How come Gaia never punished the Garou for the War of Rage?

[CTPhipps]

Gaia don't care.

Gaia too busy banging Luna and Helios.

Oh wait, that's Exalted.

[Erinys]

Gaia is gallivanting off in the Wyld, leaving Luna at home....


But no seriously, I think Gaia is either in a coma, or of the "collective punishment for the whole species" persuasion, or really ain't all-powerful and can't stop her kids from doing whatever they want. I subscribe to the cosmology in which the Triat created Gaia, not the other way around. She can't make them behave because they're a lot bigger than her....

[CTPhipps]

She's a Celestine (or maybe above the Celestines depending if you buy Garou propaganda) so she's not really the kind of person who interacts with the Garou personally anyway.

An Incarnae would be a a lesser version of herself and Incarnae need avatars to interact with the Garou. We're talking, "Gaia is really the god of the gods and it's the gods who send their messengers to deal with the fuzzy people even if the fuzzy people worship Gaia directly."

Presumably, it's the Incarnae's Totems and avatars are the people who convey the Garou dun fucked up for her.

Even then, they tend to think on a rather cosmic scale. Global Warming for example may be Gaia going, "Yeah, humanity is a failure. Let's try the Lemure people next."

[Erinys]

The Mokole hope that global warming is Gaia saying "Yeah, mammal dominance was a failure. Let's bring back giant lizards and crocodiles everywhere."

[Eldagusto]

The Mokole hope that global warming is Gaia saying "Yeah, mammal dominance was a failure. Let's bring back giant lizards and crocodiles everywhere."

I would imagine the Mokole are the most Blaise over temperature change, well them and the Rokea, since they have experienced multiple cataclysmic changes in temperature over the last few epochs, you know after life was decimated by the Apocalypse of the Wonder Work.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I would imagine the Mokole are the most Blaise over temperature change, well them and the Rokea, since they have experienced multiple cataclysmic changes in temperature over the last few epochs, you know after life was decimated by the Apocalypse of the Wonder Work.

They would still probably try to drop hints, given their status as having been on this ride many times before. Functionally, it also serves as a distraction for Mokole establishing or taking over wallows from places that saw the Garou flee for want of living space. They can share their partially-submerged holdings with Rokea and/or Bastet - a mixed sept of bull sharks, gators, and escaped captive tiger cub Khan, anyone?

[heinrich]

Seeing how the world has gone right into the toilet ever since the Garou wiped out the Grondr and Apis, and most of the Gurahl and Camazotz and Eurasian Bastet, and drove the Ratkin into exile, I'd say that yes Gaia did intend them to all exist together on the same planet and that she needed all of them at least tolerating each other for the world to stay healthy.

Maybe they had to go, so that the world would be able to host eight billion humans. Maybe Gaia needs all of them, so they can awaken at some point, save reallity.

Heck, what do we know?
Was the world really better a fifty, a hundred, five hundred, thousand or five thousand years ago?
By what metric?

It's important to acknowledge, that the world is still around. And we don't know if the world would be better or worst if the Garou had made this or that differently. "Shattered Dreams" might have insights, I don't know.

Any on a meta-level, the garou did such a good job, the WoD came back, after being replaced by the nWoD. So, they even managed to resurrect Gaia - hmm.

In any case, one could argue, that the end of the Impergium was what lead the world into decline. Not necessarily the Gondr's or Apis' extinction. I mean, on a meta-level, they weren't even invented yet when Werewolf 1st Edition came out.

I'm sure it wasn't only the Garou making aggressive actions - Ajaba and Bastet and Grondr were probably guilty of atrocities themselves. But I have no trouble imagining a group of Rage-prone, Frenzy-prone, racist, pack-minded people deciding to take over the world and killing everyone who won't bow down and be their bitches.
Just look at how many modern Garou are depicted as still thinking all Fera are Wyrm servants and need to die.

Is there reference material to that?
Especially post-2nd-Edition (revised and W20 that is) pretty much any mention of the War of Rage is filled with guilt and regret towards the War of Rage on the garou parts, and mention of the Fera is usually not outright hostile, but distrustful. Sure, that has game design purposes (one wants to lay groundwork for the inclusion of Fera in a garou game), but also is more political correct, and with more and more garou being originally humanistic educated lost cubs that makes some sense.

Point is, even some hundred years ago, human life wasn't considered that high a value. Child mortality was high, a lot of sicknesses and inquires lead to death. Thousands of years ago, morality was possibly very different.
Also, on the 'taking over the world'-part. One could argue that the Silver Fangs have and had the mandate to rule the world (as of Silver Fangs revised), and that it is their duty to police the world, including the other Fera. So, conflict with the Fera might always stem from single garou packs coming into conflict with single Fera that had performed transgressions.


