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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zaruthustran" data-source="post: 1774845" data-attributes="member: 1457">Eh, I'm with you, Herpes Cineplex. The cliche is a cliche, and I'm a bit sick of it too. What I wanted to explore were some of the reasons the cliche exists.For the record, I think *any* history adds weight and import, not just history of better, stronger, faster ancestors. Tieing the plot into the past, putting current events into a historical context--that's good stuff, regardless of who wins in a fight between current and past heroes.The 70's and 80's were so spooky because NEVER BEFORE had humanity had such a capacity for self-annihilation, and such an increasing likelyhood of using that capacity. It was (and is) a heretofor unknown "Golden Age" of destructive capability.What a golden age does is add a bit of unknown, and call into question the power of the present. If you achieve uber-9th-level magicness, and no one else has, ever--well that's neat. Great. If you do the same, but know that once, someone else did too--and for an unknown reason, that level of power destroyed civilization--well that's also neat, and (bonus!) scary.Remember this?<a href="http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=292" target="_blank">http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=292</a>-z</blockquote>