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        "Beware the beast man 
          for he is the devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for 
          sport or lust or greed." -sacred text of the Lawgiver, The Planet of the Apes
 The 
        Barbarians
 Opposing the rebuilding survivor 
        population are the Barbarians. Also survivors, the Barbarians have been 
        changed in some way by the disaster. Barbarians fall into one of three 
        categories: Deviants, Mutants, and Cults. The Barbarians actively threaten 
        the goals of the surviving civilization, destroying structures, stealing 
        resources, and kidnapping children. 
 The first type of Barbarian 
        is the Mutant. Mutants have been physically changed or in some cases created 
        by the disaster that has befallen the Earth. The giant scorpions and deadly 
        invulnerable cockroaches of Damnation Alley are perfect examples 
        of Mutants. The Mutant is mindless, driven only by animal instinct, although 
        not all Mutants are changed animals. Some are mutated humans that have 
        been changed by the disaster and reduced to not just animalistic but non-sentient 
        levels of existence, responding only to their natural instinct and nothing 
        more. The remaining aboveground humans in The Planet of the Apes 
        are human mutants. They have lost their powers of speech and live in the 
        jungles like animals. The Mutants are not usually overtly or purposely 
        threatening the Civilized; they are looking out for themselves and protecting 
        their own self-interests. But these mutant creatures are much more dangerous 
        than their counterparts from before the disaster, and so are perceived 
        as more of a threat. Animals become stronger and deadlier while humans 
        become more animalistic without any capacity to think. They are the natural 
        price that must be paid for the man-caused disaster. 
 Mutants usually only threaten 
        the Civilized in their rebuilding stage. Given the Mutants' animalistic 
        nature they become a danger when their territory is invaded or their expansion 
        or migration brings them in contact with the Civilized. The roaches of 
        Damnation Alley menace only when the town they infest is explored 
        by the ungrounded civilized. The vampire-like Mutants of The Last Man 
        on Earth try to break down the door of survivor Dr. Morgan's home 
        on a nightly basis. In their animal-like state they can do little but 
        bang at the doors and windows without the reasoning ability to plan a 
        simple assault on Morgan's minimally fortified house. Animals were one 
        of the first threats to humanity and after the disaster the Mutants are 
        the first threats encountered by the rebuilding Civilized. 
 The next type of Barbarian 
        is the Deviant. Deviants, as might be expected, live against the social 
        norms of the civilized community. They are amoral, brutal and dangerous. 
        Lord Humongous and his men in The Road Warrior are deviants. Their 
        gang contrasts the virginal civilization of the refinery with their unapologetic 
        sexuality. Wez, the mohawked dirtbike rider, wears bits of leather bondage-style 
        gear and little else. His same-sex partner, the Golden Youth, rides with 
        him on the back of his motorcycle. Although there is no explicit relationship 
        between the two; Wez is later driven by vengeance after his companion's 
        death. The rebuilding and reseeding must be done before repopulation can 
        be considered. For a rebuilding civilization, any kind of sexuality that 
        does not aim for procreation, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is a 
        hedonistic act that wastes needed energies and goes against the moral 
        strictures of the community-minded Civilized. 
 Just as the Mutants are given 
        to pure animal instinct, the Deviants are still human, but have given 
        themselves over to their innate, self-serving tendencies. With the reasoning 
        ability to understand the desires of the Civilized, the Deviants still 
        go against the pure and virtuous societies that the Civilized have tried 
        to create after the disaster. The Civilized created laws to avoid another 
        disaster, while the Deviants live outside the law, embracing the disaster 
        as the way the world ought to be. The Deviants do not seek peaceful lives 
        like the Civilized do; rather they personify the selfish weaknesses of 
        mankind that led to disaster in the first place. 
 The Deviants come up against 
        the Civilized over supplies. While the Civilized are in the process of 
        reseeding and gathering of resources is when the Deviants become a threat. 
        The Deviants of The Road Warrior claim to want only the gasoline 
        that the Civilized have processed in their refinery. Carrot and his gang 
        from The Ultimate Warrior raid the Baron's commune time and again 
        for the fresh fruits that they have developed to grow. The Deviants allow 
        the Civilized to work to create and harvest resources and then cunningly 
        attempt to steal it. 
 Finally there are the Cults. 
        The Cults are humans that have actually reordered and are attempting to 
        rebuild society as well. What makes them Cults is that their value systems 
        are in opposition to those of the Civilized. Often the Cults have embraced 
        the idea that the world would be better off without humans and seek to 
        wipe out the Civilized. Matthias and his "Family" in The 
        Omega Man are typical Post-Apocalyptic Cultists. Physically, they 
        have been changed into sun-fearing albinos; this visually separates the 
        Cultists from all other survivors. Except for Matthias, the cultists display 
        almost no free will once they join the Family and socially they are violently 
        against the "creatures of the wheel." Matthias says that they 
        seek to "erase history from the time that machinery and weapons threatened 
        more than they offered." The underground humans of Beneath the 
        Planet of the Apes are also a cult. They worship the one last leftover 
        warhead, the Alpha Omega Bomb, as a god and believe their blistered appearance 
        is a blessing from the "holy fallout." Like Matthias and his 
        Family, The Cults consider themselves the next phase in human evolution. 
        They believe that the disaster was a step forward for mankind, as that 
        is what created the cult. But their existence is still a threat to the 
        ways of the Civilized, though perhaps not as physical as the threat of 
        a Mutant or as immediate as a Deviant. It is a long-term threat that will 
        culminate in another battle for power. 
 While most Cults have gone 
        through physical changes, like the Mutants, they maintain advanced human 
        reasoning skills. They are able to work together for the good of their 
        own community, a community that goes against the community of the Civilized. 
        Since their dispute with the Civilized is not over territory or resources 
        but over the future of the species the Cults threaten communities that 
        have become concerned with repopulating. Matthias and his family hope 
        for the infected children to "turn" and join them. They fight 
        Neville for his territory, no because they want it, but because he philosophically 
        opposes them. They believe the "creatures of the wheel" to be 
        a scourge on the Earth and want Neville dead simply because he is one 
        of these "creatures." If he is allowed to live he may find others 
        like himself and breed. The Cults are rational enough to Rebuild, Reseed, 
        and Repopulate just like the Civilized but there is only enough land and 
        resources to sustain one of the two groups; whichever group can successfully 
        Repopulate first will become the dominant force.
 The Barbarians have a much 
        more intimate relationship with the disaster than the Civilized. They 
        owe their existence to the disaster, which created them (the Mutants), 
        gave them power (the Deviants), and brought them together (the Cults). 
        Even when they are not directly threatening the Civilized, they are a 
        constant reminder of the disaster that mankind brought upon itself, a 
        dark echo of the time before the disaster. 
  
        
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