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The Glorious Evolution

Mogarl·3/25/2015, 12:25:50 PM·9 votes·2,453 views

So something that has been on my mind lately with all the people newly picking up Viktor, (I love and hate all of you) is what other people see the Glorious Evolution as. I've been seeing a lot of evidence that people seem to believe that the Battlecast is the culmination of the Glorious Evolution, something that I disagree with.

The Battlecast Universe is a stark contrast to many of the ideals of the glorious evolution primarily the idea of upgrading humanity as a whole, a concept that the Battlecast doesn't seem to abide by and seems much more interested in eliminating humanity, something I became acutely aware of after using Battlecast Cho'gath.

Personally I've always seen the Glorious Evolution as a utopian future where evolved man and yordle do what's best but most efficient, lesser human emotions have been removed, such as jealousy, hate, greed, and pride everyone goes about happily doing what's best for the whole. While this still seems a little more distopian than utopian, as any "utopia" would be, it's still considerably different from the brand of distopia the Battlecast is.

If you've read through this short blurb, great, thank-you, but it would also be cool if you posted your own ideals of what the Glorious Evolution are. With the retcon floating around I figured that a discussion about such a large part of Viktor's identity would be important.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/2c561105e081e09abae1e58b41dd1bb6/tumblr_n805ilUGmD1tof9kfo6_500.png

19 Comments

333lom3/25/2015, 9:04:31 PM5 votes

Hello! I was surprised to come across a thread of this type - I was under the impression that almost everyone in the community accepted Viktor as a stereotypical evil cyborg that is going to conquer the world with his evil machines and put everyone under mind control, thus making him the ultimate overlord. cough-cliche-cough

Fortunately, it looks like I'm not the only one that disagrees with that! One of the most common things I've seen is people referring to anything Viktor creates as Battlecast. Which is clearly a very weak assumption. Nothing in the world can convince me that a genius of that caliber could create only one type of machines, and war machines, by that.

The Battlecast universe is indeed a very hard contrast to what the Evolution is supposed to be. The real idea was to release organic beings of deficiencies and allow them to "ascend", to put it that way. Prior to his transformation, Viktor worked on a project that was meant to clean Zaun, the most polluted and reckless of City-states, and that says a lot about him. He was born there, and although he should have shared the Zaunite lack of care for safety, ecology and human life, he didn't. He wanted to help humanity. Hell, even his reaction to the injustice done to him contrasts Zaun's mentality. He wasn't distressed because he, let's say, lost a lot of money to Pididly due to his theft. He fell into a depression because he was let down and betrayed by the people around him. It was a slap-in-the-face to his trust in others. He was clearly naive, when he didn't see the theft of something that big coming, or even believing that a trial in such a corrupted City-state could restore his rights as the rightful owner of the intellectual property. He started the Evolution with himself. Not experimenting on others first. The Evolution, I think, is actually his cry for help. He honestly wants to help everyone, by ridding them of the flaws that he pinpointed while he was in that horrible state of mind, during his depression. He wanted to prevent things like Pididly's theft from happening again. He saw the same flaws in himself. How that turned into "HA PUNY HUMANS, BECOME MY MACHINES OR PREPARE TO DIE FROM MY LAZOR!" is beyond me. I mean, I understand that sells the skins, but still... Now, he's obviously alone, and that striving for perfection carries a risk of him straying completely into madness. But then again, what is considered madness? Or to put it this way: what if he wants to help everyone, even though some don't want to be helped? Helping them anyway is then considered a good or a bad thing? It depends on the point of view.

Although the Battlecasts seem like the doomsday machines, I think there's a possibility to look at things this way: remember the Void invasion? The one Kassadin keeps warning the world about? Well. What if Viktor stood up to that. What if he turned the Void creatures against that alien evil, and created the army to defend Runeterra and its future? If the Void devoured it, all of his effort in the Evolution would be for nothing. Battle Casts - it sounds like "cast to battle". Something from the outside forced them to fight, they were attacked. (okay, I see many will say "Viktor forced them to fight" but bleh) And also, Void creatures also are made of flesh, the quotes could be referring to them, perhaps. And what about the Resistance movement? What if some people interpreted the creation of the Battlecasts as a threat, and that Viktor was aiming to turn them against humanity? What if the Resistance attacked first? That would be a very serious plot twist. I realize, probably with very slim chances of happening, because people like cliche's at the end. I've tried to write more about this here, but I'm not sure if I conveyed it exactly the way I wanted, so I'll be refining it in the future. And here's for the end, something I drew to continue the story of the Battlecast Skarner https://40.media.tumblr.com/ba4405f5705c4b1ae397038be98fc40a/tumblr_nfo750yzaT1tbpqalo3_500.png

Sorry for the Great Wall of Text!