Here is my head-canon:

• Gaia was exhausted and at some point didn't play an all to active part any more. It was Helios and Luna who created the Fera, as they saw fit (except for the Ananasi). All Fera are part-human and therefore have free-will (as Gaia intended).
• I ignore a pre-civilisation of Dinosaur-Kings.
• All Fera are flawed. Garou are territorial and fanatic. Bastet are curious. Corax are chatty. Mokolé are detached from the present. And what not.
• Most Fera were more solitary, living alone or among kinfolk (if the Curse permitted). Those Fera are in loose contact, by messages or infrequent visits. Garou have packs and septs though.
• The legend of Wolf saving Gaia from the Darkness is true and happened before the creation of Man. This event is, as the Silver Fangs assume, in deed the reason Luna chose them as defenders of Gaia (basically police).
• The Silver Fangs also sought and gained patronage from Helios, making them mad, but indeed rulers over all other living things in theory. Since there wasn't a big telepathic announcement not everyone knows.
• Tensions between the Fera were always present. Obviously, kin of all fera among the humans were culled in the Impergium. Also the rise of the Gauntlet lead to the first Caerns and cut several Fera off from the Umbra. Caerns slowly became a valued commodity in one's territory. Also, breeding rights were an issue, if a Bastet managed to get their human family into chieftain positions, the Silver Fangs suddenly took dibs on the sex - what the hell?
• Individual local Garou would kill individual local fera when they felt the need. The garou were, in general, honourable in what they did - the occasional frenzy not withstanding. Falling into a frenzy is a renown loss, a kind of punishment another fera might not see as adequate for a slain brethren, but what do they know?
• Stories of Garou killing Frea and Fera feeling irrational about that slowly become embedded in Fera and Garou culture.
• The events from Breedbook Nagah happen, where a Silver Fang crown prince and hero is murdered by a man named 'Bubasti'. The Silver Fangs bring the slain body to a Gurahl (or place several Gurahl meet) to be resurrected, in accordance with the legend of the first wolf such would be within their right to request for a hero. But the crown princes' second in command frenzies when the murderer is spotted among the Gurahl. In the fight many die and in the end the crown prince stays dead. The Gurahl deny the request, out of grief or simply because there isn't anyone to perform the resurrection any more at the gathering. This is the ultimate first story that spreads involving personalties of great renown involved in killings. Hostilities rise from there in forwards.
• There are direct campaigns of Garou only against the Nagah (who are of the Wyrm, obviously). There is a second campaign by the garou against the Wyrm, which turns out to be a trick, instigated by the Ananasi so the Garou would free Queen Anansa. A fools errant that cost the garou dearly and cements their believe that the other Fera are manipulating them. All other fighting is only regional and about territory or revenge and so on. Campaign meaning garou from different septs forming war bands and actively going on the hunt outside their usual territories. Breedbook Nagah mentions the garou drove them out of europe to India.
• The Children of Gaia prolong the conflict by regularly brokering truces and meetings only to see the falling apart by different agendas or Rage. Finally the realise that they don't live in an Age where unity in the way they want it is possible and abandon their efforts. As per TB GoG rev.
• The Silver Fangs at some point come to the conclusion that the War of Rage is dividing the spirit world and they issue and order to cease hostilities. They even make some concessions regarding territory, but ultimately several fera are driven of to regions no Garou are interested in. As per TB SF rev.
• The Age know as War of Rage ebbs off. The world has moved on and due to the rise of humanity since the end of the Impergium and climate change the meetings between Garou and other Fera become even more infrequent and therefore the direct conflict ends.

Obviously several thousand years later the situation has changed. The Ahadi shows that the time for a fera coalition might be now. Then again, the Silent Striders (and apparently Bone Gnawers (was that canon before 'Shatterd Dreams')) were part of the Horus Alliance before, as far back as Mummy 2nd edition. And even the Apocalypse book has them bringing the Fera into the final battle on the plain of the Apocalypse, not the Children of Gaia.

[Matt the Bruins fan]

I'd just look at Gaia's nature. Maybe since she's a creator spirit, she only acts directly by creating, and the Garou's dwindling numbers are an indication of the withdrawal of her fertile support? Maybe like the poem, her vegetable love grows vaster than oceans and more slow, and her reaction to the War of Rage hasn't happened, or finished happening, yet?

[The Cat Came Back]

Well one, because Gaia doesn't work like that. Gaia simply exists and manages her role in the universe. Gaia does not sit on a heavenly throne doling out retribution for sin and reward for virtue. Instead, it's very much a situation where the conditions and consequences of what you do are their own reward / retribution.

And second, well... it's not like combining humans and apex predators, giving them Rage, and then delivering divine mandates that overlap here and conflict there was ever going to have a different outcome. As detailed in Shattered Dreams, the Wars of Rage were not simply "the Garou massacre innocent hapless doe-eyed fera," it was conflicts between creatures born of humans and territorial predators, fanned to insane levels by supernaturally-imbued hate and anger, where it just happened that the Garou came out on top more often than not. And so, here we are.

Either Gaia is a blind idiot god, screaming into the void and randomly birthing things... or a changing breed battle royale was always part of the plan. (or perhaps Gaia had no hand in the changing breeds and they simply formed a cult around this great spirit, who knows. maybe the Ananasi are the only one with their crap together.)

