Anonymous
×
Create a new article
Write your page title here:
We currently have 2,416 articles on Monstropedia. Type your article name above or click on one of the titles below and start writing!



Monstropedia
2,416Articles
Revision as of 20:58, 1 March 2011 by Beastmaster (talk | contribs) (Added a new page.)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

The Mi-go are a race of extraterrestrials in the Cthulhu Mythos created by H. P. Lovecraft and others.

The name was first applied to the creatures in Lovecraft's short story "The Whisperer in Darkness", taking up a reference to 'What fungi sprout in Yuggoth' in his sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth (1929-1930) and there describing the contrasting vegetation on a couple of alien dream-worlds.

Description

The Mi-go are large, pinkish, fungoid, crustacean-like entities the size of a man with a "convoluted ellipsoid" composed of pyramided, fleshy rings and covered in antennae where a head would normally be. According to two reports in the original short story, their bodies consist of a form of matter that does not occur naturally on Earth. Interestingly, they are capable of going into suspended animation until softened and reheated by the sun or some other source of heat. They are about 1.5 meters long, and their crustacean-like bodies bear numerous sets of paired appendages. They also possess a pair of membranous bat-like wings which are used to fly through the "ether" of outer space (a scientific concept which is now discredited). The wings do not function well on Earth. Several other races in Lovecraft's Mythos have wings like these as well.

The Mi-go can transport humans from Earth to Pluto (and beyond) and back again by removing the subject's brain and placing it into a "brain cylinder", which can be attached to external devices to allow it to see, hear, and speak.

The Mi-go previously worshipped the beings Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and Shub-Niggurath, among others, although in newer works it is acknowledged that the Mi'Go are at war with the Elder Gods. Their moral system is completely alien, making them seem highly malicious from a human perspective.

One of the moons of Yuggoth holds designs that are sacred to the Mi-go. The symbols inscribed upon the moon are useful in various processes mentioned in the Necronomicon. It is said that transcriptions of these designs can be sensed by the Mi-go, and those possessing them shall be hunted down by the few remaining on earth. In "The Whisperer in Darkness", a "black stone with unknown hieroglyphics" from Yuggoth is found by one of the main characters, Henry Akeley, prompting the Mi-Go to hunt him down and reclaim it, eventually destroying him.

In later stories, Hastur apparently despises the Mi-go. His cult, servants of "Him Who Is Not to be Named", are dedicated to hunting them down and exterminating the fungoid threat. However, in the original story a human ally of the Mi-go mentions "Him Who is not to be Named" in the list of honored entities along with Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath. It should be noted, though, that Lovecraft never made a connection between Hastur and "Him Who Is Not To Be Named", and that Derleth was the one to do so.

Art/Fiction

The Mi-go's inaugural appearance in comic books was the first three issues of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Whisperer in Darkness that featured the Miskatonic Project, created by Mark Ellis.

The Mi-go are also prominent antagonists in Pagan Publishing's Delta Green sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. According to the guide, there are three castes: scientist, soldier, and worker. This raises the possibility that other castes may exist. The book also says that the Mi-go usually have five pairs of appendages though the number can vary up or down from that. Normally, the first pair is designed for grasping and manipulating, but in the scientist caste it is usually the first two pairs. The remaining appendages are used for locomotion. The soldiers may have two or more pairs of wings. Some individuals do not have wings at all if they are deemed unnecessary to their task. The Mi-go apparently can modify their own bodies. It is also suggested that all their external accouterments are actually extruded at will from the central gelatinous mass similar to the way the shoggoths extrude body parts. In the Delta Green setting, the "Greys" are actually puppets remotely-controlled by the Mi-go.

They are distinguished by their mastery in various fields of science, especially surgery. Although they originate from beyond our solar system, they have set up an outpost on Pluto (known as Yuggoth in the Cthulhu Mythos) and sometimes visit Earth to mine for minerals and other natural resources. The Mi-go normally communicate by changing the colors of their orb-like heads or by emitting odd buzzing noises. They can also speak any human language upon receiving the appropriate surgical modification.

The Mi-Go are also one of the main enemies of humanity in the role-playing game CthulhuTech, a game which combines Lovecraft's fiction with tropes and themes from mecha anime, in which their name is spelled Migou; however, they are commonly referred to as "bugs" by humans.

Here they are presented much as in the original Lovecraft stories, and somewhat similar to the way they are portrayed in Delta Green; being masters of science and genetics, and in particular human genetics. Their hostility to humanity could be seen as jealousy that humans had created a technology that they had never thought of, combined with a fear of humanity's growing power threatening them. Although it is stated that they have emotions vastly different from our own, their campaign on Earth seems to have developed into genocidal hatred against humans.

  • In Allan and the Sundered Veil, Allan Quatermain, Randolph Carter, John Carter of Mars, and The Time Traveller encounter Mi-go, which are stated as being the same as Morlocks.
  • In "To Mars and Providence", the Mi-go engage in trade with the Martians from The War of the Worlds.
  • Creatures based on Mi-go also appear in the final segment, directed by Brian Yuzna, of the movie Necronomicon . However, unlike Lovecraft's creatures, they actively feed on and possess their victims.
  • Mi-go have appeared in numerous Mythos stories since Lovecraft, most notably in Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley by Richard Lupoff and The Mine on Yuggoth by Ramsey Campbell.
  • A Mi-go is scripted to walk across the stage during the "Tentacles" number of the musical parody A Shoggoth on the Roof, prompting Armitage to narrate it as "some horrible creature... I do not even want to know what that is".
  • The horror-themed miniatures game HorrorClix has a Mi-Go as a unique figure in its The Lab expansion.

Etymology

It is possible that Lovecraft encountered the word migou in his readings. "Migou" is the Tibetan equivalent of the yeti, a semi-mythical humanoid being who lives in the high mountain ranges of that country'. Mi-go is the compound word for "man-wild" (wild man and is pronounced me-gö. While the Mi-go of Lovecraft's mythos are completely unlike the migou of Tibetan stories, Lovecraft seems to equate the two.