Cavemen vs Astronauts

[Nina]

And NO! the astronauts don't have weapons.


I can remember a thread like this, but maybe it was on the old forum ... maybe I'm just blind. But let's do it again. Who would win?



My problem with the dilemma is that I don't know anything about the situation ... is it a big war? The astronauts will win, but if you lock those two up in a room without anything, the caveman will probably win.
But in the end, I think that the astronauts win, that is also why I dislike the spell in BtVS season 7 ... you don't need superpowers to be a winner or to be important.

And maybe It's also fun to guess what the characters are thinking ... what do we already know?



The cavemen will win: Spike, Fred
The astronauts will win: Angel

I think that it's hard to say ... but I think that Buffy will join the cavemen group, Xander goes to team astronauts and Willow is difficult, but I think that she is in the caveman group as well.

Giles probably reacts like Wesley.

Anya is in the cavemen group, just as Riley and Dawn ... but I think that Tara and Cordelia are astronauts. Gunn is for the cavemen and I think that Connor will be a member of that group as well. But I think that Faith (after jail) is for the astronauts.

[stormwreath]

I think that it's hard to say ... but I think that Buffy will join the cavemen group, Xander goes to team astronauts and Willow is difficult, but I think that she is in the caveman group as well.

Willow? The science geek who's always experimenting and trying new things? Astronaut without a doubt.

I wrote about this once before, so I'll quote what I said then:

A Hole in the World shows our heroes employing all the tools of modern science and technology, from the extensive multi-million dollar W&H laboratory to their "really good" jet aircraft, to try to save Fred - but it's all in vain. Illyria, the caveman, triumphs? and in her last bleak moment of lucidity, the dying Fred acknowledges it. "Cavemen win. Of course cavemen win." After all her bravery and defiance throughout the episode, refusing to admit defeat, refusing to accept that there is no solution, she finally surrenders to despair. It's a defeat not only for her, but for the whole of Team Angel.

Or is it? Fred may be gone, but her influence, her memories ? arguably, her soul (that was consumed by and thus integrated into Illyria) ? achieve the impossible; they humanise an Elder God. By the end of the series they turn Illyria, much to her own bemusement, into one of the most powerful Champions for Good on the planet. The caveman chooses to become an astronaut. She even becomes an aficionado of that most modern of electronic technological gizmos, the Playstation. The message here is that awful things happen, but the human spirit can still triumph in the end.


(On a more practical note: the average astronaut is a member of the armed forces, hghly-trained in combat techniques, fit and healthy as well as intelligent. Even in a straight fight, the scrawny malnourished cavemen will be defeated, let alone if the astronauts can start manufacturing bows or gunpowder from raw ingredients...)

[NileQT87]

just want to point out that illyria isn't a god. it's a pure demon; an old one. god-like powers, but not a god.

and yeah, i believe that illyria's humanization process by fred's memories actually has made it so that the astronaut (fred) is conquering illyria (the caveman), even though potentially, there's nothing of her, as a being, actually left. but the memories, which make a person (see wesley's comments in origin), have messed up illyria's sense of self and made the pure demon infected by all of fred's memories, history, personality, feelings, etc... as a soulless pure gender-neutral demon, illyria's feelings for wesley are only explainable through the fact that illyria has been warped into having everything that made fred be fred (without fred being there at all).

similarly, william's personality corrupted the spike demon into being very weak-willed towards evil. spike became more about self-gratification and love's bitch than hurting others to get back at those who made him feel lesser and proving his power over others (angelus). angelus was about the personal pain, hatred of purity and destruction of a human being--spike was about the exhilaration and getting what he wants. thus, the astronaut vs. the caveman.

regarding fred/illyria--the caveman won the initial physical fight, but the astronaut won from beyond the grave with its mind.

the astronaut wins.

what hurts more? being tortured physically or being tortured mentally? if you live through both, one leaves you a physical cripple and the other leaves you a mental cripple. the astronaut can inflict more harm in the long term.

[vampmogs]

I vote astronauts.

I tend to look at it through a long-term perspective. Sure in brute strength it's probably more likely the Cavemen would win. But astronauts have the brains, the cunningness stemming from the evolution of the human race. Cavemen might win the battle, but no doubt astronauts will win the war.

I think best evidence of this is the slayer. Buffy had the strength of a slayer but if it weren’t for her brains, she would have lost most of her battles.

[Matt]

I vote cavemen.

I mean none of them have any weapons, but I think cavemen would win because they're primal, they had to face creatures such as sabre toothed tigers and stuff, which would mean they probably quite fast if they had to avoid being attacked and ran, but they also had to hunt for their food which means they're probably quite strong.

However, the astronauts don't really have to do that stuff, they would never have faced viscious creatures and they may be fast because they just are, but they wouldn't have had the strength of hunting and using basic skills and that's why I think cavemen would win because they had to make use of what they had and deal with it wherein astronauts have a vaster range of sources at their fingertips so wouldn't.

Cavemen win, of course the cavemen win.

[stormwreath]

just want to point out that illyria isn't a god. it's a pure demon; an old one. god-like powers, but not a god.

*Shrug*
A being with godlike powers who has priests and worshippers is a god, as far as I'm concerned. If there's some technical difference between the Old Ones on 'Angel' and the beings actually refered to as Gods on 'Buffy', I'm not aware of it being mentioned.

I vote cavemen.

Remember: the average caveman was four or five feet tall and probably suffered from dietary deficiencies. The average astronaut is six feet tall, extremely fit and well-conditioned, and has been through military basic training including lessons in unarmed combat. They're probably also trained fighter pilots (since that's where NASA recruited most of its astronauts from) with all the speed and lightning-fast reactions that implies. Really, it's no contest.

[vampmogs]

If there's some technical difference between the Old Ones on 'Angel' and the beings actually refered to as Gods on 'Buffy', I'm not aware of it being mentioned.

The 'Old Ones' were the original pure demons of this dimension. They were first referenced in Buffy's pilot episode 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' and again in 'End of Days' when it is revealed Buffy's scythe was used to kill the last pure demon on earth. Illyria is one of those original pure demons.

Glory was never originally from this dimension or an Old One, she was a god in another hell dimension banished to this dimension as a punishment. She never originated from this dimension and was never a pure demon, in fact she was never a demon at all.

The mythology behind them is different. The Mayor in snake form became a pure demon, as stated in 'Graduation Day I' so he was closer to being like Illyria than Glory ever was.