And y'know what? The Wars of Rage aren't even the problem. The Garou could have picked up all the slack that the other changing breeds left when they died or retreated. Like I said there's massive redundancies in the changing breeds, a clue that perhaps extinctions were planned-for (or that Gaia just farts out multiple themes on any fleeting idea, if you prefer) The problem isn't that the other breeds are gone, it's that the Garou slacked off. They took all the reward from defeating the other changing breeds - the caerns, the hunting grounds, the kinfolk, the fetishes... but then just kept kicking the responsibilities down to the next generation of garou, generation after generation.

The problem isn't that the garou won the wars; it's that after they did so, they got fat and lazy.

And now they have to figure out how to fix it, on the eve of the apocalypse.

[Uniform Two Six]

I actually have always liked the idea that the decline in the Garou birthrate is a manifestation of Gaia's displeasure (this whole subject of why Gaia sat on the sidelines while the Garou wiped out whole swaths of the Fera is one that has come up frequently with the people I play with). Now, the more obvious and likely scenario is that with the humans multiplying and spreading Weaver influence (or taint if you prefer) all over the world and slowly ratcheting up the Gauntlet worldwide, is slowly choking off the spiritual energies that shapeshifters need to be conceived in the first place. It is mentioned here and there that the probability of a Garou-Kin pairing creating a new Garou wasn't always at the anemic 10% probability that it is in the modern times, so this hypothesis sounds pretty good, but some Fera (Ratkin come to mind) don't seem to be having quite the same troubles, so this is perhaps not necessarily the case. "Mom's not happy" is a theme that I think works pretty well to explain any such discrepancies. Two things can be true at the same time. Her displeasure at the Garou wiping out large swaths of the Fera might not be the cause of their decline, but withholding her powers of fertility might be contributing to why it is so severe.

[The Cat Came Back]

There is something to be said that the decline of Garou birthrate has to do with the War of Rage.

But not because of a divine punishment from Gaia.

Just becuase the Apis are all dead. That was the whole point of the Apis, to be matchmakers and builders, to guide humanity - and through them the changing breeds - to greatness.

'Course the Apis let it go to their heads and set themselves up as gods, at the same time the Garou simply took it for granted that they could maol-order mates from the Apis...

[Erinys]

Even in horror fiction, I'm not OK with a storyline that sets up genocide as "inevitable" in that way. Conflict was inevitable. Genocide was a choice the Garou and Simba made, just as genocides in the real world are choices. To depict it as anything else would disturb me. And I have no interest in the stories of Fera being evil that later generations of Garou tell to justify their actions. To me that looks far more like the winners writing history, given that every Changing-Breed canonically still mostly serves their creator(s). If all the Fera canonically were Wyrm-servants, it would make the Garou justifications look a lot more plausible.

[Erinys]

Sorry for the double-post.

Is there reference material to that?

What I have seen from Breedbooks, and from other sources summarizing attitudes, is that most of the tribes justify the War of Rage because the Fera "turned away from Gaia" or "fell to the Wyrm" or "didn't accept the Garou as their rulers". These are the same justifications the Amandu'o Simba had for genocide of the Ajaba. In Rage Across Australia, the Red Talons still congratulate themselves for killing all the Bunyip.

I am very strongly NOT interested in fiction that depicts the self-justifications of genocidal armies as somehow legitimate or true.

[Ambrosia]

There is an important part that might play into Gaia not punishing the Garou for the War Of Rage:

It would make all the shifter's beliefs about their creation, about their mission, and about their purpose an actual reality.
If you think about it, with the dozens of thousands of years that have passed, a lot of what the shifters believe and do is, quite literally, their religion.

As much as (aside of the last endtime end-scenario books that got retcon'd with the 20th lines and onward..) the western Vampires *believe* they are the offspring of Caine's sin, and *believe* they are punished by capital G God, the shifters actually only *believe* in what their origins and purpose are.
It's words and stories passed down between the generations and some spirits of their acenstors, but in the end, it is just as much of an opinion piece as anything else.

Gaia actually appearing in front of them after the War Of Rage and dealing out punishment would have broken that narrative. Instead, it's ambiguous. Maybe it's the decline of the birthrate, sure. Maybe it's the dire situation they are in.
Maybe it's just a natural consequence of their actions, and there is nothing special or higher-power behind it.

But either way, any *actual* validity behind the shifter's claims is actually left unproven. And that is, all things concerned, a good thing. It has the potential to make the past events even more tragic, and the current situation even more ironic.

[Aleph]

I am very strongly NOT interested in fiction that depicts the self-justifications of genocidal armies as somehow legitimate or true.

I was under the impression that, regardless of the IOC justifications of the Genosides (aren't the justifications within the mentioned Tribebooks just that?), the OOC Lore agrees that Garou killing so many of the other Fera was bad. Both moraly and in a practical sense.