Damnable Cannibals

[Brother in Arms]

Ok here we go a thread on Cannibalism.

Both the films "The Road" and "The Book of Eli" have brought up representations of this. It also makes me thing about Liberia and Zimbabwe were cannibalism in a ritual form goes on. There is also talk of it occuring in North Korea given the attrocious state of life that goes on there. I am thinking there is definitly room for it in the world of twilight 2000. All very serious business but lets get it rolling with an old joke...

Two cannibals are eating a guy and one cannibal looks at the other cannibal while eating and asks with a grin "hows it going ?" and the other one replies
"i'm having a ball"

but in all seriousness what do you think about its use in a game? And or its effects long and short term on the people who consume human flesh or anything else really about cannibalism.

Brother in Arms

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Ignore all the damned adds but the following is a short article on cannibalism in the 1930s during the famine in the Soviet Union. It's interesting as it paints a very grim picture of life at the time and indicates why many would have turned to eating other humans.

And of course the link would actually help http://eeuropeanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/cannibalism_in_the_soviet_union

[Targan]

Two cannibals are eating a guy and one cannibal looks at the other cannibal while eating and asks with a grin "hows it going ?" and the other one replies
"i'm having a ball".

Two cannibals are eating a clown and one says to the other "does this taste funny to you?".

[General Pain]

Two cannibals are eating a clown and one says to the other "does this taste funny to you?".

A cannibal and his son are wandering through the desert and have not eaten in days. They come upon an oasis and decide to camp in the bushes till someone comes. The next morning they awake to see a beautiful woman bathing in the waterfall. As the father watches the water cascade off her body, he is aware of his son at his side.

The boy says " I'm hungry dad, lets eat."

The father replies "This specimen is too good too eat."

The boy grumbles that they have not eaten for days and he is really hungry.

The father says he has a plan. The boy is overjoyed that he will soon eat, so he asks what the plan is...

The father says" We sneak up to the edge of the clearing, and when she comes out of the water, we kidnap her, take her home and Eat Your Mother.

[WallShadow]

For those of you who have read/seen "Hannibal", the sequel to "Silence of the Lambs", it is easily demonstrated that "breakfast: it doesn't have to be brain surgery anymore (but it helps)".

[sglancy12]

but in all seriousness what do you think about its use in a game? And or its effects long and short term on the people who consume human flesh or anything else really about cannibalism.


Back in 1990, when GDW was still in business, I wrote an article on cannibalism for Challenge magazine, a sort of answer to the Haute Cuisine article on the MRE. Sort of "If the MRE is the best food you can find, what about the worst food you can find?" I received a polite but firm letter from Loren K. Wiseman that such an article was NOT what they were looking to publish. Right afterwards they published "Rifle River" which featured the first group of well-defined cannibals in TW2K, but the difference was that my article was too much like a "how to" article. Too clinical and too specific.

Bottom line cannibalism is about as dangerous to the dinner as it is to the diner. Human cadavers can transmit just about any disease to those who consume them. Larry Niven got it right in Hammer's Slammers when the army deserters who turn cannibal start getting sick and dying because they eat people who are sick.

Since cannibalism isn't likely to happen for nutritional reasons until there is a serious famine, just about anyone who the cannibals target is likely to be malnurished and consequently sick. So it's very likely the cannibals won't be doing much better.

Oh course, cannibalism is more likely to happen for other reasons that starvation. It could be a terror tactic. It could be a way to bond new members to a group. It could be some crazy new post-nuke religious practice. Or all of the above combined.

The real problem with cannibalism in TW2K is that if there is one thing that will get people motivated to get off their asses and come out from behind their barricades and kill some mutha fuckas, it would be news that some group of cannibals is nearby.

It's one thing if the bandits want to shake you down for some portion of your food and supplies, and maybe stop in for some recreational beatings and rapes. Peasants have put up with this since forever. It's quite another when the only relationship you have with the enemy is that you have to go in the stewpot. If there are cannibals in the neighborhood, people are either going to cooperate to exterminate them, or they are going to move out of the area.

Cannibals are going to have that effect. They are going to galvanize people to either flight or flee. So cannibals can't just settle into an area because either their food supply is going to come gunning for them or the food supply is going to leave. Cannibals, IMHO, are going to have to be mobile. Of course, if they aren't eating the grain I guess they can brew it for alcohol fuel and keep on the move.

In my campaign, cannibalism exists in areas of desperate starvation, among the feral crazies that scurry around like animals, and among some groups that are using it for psychological warfare reasons. I just don't think these groups are likely to be very big. I mean, New America, Milgov or any other group attempting to be a national or even regional player is unlikely to advertise that they've taken on cannibalism as public policy...

However, there were stories from ancient Chinese history that during some periods of extreme famine the consumption of human flesh was de-criminalized by the government. It was still illegal to kill someone, but if someone died it was permitted to consume the cadaver. Supposedly such meat was openly sold in markets. Such stories may be apocryphal, much like the stories of North Korean cannibalism. IMHO those stories are false, but what is interesting is that (according to defectors) such stories are readily accepted in North Korea. It's a testimony to how obviously completely FUBAR things are in North Korea that the locals find the story of starvation cannibalism easy to accept.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp dba Pagan Publishing

[jester]

Well, cannibalism is mentioned in one of the campaigns. City of the Angles it is there.

And there are several types of cannibalism.

Symbolic; kinda like religious or ceremonial

Control; like the phsyco killers

Survival; like a S. American soccer team.

I am sure I am missing a couple but hey, anthopology class was a long long time ago.

[Targan]

Survival; like a S. American soccer team.

I thought it was a rugby team? Maybe I should look it up.

[jester]

I thought it was a rugby team? Maybe I should look it up.


No, rugby players do that as a matter of regular play. :D

And then again, they would fit the profile as well since well, canabalism is found more in primative peoples.

[Raellus]

No, rugby players do that as a matter of regular play. :D

I went to high school (a rival school, no less) in Uruguay in the early '90s. Those guys were national heroes. One of the survivors' niece was a classmate of mine. The movie version of Alive came out while I waas living there. It was a big to do.

I just finished Enemy at the Gates about the battle of Stalingrad (can't believe it took me this long to pick it up). In the final chapter, the author contends that cannibalism became such a problem among Axis prisoners following the surrender of German 6th Army that the Soviets formed "anticannibalism" squads of German officers armed with crowbars to kill cannibals on sight. I'm a little skeptical, but it certainly could have happened.

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[Vespers War]

Larry Niven got it right in Hammer's Slammers when the army deserters who turn cannibal start getting sick and dying because they eat people who are sick.

David Drake wrote the Slammers. And autographed my copy of the RPG. :D

[mpipes]

In the final chapter, the author contends that cannibalism became such a problem among Axis prisoners following the surrender of German 6th Army that the Soviets formed "anticannibalism" squads of German officers armed with crowbars to kill cannibals on sight. I'm a little skeptical, but it certainly could have happened.

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Things got horribly bad in the POW camps housing Stalingrad captives. I think fewer than 10% - think it was a bit less of 7,000 of ~70,000 - made it back to Germany.