KING OF MASKS3/25/2015, 8:55:48 PM4 votes

I get the feeling that Creator Viktor (and by extension the whole Battlecast thing) is the result of Viktor losing his marbles. That is to say, originally his goals might have been more noble, and the Glorious Evolution more closely mirrored the OP's description, but now he's at the point where he's lost sight of that vision. The only thing he strives for now is the complete, total, and utter replacement of humanity with machinery, simply because metal is perfection and that's all there is to it.

For the record I absolutely adore anything and everything to do with Viktor, but I think it's pretty clear that he tends more towards supervillainy than anything else.

Tesla Effect3/25/2015, 4:49:29 PM3 votes

Viktor is like Nikola Tesla of Runeterra. Incredibly smart, a visionary, probably way ahead of his time. Heck, even his lore and abilities match Nikola Teslas story and ideas. But most would see him as evil due to them not understanding his inventions, portraying him as a mad man bent on destroying the world (Damn Edison Piltover & Zaun corrupt uptights).

Laughing Fish3/25/2015, 1:49:36 PM3 votes

The Glorious Evolution will start by repairing actual flaws such as injury, but it will not stop. He will continually find more "weakness" in the human (and Yordle, Voidborn, etc) race that must be purged. The problem with purging all weakness and emotion is that you purge all creativity and freedom.

Part of the problem is that Viktor is not truly emotionless. He started the Glorious Evolution because of a combination of pride and depression. Others continually stole his work, and claimed his inventions as their own, so Viktor used his vast knowledge of robotics to purge himself of emotion, but that feeling of pride and condemnation for humanity was partially retained. Viktor maintains control over himself, but denies to to others. Why does he do this? Viktor is truly convinced that emotional creatures are flawed to the point that they cannot make decisions for themselves, leaving it up to him to make decisions for them. He sees humans wanting emotion like a dog wanting chocolate. The dog really want the chocolate. He has thought it out to the best of his ability, and has determined that the chocolate would be good. But as a human we know the chocolate will kill the dog, and we make the decision to deny the dog his wishes because we know better then he does. And in the same way Viktor would deny humans emotion and freedom as he "knows" better.

And here is the biggest problem: Every victory makes Viktor stronger, smarter, and more advanced. His army and knowledge continues to grow. Once the Glorious Evolution reaches a certain critical mass, it will begin consuming all living creatures. The only way to stop such a force is to prevent Viktor from ever truly building an army.

TL;DR Viktor is still prideful, and would remove all freedom other than his own. The Glorious Evolution, once started, cannot be stopped.

warwiller3/25/2015, 4:41:43 PM2 votes

Laughing Fish

Whats the connection between not wanting to join the Evolution and killing most of Viktor's creations? Please be more careful when you say "thus" or i'll report you.

Thank You.

warwiller3/25/2015, 1:33:34 PM2 votes

I never newly picked up Viktor. I realized his coolness from the biggining. So never say i newly piked up viktor!!!!!

Seth Lightheart3/25/2015, 1:15:33 PM2 votes

The thing is this, VIktor didn't start 'the glorious evolution' because he wanted to better humanity. He started it because he was upset someone took all of the credit for Blitzcrank, when he made him, blamed humanity and wanted to strip himself from his emotion.

Secondly, what I believe more so happened is this: It possibly started off in the guise of something good, i.e. give someone blind new eyes, someone with no arms arms. Something you could stand behind. But as Viktor became more and more machine and wanted other to do the same others felt reluctant where as he came to the conclusion everyone needed to be forcibly converted.

If you look at the battle castskin vs pulsefire you will notice Ezreal looks more like a cyborg than a human.

The war isn't 'lets keep our bodies' it's I want to keep my mind.