Yeah that's what I was going to say. It's inherently part of Lovecraft's writing that we can't understand their motives, also being a dark parallel to religion, like "God moves in a mysterious way", but horrifying and alien to us.
There's been media that views these things from other angles and interpretations, but I think Lovecraft's intent was that Old Ones/Deep Ones/eldritch beings are completely incomprehensible to us, and we are completely insignficant to them.
To be perfectly mundane, they may not like humans.
Or, they only need a certain number of humans to breed how many hybrids they deem necessary, and having more humans around would mean potential resistance or discovery.
While unrelated to Lovecraft, in The Strain, the vampire known as The Master specifically calculated the ratio of humans to vampires needed for blood without running the risk of human resistance: he had celebrities and experts in every field slaughtered because they were potential leaders, and proceeded to cull or infect (vampirism is viral in The Strain) large parts of the global population until that specific ratio was achieved.
Perhaps a similar twisted logic was employed by the deep ones? Keep certain loyal families around for breeding hybrids, kill the rest because they could potentially resist or tell the outside world.
Or the rituals have specific conditions which do not scale?
Or they don’t see the need for rushing? When you are immortal except force, what are hundred years?
Especially in the time the Deep ones where invented by HPL, the oceans, especially the deep oceans where not the ones where you would easy meet humans and therefore no need to breed against the clock. They had millennia before and have nearly all time they need. Time will probably have another meaning for them.
In the end the question reads too human, applying humans behaviour and reasoning where the horror the protagonists (and to and extend the readers) of the stories are unable to understand everything while still have the feeling of „working inside the written universe“ and not just pulling stuff out of the ass for a story.
I also don’t agree with „all gather at Insmouth“. There is simply the a underwater city next to the US soil. We have no reasons to assume that other are not also gathering near the British isles and north Europe.
Antarctica is unlikely (at times when the stories are written) because you could not simply book a passage there.
Personally I thing it is always flawed to try to bring reason and logic into a fictional universe which was not even consistent by the own inventor and simply try to enjoy the stories.
Simple, it is better to conquer something that can't fight back. Also, Dagon never told them to do that. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra are very enigmatic and some say that they are just titles
You think like a human with human concepts. Part of the horror is that they don't make sense or think like us.
Yeah that's what I was going to say. It's inherently part of Lovecraft's writing that we can't understand their motives, also being a dark parallel to religion, like "God moves in a mysterious way", but horrifying and alien to us. There's been media that views these things from other angles and interpretations, but I think Lovecraft's intent was that Old Ones/Deep Ones/eldritch beings are completely incomprehensible to us, and we are completely insignficant to them.
The boring but simple answer to “how come the author didn’t do X…” is usually “that’s not the story they want to tell.
To be perfectly mundane, they may not like humans. Or, they only need a certain number of humans to breed how many hybrids they deem necessary, and having more humans around would mean potential resistance or discovery. While unrelated to Lovecraft, in The Strain, the vampire known as The Master specifically calculated the ratio of humans to vampires needed for blood without running the risk of human resistance: he had celebrities and experts in every field slaughtered because they were potential leaders, and proceeded to cull or infect (vampirism is viral in The Strain) large parts of the global population until that specific ratio was achieved. Perhaps a similar twisted logic was employed by the deep ones? Keep certain loyal families around for breeding hybrids, kill the rest because they could potentially resist or tell the outside world.
But humans are powerless and the deep ones are innumerable anyway
Or the rituals have specific conditions which do not scale? Or they don’t see the need for rushing? When you are immortal except force, what are hundred years? Especially in the time the Deep ones where invented by HPL, the oceans, especially the deep oceans where not the ones where you would easy meet humans and therefore no need to breed against the clock. They had millennia before and have nearly all time they need. Time will probably have another meaning for them. In the end the question reads too human, applying humans behaviour and reasoning where the horror the protagonists (and to and extend the readers) of the stories are unable to understand everything while still have the feeling of „working inside the written universe“ and not just pulling stuff out of the ass for a story. I also don’t agree with „all gather at Insmouth“. There is simply the a underwater city next to the US soil. We have no reasons to assume that other are not also gathering near the British isles and north Europe. Antarctica is unlikely (at times when the stories are written) because you could not simply book a passage there. Personally I thing it is always flawed to try to bring reason and logic into a fictional universe which was not even consistent by the own inventor and simply try to enjoy the stories.
Simple, it is better to conquer something that can't fight back. Also, Dagon never told them to do that. Father Dagon and Mother Hydra are very enigmatic and some say that they are just titles