[Dragaera] (no spoilers) The 17 [Great Weapons]

[Jose Marquez]

Maximilian Wilson wrote:
> On 8/11/06, Jon Lincicum <lincicum at comcast.net> wrote:
>   
>> But the cycle was there all the time, influencing events. It was *fate*,
>> the fate of the Cycle itself, that influenced the events to cause there
>> to be 17 houses instead of 16 (or 31, or 35, or whatever other number
>> you might find Paarfi waxing on about). This is *my* theory, anyway.
>>     
>
> Recall, though, that the Cycle is a set of 17 specific houses in a
> sequence, as opposed to merely the idea of 17 houses. So if you buy
> into the idea of the Cycle causing the number of tribes to shrink to
> 17, you might as well postulate that the Cycle selectively wiped out
> any tribes not listed on itself, and then spawned a tribe to match the
> one house of the Cycle not created as a Jenoine experiment. You might
> go even further and postulate that, if the Cycle is older than
> Dragaera, that the Cycle was manipulating events all along to ensure
> that e.g. winged cats called tiassa would evolve on Dragaera, Jenoine
> would create intelligent jhereg, etc.
>
> Color me a Cycle-skeptic.
>   
Why can't the Cycle be a set of 17 non-specific houses, naturally 
selected? House Norska, say, didn't make the cut, because the other 
houses were stronger. In fact, natural selection went so far that only 
15 tribes were left, plus a bunch of outcasts and the peasants, who were 
numerous and could not be wiped out, but were passive and somewhat 
afraid of their more impressive cousins (due to the genetic manipulation 
of the Jenoine). The peasants formed the Teckla, and the outcasts formed 
House Jhereg, possibly at the subtle prompting of the Cycle (but to form 
a House, not necessarily to call themselves the Jhereg; I expect that if 
they had decided to name themselves House Cat-Centaur, a stylized 
Cat-Centaur would appear on the wheel representing the Cycle). Maybe 
Sethra had more to do with this than we know, and she's also a part-time 
defender of the Cycle.

As far as evolving Tiassa and Dzur, I imagine these occurred naturally, 
except where the Jenoine interfered. Same with humans from the small 
invisible lights. The way I imagine it, it is a bit like C.S. Friedman's 
Coldfire Trilogy: humans land a large colony ship on a distant planet. 
There are natives on this planet, Serioli and animal alike. The humans 
co-exist, or don't, until the Jenoine arrive. When that happens, human 
society loses its high technology, as entire segments of the population 
are modified by aliens. I can imagine the flying saucers abducting 
humans at will. It's pretty amusing. In any case, millenia pass. We now 
have two distinct species of human: Easterners and Dragaerans. Or 
perhaps they are not as distinct as we have been led to believe (I'm 
imagining Laszlo getting Zerika pregnant...), but close enough. 
Dragaerans have been extensively modified and crossed with actual native 
animals. Some Easterners have also been modified to give them psychic 
abilities, while others have been left alone as a control group. We 
don't know if the Serioli have been affected.

The gods rebel, creating the Sea of Chaos and, since the planet is not 
destroyed, creating the possibility of magic (control of chaos). This is 
where the Serioli, resenting the gods, might start using controlled 
chaos to bring metal to life. The gods bargain with the Dragaerans (the 
Easterners, being only slightly super-human, revere and obey the gods, 
and therefore do not need to be bargained with), since the Dragaerans 
probably see themselves as super-human and thus above worshiping the 
gods blindly: we'll keep the scary aliens from experimenting on you with 
their weird probes and you'll give us your souls to winnow for 
usefulness. In return, you get to build an Empire. With magic.

But I suspect once the bargain is struck, those affected by the bargain 
(i.e., Dragaerans) begin to be more strongly affected by the Cycle. It's 
possible they were already being affected; maybe the Cycle affected the 
formation of the planet, making sure that the calendar corresponds 
nicely to the number 17, and humans, being adaptable, got used to that. 
Once Zerika builds the Orb, and connects it to the Sea of Chaos, and the 
gods connect either the Sea or the Orb to the Halls of Judgment, a 
connection between the Empire and the Cycle is formally in existence. 
The Orb can query the Cycle to see if it's turned, after all. So in 
return for their souls, Dragaerans get to control magic and to be 
protected from the aliens and their probes. There's also the whole 
mystically-controlled system of government.

Nutty, eh?

Jose

-- 
Jose Marquez             | There are 10 types of people in
jhereg69 at earthlink.net   | the world: those who understand
http://www.hackwater.com | binary, and those who don't.