[HOE] Re: Harrowed

["d_scott" <d_scott@ntlworld.com>]

Argh, I hate it when this happens! Please ignore my previous post - I sent
it before I'd finished reading all of the Digest. My bad.

I would still say that it would be take a monumentally successful operation
to cover-up the existance of Harrowed for 200 years, epsecially if some of
those harrowed REALLY want the world to know they exist, for whatever
reason. A man who can cut his heart out on live TV makes for a convincing
argument. (Of course, it'd have to be on a pirate station since the guvmint
would have solid control of the networks. Which means there would be
low-quality video copies making the rounds of the undergournd. . . I begin
to see how this could actually work.)

Love the argument that chemical processes and "nervous system memory" can
allow the recently deceased to keep performing actions like moving, writing,
clawing back out of the their graves and hunting down their killer until
finally stopped with a shotgun blast to the head. . . : )

I must have a Ranger use it at some point - maybe the posse will find an old
Tombstone Epitaph with an anrticle along the lines of the above.

D

>
> Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2001 11:36:23 -0700
> From: darious@darious.com
> Subject: Re: [HOE] Re: was Doomsayers - now Harrowed
>
>  >Which brings up a point - how did the Powers That Be, the Agency, Texas
>  >Rangers etc, explain away the Harrowed to the general public? "There's
>  >nothing to see here, no such thing as the supernatural. And dead folk
>  >sometimes get back up again. . ." Doesn't quite ring true, does it? Even
if
>  >they managed to make it something that people didn't discuss generally,
the
>  >major religions would be forced to have a view on the fact that death is
not
>  >as permanent as it once seemed.
>  >
>  >Anyone have any ideas how something like this could be swept under the
>  >carpet for 200 years?
>
> They didn't have to explain - they were effective in covering it up.  At
> least until the Plunkett tape and the DPLF kidnapping brought everything
to
> the front page.  At which point the harrowed thing was spin-doctored as
> part of the process for becoming a cyborg - "irreversable chemical
changes"
> and all that.
>
> As for the whole harrowed thing - I imagine it as similar to our
> aliens/Roswell situation.  Everyone knows about them, but nobody has any
> real "proof".  Oh sure - individuals here and there have seen their
> relatives come back from the dead - but then the relative disappears and
> the witness is diagnosed with "Survivors Guilt" or some well-documented
> psych phenomenon where those who have witnessed a death, or survived the
> death of a close friend or relative tend to have hallucinations/day dreams
> about their return. . . A phenomenon which has evidently been going on
> since ancient history. If you look at the number of undead superstitions
> across the world, this would seem to be indicative that there is something
> in the human psyche that refuses to let go of the recently departed. . .
>
> This psychological phenomenon is only reinforced by the body movements
that
> the process of death sometimes takes - the fact that hair and fingernails
> still grow after death, the process of rigor mortis making a body jerk
> upright, and the rare case of post-death motivation due to muscular and
> nervous system memory (as documented by Dr. Black of the Johns Hopkins
> institute) where the deceased continue to perform actions like "writing"
or
> "walking" because of the chemical processes of death firing off
> simulataneously  ....
>
> blah blah blah. . .
>
> :-)
>
>
>
> -------------------
> Allan Seyberth
> darious@darious.com
> Deadlands fan site - http://www.darious.com/