Gen. Stuart, Lovecraft was right

[Cain]

Correct me if I'm wrong, General, but you're an archaeologist, right?

I used to want to go into archaeology, years ago.  Probably too many Indiana Jones films, but I was really into history, and I spent half my life in muddy ditches anyway (ahh, school rugby matches), so I thought I might as well get paid for it.  Things changed though, I gained an interest in paleontology for a while, not to mention I actually did some work experience with archaeologists, enough to put anyone off the discipline for life.  I've never had quite so many people plead with me to do something which might earn me enough to pay off my student debts in my life.

But still, archaeology retains an appeal for me.  Its the excitement, you know.  Finding what has been buried, lost from human eyes for years, perhaps centuries.  I know there isn't much money in it, but money has never really interested me that much, so long as I have enough to support myself.  Knowledge is what I'm really after.  Knowledge of the past, to understand the present.

Yet sometimes, I find myself wondering if money wasn't the safer course.  Nothing so Indiana Jones as tripwires and falling boulders, of course, I suspect no-one much faces that sort of danger outside of a Hollywood script.  No, this is more...insidious.  They say knowledge is power, and to an extent this is true.  Power is the ability to influence those around you and your environment, and knowing how certainly helps towards that end.  But at the same time, power flows the other way, and once you open yourself up to it, other beings and systems can, and will, work their influence on you.

I guess I'm saying some things should remain buried.  Some things should stay in the ground, quiet, where they belong.  No good can come of bringing them back into the harsh light of publicity.  Sure, learning is important, but sometimes people draw the wrong lessons from history.  And given some periods in the past, this isn't very desirable.

Worse though, are the things people have deliberately hidden.  You do not want to dig those up at all, either by accident or purpose.  Oh sure, for a while you get to play the role of the glamourous explorer, the courageous investigator, but then come the harassing phone calls, the broken windows, the slashed tires and the screaming.  Always the screaming.  And worse, if you don't know when to fold, when to call it a day.  And even if you do know when to quit, you still can't unknow what you now know.  Not only the terrible facts you discovered, but everything else that goes along with that - the lengths to which they can and will be protected.

And that isn't even as bad as it gets.  Go down deep enough, and even if you don't find anything, you can still leave a trail, a path, where...things...can follow you back.  I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't I wont elaborate.  At least artefacts don't have a mind or purpose of their own.  Then again, these probably don't either.  No purpose I can discern, anyway, not that I like to think about it.  Tools, but a gun or knife is a tool, when you get down to it.  But the worst of it is that they have your scent.  Even if you're nothing to do with them, if you just happen to stumble upon their path, they know you now.  And they can find you, wherever you are.  You can't go far enough, crossing a stream wont shake them, and they can even get inside your head.  Your dreams and nightmares.  Do you really want to give them that much access, that much to use?

No, Lovecraft was right.  Some things, we're better off not knowing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Problem is, you don't know it's there, and you build a city over it (Love Canal, for example).  Rumors suggest that during the construction of Washington, small star-shaped stone artifacts were found, but ignored...which might explain why congressmen turn evil within a month of arriving, and why sometimes they have to cut the presidents broadcast when he suddenly starts chanting in an unknown language and demanding truckloads of virgins (which have to be imported, obviously).

So maybe it's better to look.  Just use disposable grad students who can be locked in cages when they start gibbering about colors out of space and supply-side economics.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Problem is, you don't know it's there, and you build a city over it (Love Canal, for example).  Rumors suggest that during the construction of Washington, small star-shaped stone artifacts were found, but ignored...which might explain why congressmen turn evil within a month of arriving, and why sometimes they have to cut the presidents broadcast when he suddenly starts chanting in an unknown language and demanding truckloads of virgins (which have to be imported, obviously).

So maybe it's better to look.  Just use disposable grad students who can be locked in cages when they start gibbering about colors out of space and supply-side economics.

This is the correct use of grad students.

[0]

I believe that one of the artifacts our dear friend Cain is referring to would be the Shining Trapezohedron.

Uncovered by Enoch Bowen in the 1900's and thrown into providence harbor after it drove him and any who came near it insane, a window into the myriad other worlds.

Did you know that that abandoned church was actually there for a very long time?

and as far as pay goes, we archaeologists get paid VERY well, and shovelbums make up nearly 86 percent of the workforce in the field.

Sometimes, Cain...sometimes, dead and buried is better than found and alive....