end battles with surviving Skavenslaves and thus the average slave logically takes the option that results in a possibility of survival instead the one that's certain death?
Or the fact that as The Laurent said they literally don't live longer then 20 years (frankly the life expectancy of the average slave is probably even lower then this) and thus are hideously vulnerable to propaganda from their immortal/semi-immortal ruling caste?
Or that there is a non-zero chance that they're hopped up on some chemical concoction/spell to drive them into a frenzy?
You're going out of you way to ignore canon to pretend that the people in the setting with the least agency are somehow perfectly actualized autonomous actors. This like libertarian brain but somehow even worse then normal because it's about hyper-oppressed slaves with everything stacked against them. You don't need to be a social science major to see how much Skaven society is built around brutally oppressing and subjugating the average Skaven. I don't know why you're so insistent on ignoring that.
You're apply human biology to a species that isn't human. Yes the Skaven only live twenty years, how long does it take them to reach adulthood? six months? a Year?
Secondly, your saying that rebellions never work doesn't mean a single thing in context, the average skaven isn't going to know that a rebellion is only going to end in failure, not to mention like I said before, rebellions not working has never stopped rebellions from happening in the past.
Finally, exactly how is what I said ignoring canon? Skaven slaves are sapient beings capable of thinking, they're not mindless drones or wild animals. Skaven living in a highly oppressive society doesn't mean that things like rebellions don't happen, for all we know they do but we just don't hear about it.
So I'm here thinking, most of the issues the Skaven face are because they're living in cramped conditions, and have issues with overpopulation and food shortages.
What exactly is stopping them from moving onto the surface to live there? They tell us the reason why they're underground, but how much of that is actually true and how much is just to paint themselves as the victims?
The kill-on-sight attitudes of most other mortals I would imagine? I do recall though I will not swear to it that according to the bad wiki* during the Great Skaven wars of the 1100's they did end up with tons of surface settlement in the empire.
Though not having read the books I can't say if the authors took that into account in terms of how it affected those skaven of that time and place.
I am aware of Skaven also working within the Courts of Cathay and under Arabyan supervision during one of that lands tyrannical phases, so there might have been surface settlements of rat-men in those places before the age of Karl Franz as well.
Skavenblight itself has an aboveground portion that gets farmed I think...but that might also be the exception rather than the rule.
There are also multiple legends about their creation, though honestly the odds that the Dwarfs know jack shit about it is pretty low... but the Dwarfs do have their own "custom" version of the legends of, "how Skaven came to be and why they need to all be destroyed."
So there's some stuff in this thread and elsewhere about the Skaven being creations of the GHR, and I think this might also be, like, wikidrift, 'cause CotHR at least is pretty clear that the first Skaven were brought into the world by the Shaper (who was maybe a rogue Old One). The GHR came in later, or was born out of the nascent Skaven collective unconscious.
The last time I got ahold of Skaven sourcebooks was years ago, if either of you are able to provide some quotations on the subject of origins it would be much appreciated.
My own memory of such books was that their origins were anything but clear even in the universe and that such was deliberate. I recall that the dwarves or at least some in the Karaz Ankor saw the Skaven as former dwarves created by a rouge ancestor god.
I'm not sure ancestor gods were old ones though which is the closest thing my brain can think of in regards to this claim. I am not sure they were not said gods either though.
My personally favored hypothesis is that the Horned Rat, was not yet a god when he instituted the creation of the Skaven and was either a rebellious, or more likely independent greater deamon of some variety.
What I see as evidence for such a thought is a lack of recorded information on Verminlords appearing against the forces of Elves, Dwarves or Lizardmen during the Coming Of Chaos, plus his smaller roster of daemons even as a God, plus his ascending to status of Great Horned Rat in AOS requiring any effort and or the Weakening of Slannesh.
*I'm on due to not being a moneybags or a recluse with infinite time
You're apply human biology to a species that isn't human. Yes the Skaven only live twenty years, how long does it take them to reach adulthood? six months? a Year?
Secondly, your saying that rebellions never work doesn't mean a single thing in context, the average skaven isn't going to know that a rebellion is only going to end in failure, not to mention like I said before, rebellions not working has never stopped rebellions from happening in the past.
Finally, exactly how is what I said ignoring canon? Skaven slaves are sapient beings capable of thinking, they're not mindless drones or wild animals. Skaven living in a highly oppressive society doesn't mean that things like rebellions don't happen, for all we know they do but we just don't hear about it.
