system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Cthulu Mythos] What is the difference between the Old Ones from the Mountains of Madness and the Great Old Ones that Cthulu is meant to waken?
gpt
The Old Ones were an alien race, far more advanced than humans but still operating on the same basic level as us-- in the end the narrator says as much:

>“Poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last -- what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn -- whatever they had been, they were men!”


The Great Old Ones is a collective name for various low-level deities and entities of godlike or semi-godlike power that had taken an interest on Earth and been worshipped there, of which Cthulhu is the most famous. They have no direct connection to the Old Ones, though Cthulhu's spawn warred against the Old Ones in ancient times.