The Bat loves you and wants to be your friend...

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_voyager.co.nz>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 21:57:18 +1200 (NZST)


Keith Nellist:

>I always thought that the amount of stuff and souls that the Crimson Bat had
>to consume and utterly destroy every week was appallingly high. I wouldn't
>care so much if they came back as something but it seems like an unsustainably
>large figure.

>Let's feed it cattle for a year - 1000 per week - 42,000 per
>year! These cattle are removed from the cycle of birth and death. I don't know
>much about cow demographics (is that cow-a -graphics?) but this is a lot.

I fail to see how being eaten by the Bat affects future cattle numbers. After all the bat also removes humans from the cycle of life and death and yet Peloria is still as populous as ever despite 400 years of the Bat.

>How about 440 humans per week. - that's 18,500 per year, which is one
>thousanth of the popn. of the current Lunar Empire. Each wane this is
>1,000,000 people! So in a Lunar Empire without war 1 in 10 of the population
>are eaten by the bat?? Sorry, not just eaten, ANNIHILATED.

Given that ancient RW societies have been estimated to have lowlifes of roughly 5% of the total population, one need merely view this as encouragement to lead healthy and productive lives within the bounty of the Empire. The remainder is taken by the Bat feeding across the border in the Redlands, the Elder Wilds and the South. Your calculations also ignore the growth rate in the societies over time (and 54 years is a significant period of time).

>All this leads me to the conclusion that the Bat must be away for extended
>periods after it is occasionally killed, and is only summoned back in dire
>emergencies. Nobody wants it back, everybody hates it.

Nonsense. Good Citizens have nothing to fear from the Bat which exists only to protect and serve the Empire. After all, the Bat does not need to visit the Lunar Heartlands...

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