Well, there is one Rebellion we do hear lot about and that is how clan Pestilens against all the odds became a major clan during one of the Skaven Civil wars. That Pestilens does not view itself as a rebel faction still very much at odds with most of Skavendom does not mean that they are not such per say.
Then again maybe I shouldn't count it because it was not lead by former slaves and in rereading the above posts that seems to be an important bit of contention.
Plus what you say about not hearing about them strikes me as very plausible in an empire whose history is recorded....in a very shoddy way to put it mildly and which is to my limited understanding being constantly rewritten.
Combine that with a certain level of common narcissism and even successful rebellions might not get remembered as that but rather how a clan or smaller group came to be may be entirely or nigh entirely fabricated to suit whatever is currently convenient.
Clan Verm is fading out of memory after being supplanted by Clan Moulder, to go back to the Pestilens example, I am pretty sure most of the under empire wrote them off as dead with no followup and hardly any remembrance when they landed in Lustria, etc.
I think the reason the Skaven don't move to the surface en masse is that all the Skaven's actual leadership who are in control:
1) As noted, put a lot of effort into keeping control of the masses by reducing them to half-starved slavery, and absolutely don't want the Skaven spreading out in surface settlements. Underground, it takes a lot of built infrastructure to keep a Skaven population alive, and this is advantageous to the Grey Seers and so on if they want to keep control.
2) Skaven settlement on the surface is likely to draw attention from the surface-dwellers. A clan that pokes its head up is likely to get pounded on both by the surface-dwellers, and by rival Skaven hitting them from below because of the 'crab bucket' effect, because no clan wants a rival to get all the benefits of fertile soil and living space that would enable them to rapidly outgrow their rivals.
Individual skaven don't escape to the surface because they don't know enough or don't have much hope of surviving up there independently.
Skaven slaves tend to get forced to march into certain death against empire or dwarven artillery, where's the difference if they decide to just turn around and hurl themselves at the ones forcing them to fight the empire or dwarves or whoever?
Where's the difference? either way they would be dying enmass.
Skaven slaves used to do exactly that mechanically, in WHFB they had a unique mechanic where they could kill other nearby Skaven models after failing a morale check.
The other thing about asking "why do the skaven, the most populous of the young species, not simply live on the surface?" is that it's like asking why the dwarves don't all live on the surface, or why moles don't live in trees; the answer is that they're subterranean by nature, adapted to underground life. Additionally, the Under-Empire isn't just a catchy name, it's a literal description - the skaven literally live under human (and dwarf) cities, because they're descended from the rats (and, due to horrible magic, the human & dwarf population) of Kazvar - they're urban creatures, by inclination.
It's also not as if there's an inherent lack of space. Many warrens are beneath cities (plenty of hypothetical space) or mountains (which are big.)
Skaven literally have giant warpstone powered drills, if I remember correctly. The fact that warrens are still cramped and miserable with not enough space does really seem to mostly come down to the Under-Empire's priorities.
Yeah the problem with using any of that tremendous amount of rat-power or crazy mad science machinery or etc... to actually build up the infrastructure of the Under-Empire is that the chief beneficiaries of the Horned Rat's literal rat race and Darwinist hierarchy, the clan warlords, the Gray-Seers, the plague-monks and warlock-engineers and all of them, will simply expand their appetites to fill the vacuum before anything productive could be done. That's the true secret of the Great Horned Rat and the seemingly inescapable doom of the Skaven to always scurry to his will and their own self-destruction, the Black Hunger is just, Nazi capitalism.
The last time I got ahold of Skaven sourcebooks was years ago, if either of you are able to provide some quotations on the subject of origins it would be much appreciated.
My own memory of such books was that their origins were anything but clear even in the universe and that such was deliberate. I recall that the dwarves or at least some in the Karaz Ankor saw the Skaven as former dwarves created by a rouge ancestor god.
I'm not sure ancestor gods were old ones though which is the closest thing my brain can think of in regards to this claim. I am not sure they were not said gods either though.
My personally favored hypothesis is that the Horned Rat, was not yet a god when he instituted the creation of the Skaven and was either a rebellious, or more likely independent greater deamon of some variety.
What I see as evidence for such a thought is a lack of recorded information on Verminlords appearing against the forces of Elves, Dwarves or Lizardmen during the Coming Of Chaos, plus his smaller roster of daemons even as a God, plus his ascending to status of Great Horned Rat in AOS requiring any effort and or the Weakening of Slannesh.
