shit okay... when i first read this, i assumed humans had made the pale due to some technological accident... like it was basically the equivalent of nuclear radiation...
but now having thought so much more about it after the moralist political vision quest... if its arrival coincides with the human MIND... maybe it's more akin to entropy? like somehow human creativity is causing it?
WAIT OKAY SHIT. okay. so now thinking about the moralintern's stated goal to make sure humanity survives. and the way they react when harry tells them about the hole in the world...
what if the whole purpose of the moralintern is to slow down the spread of the pale? what if THAT'S why they're all about "slow progress"? because humanity progressing too fast would actually destroy them????
and then thinking of dolores dei and the moralintern being her legacy... dolores dei was killed because (according to her killer) she made humanity progress too quickly... the whole "we were supposed to discover this on our own" thing... that seems like kind of the OPPOSITE of what the moralintern stands for in modern day? if anything, it sounds like they'd agree more with her killer. is it a case of learning from a past mistake or a case of pretending to take on a legacy that isn't really yours? or hell. is dolores dei actually something more than human?
who the hell even knows at this point. like this is all just me throwing out random theories. but like okay. dude. THE LORE.
goddamn okay. the moralist political vision quest REALLY makes you think a hell of a lot more about this world.