It time for another What if... Thread!

[Drich]

Well, you make these oddly specific. Each facet brings forth a facet of human social behavior. Each one 'changes the game'.

more questions.. more details..

If flying on a broom was a thing, everyone would want to do it. Can anyone be a witch in this scenario, or just a minority of the population?

this would be avaiable to anyone looking to turn their solu over to said demon, based on the rituals in said witch book...

Stealing children to cook and eat them is a lot of work, what's the gain? What's the use?

Maybe they taste like a crazy good bacon from an extinct pig, whos meat products taste so good it cause humanity to hunt them out of existance. Children+ some spell= insanity Bacon

People prey on people in general... how would witches preying on people be any different?

We don't generally farm and eat other people's kids.

Is this because of teleportation? Because if it is: they cannot realistically be killed with fire and water, and humanity can pretty much just bend over for its magical girl overlords

Demons are spiritual in nature, and appearently have some weakness to fire.

Not really, Salem witch trials had no government oversight. Perhaps if a whole nation had a way... but how can you know if someone is a witch?

Eat children, fly on a broom, etc... The what if.. states these qualities were observed at the time of the salem witch trials as well

Ultimately... are we willing to kill innocent people for the *chance* that we *might* catch a witch among a set of innocent people? How would we find these 'witches' such that a 'witch burning' would be an effective solution?

The idea of burning was spawned from the denzel washington movie fallen.
Where Azazel was a demon who could pass from person to person by touch. I have transposed this power from that movie in these controlling witch demons. If you kill a confirmed witch by any other means other than fire that demon is free to possess another host willing to be a witch. so in effect the same 'witch/demon' different host.

If so, there would be today people trying to return magic to the world.

One of my projects is kind of exploring that scenario, except it's in a post-apocalyptic setting.

feel free to use any of this in your project, just send me a copy.

Would that change your view of what they did and why they did what they did?

No. I can respect measurable countermeasures, or reasonable calls of sacrifice for the greater good...

Again what if the reasonable counter measure was death by fire?

I have a hard time respecting mass hysteria, and trials without evidence where it is literally impossible to find out if someone is a witch... and based on the fact that the man or woman dies regardless of whether or not they are a witch: one would have to cull the entire population, just to be sure.

Again got to stick with the parameters of the what if.. These witches are real and can act with impunity. if they did not want to goto trial they would just walk away and nothing we could do could stop them.

But that wouldn't be sustainable... and lingering trust might allow some to live. Dangerous road to walk.

In this senerio witches are not really able to completely hide who they are for very long. The demons powering this rampage are not shy. they want[/quote] people to know its power