*I'm on due to not being a moneybags or a recluse with infinite time
The source for the dwarves theory of the skaven being descended from skavor comes from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Children of the Horned Rat book page 11 The origin regarding the doom of kavzar also comes from the same book pg 25-26, there are supposedly other books that mention this (The Loathsome Ratmen and All Their Vile Kin (Background Book), Warhammer Armies: Skaven (7th Edition)) but I couldn't find a pdf document for it that didn't require me to subscribe to the site or pay for it.
Edit: Unrelated but an interesting little tidbit I found while surfing for sources, there's apparently a human cult that worships The Great Horned Rat called cult of the yellow fang, Pgs 59-64, Pgs 99-101
One of the things I like about WHFRPG's 2nd edition Monstrous Manual is that it includes some in-universe commentary by a Clan Eshin "Scholar" related to an Altdorf scholar. While the vast bulk of said commentary is just "A professional assassin's recommended methods for killing [thing]" it is none the less fascinating as it infers a sort of mutualistic 'respect' from one academic to another [mind, as a member of Eshin aforementioned scholar is likely a professional assassin and / or Sorcerer comparing notes without having to divulge much of worth, but still].
Similar to Pestilens, Eshin is relatively unique in its capacity to allow for some unusual stories. The Clan explicitly was trained in Cathay at some point in time, after all [with implications of them still maintaining territory, in some fashion or another]. But whereas Pestilens' variety comes from being centralized on a different landmass and having its own [in some regards better, in others worse] Council analogy / sub-Clans, those who are proper Clanrats in Eshin are taught stealth operations and independence relatively early. If any known Clan could facilitate Skaven absconding from Skaven society [or, at the very least, not actively engaging in it], it's Eshin.
Now, being fair, Eshin is also canonically the Council of 13's shadowy enforcers so they probably don't look too kindly on when a brood of Nightrunners or a team of Gutter Runners decides to go independent. But as seen with the Scholar, they also clearly have a bit more clout / independence than the usual Clan [likewise a unique outlook brought about by their hat: The average Clan almost undoutbedly wouldn't allow a Scholar to publish a work explicitly acnkowledging a member]. Likewise there's some implict undertones that at least one Dragon / Territory in Cathay has managed to work something out with Eshin. Which, considering Cathay's stance on Chaos in general, definitely suggests something is going on. Eshin playing a long game? Cathay using them to weed out certain factions? Eshin in itself potentially being an offshoot of a less... less, Skaven Clan that yet remains in Cathay? Etc.
One of the things I like about WHFRPG's 2nd edition Monstrous Manual is that it includes some in-universe commentary by a Clan Eshin "Scholar" related to an Altdorf scholar. While the vast bulk of said commentary is just "A professional assassin's recommended methods for killing [thing]" it is none the less fascinating as it infers a sort of mutualistic 'respect' from one academic to another [mind, as a member of Eshin aforementioned scholar is likely a professional assassin and / or Sorcerer comparing notes without having to divulge much of worth, but still].
Similar to Pestilens, Eshin is relatively unique in its capacity to allow for some unusual stories. The Clan explicitly was trained in Cathay at some point in time, after all [with implications of them still maintaining territory, in some fashion or another]. But whereas Pestilens' variety comes from being centralized on a different landmass and having its own [in some regards better, in others worse] Council analogy / sub-Clans, those who are proper Clanrats in Eshin are taught stealth operations and independence relatively early. If any known Clan could facilitate Skaven absconding from Skaven society [or, at the very least, not actively engaging in it], it's Eshin.
Now, being fair, Eshin is also canonically the Council of 13's shadowy enforcers so they probably don't look too kindly on when a brood of Nightrunners or a team of Gutter Runners decides to go independent. But as seen with the Scholar, they also clearly have a bit more clout / independence than the usual Clan [likewise a unique outlook brought about by their hat: The average Clan almost undoutbedly wouldn't allow a Scholar to publish a work explicitly acnkowledging a member]. Likewise there's some implict undertones that at least one Dragon / Territory in Cathay has managed to work something out with Eshin. Which, considering Cathay's stance on Chaos in general, definitely suggests something is going on. Eshin playing a long game? Cathay using them to weed out certain factions? Eshin in itself potentially being an offshoot of a less... less, Skaven Clan that yet remains in Cathay? Etc.
The source for the dwarves theory of the skaven being descended from skavor comes from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e: Children of the Horned Rat book page 11 The origin regarding the doom of kavzar also comes from the same book pg 25-26, there are supposedly other books that mention this (The Loathsome Ratmen and All Their Vile Kin (Background Book), Warhammer Armies: Skaven (7th Edition)) but I couldn't find a pdf document for it that didn't require me to subscribe to the site or pay for it.
Edit: Unrelated but an interesting little tidbit I found while surfing for sources, there's apparently a human cult that worships The Great Horned Rat called cult of the yellow fang, Pgs 59-64, Pgs 99-101
"It was then that the "hooded stranger" mentioned in the Kazvar myth appeared. The identity of this figure is the most mysterious question surrounding the SKaven, and remains unanswered. The Skaven, in the very rare times they speak of their origins, refer to this figure as "The Shaper" who is said to be of an "older race" than theirs. This, combined with the rain of Warpstone summoned from the sky, points ot the most likely conclusion: that the Shaper was one of the Old Ones, and that the first Screaming Bell (known to the Skaven as the Great Shrieking Bell) hung from the top of the tower of the city--a device designed to call down meteorites from the heavens themselves." From page 28 Warhammer fantasy roleplay 2e: Children of the Great Horned Rat.
It doesn't say for certain whether "The Shaper" is an old one or not only that it's speculated to be the case, but theoretically, it could be any "older race". The book also notes that the Skaven themselves don't know for certain what their origins are since they don't keep much historical record, and what little they do keep is almost certainly embellished or outright made up.
You mean that the vast majority of Skaven slave who greatly outnumber their leaders and could revolt whenever they want, have no say in what happens.
I honestly doubt that the vast majority of Skaven have zero knowledge of the surface given that their entire reason for being underground is that they fought a war against the elves and were banished underground.
At least that's the reason the skaven themselves state, assuming that it's true that is.
I've posted it elsewhere, but might as well add it here:
My head cannon version of the Skaven:
Skaven are much more like actual rats in that, assuming enough food and a genial environment, they are actually more sociable and kinder than humans. That said, the black hunger they experience when under fed and stressed is still an issue, as is over-population leading to hunger and stress. Skaven societies that have escaped the influence of their creator have all had to find ways to account for this biological complications in the societies they build.
The Great Horned Rat works hard to create a society of vicious backstabbing monstrosity for his children, and absent his constant meddling things would improve drastically for the average Skaven. In fact, much of the internecine fighting between Skaven clans are essentially policing actions by the Grey Seers hunting down clans trying to "slip the leash". [as further, more refined, headcannon, I like to think of the Great Horned Rat as essentially Warhammer's manifestation of Nyarlathotep: the "soul" of the chaos gods in that the represents the self-destructive drive inherent to their nature. Power at any price, unlimited power at the cost of unlimited loss. The crawling chaos at the heart of the world, that will devour and destroy until there is nothing left but dead stars orbiting lifeless deserts of grey dust.]
Ambulatory female Skaven exist as part of the general population. The Axolotl tank like breeders are a specialty of clan Moulder that they prefer to keep in-house. Also like rats, Skaven women tend to be excellent mothers [though in the cut throat world of mainstream Skaven society, this generally manifests and relentless and overbearing pressure to perform that makes a sterotypical "tiger mom" look lax].
Clan Eshin has, more than any other clan, been able to escape the horned rat's influence: by agreeing to be the council's hatchet-men, they bought for themselves a large degree of freedom from its censure, and they are very good at hiding what the council wouldn't allow on top of that.
While rare, it isn't entirely unknown for individual Skaven to make a life for themselves in the wider world outside Skaven society entirely. Generally this is easiest to accomplish in Cathay, but at least one professor at Nuln is thought to be a Skryer, and rogue Moulder trained packmasters are rumored to be responsible for the suspiciously vermin-free streets of the wealthier quarters of streets throughout the old world.
[In general, I mentally rewrite Warhammer to take the level of ambient violence down a few pegs to a level that wouldn't realistically leave the planet denuded of life with a century: at least some level of peace is possible: Beastmen trade with Rural villages, Vampires can be negotiated with, Tomb kings are legitimately trying to rebuild their kingdoms, etc.]
Revolution looks impossible until it happens. The fact the underempire is a lopsided slaver society doesn't mean that arrangement is stable, it just means the writers chose that specific time in skaven history to put in the story. None of this is an argument that it won't fall to its own internal contradictions in time.
