[Dragaera] I think I've got it

[Jonathan Carey, CHRL via Dragaera]

Okay, I've longed believed that all of Steve's works represent pieces of
the same universe; ie, that To Reign in Hell happens on what could be
called the same timeline as the Dragaera novels.

But I was reading Jhereg again (the part where Aliera is explaining the
Jenoine to Vlad) and something just..clicked.  And it's COOOL.

TRIH creates a world that's literally a walled off section of non-chaos in
a sea of chaos.  What's the wall made of?

My bet's on Trellanstone aka Necrophia--that which defines or "kills"
chaos; that which collapses all the waveforms and removes all the aspects
of the things that make no sense.

I believe that the Gods, for example, have been intermingled, at least a
little bit, with Chaos, which is why they seem to exist in some kind of
quantum flux (ie, their location, the words they're perceived as saying,
etc).  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Jenoine came across this odd stone that seems to exist in a particular
dimension, but interacted in a curious and entirely impossible way with the
substance of the "Base" dimension, ie, the dimension from which all of
creation is formed; ie, Cacoastrum.  Naturally, being explorers and
scientists, they wanted to figure out just how the hell it was doing that.
But they had no real ability to look into it, for all of their advancement
as a species--for all of their ability to operate on other dimensions, they
could not access/interact with the Base dimension.

Until, one day, they came across a spaceship, or a colony, of pitiful,
mono-dimensional beings who exhibited an impossible ability, weak and
latent though it was, to influence the base dimension.  These are the nth
generation of angels implied in TRIH, otherwise known as Humans.
Descendents of Agyar and Cowboy Feng.  People who could not only dream, but
dream in magic--but only dream; they couldn't interact with it, couldn't
control it, couldn't leverage it.  But the POTENTIAL was there.

And so they began to experiment with the humans, in a lab created by the
Jenoine, a lab which happened to be a world plopped right on top of a hole
they poked in reality itself so as to experiment with the Trellanstone.
Naturally, the Trellanstone had to remain there, because to take it away
would be...Very Bad.  But the humans were bred over countless generations
to bring out their psychic/psionic ability, possibly as a deliberate
experiment, or maybe because of long exposure to Necrophia/Amorphia, who
knows.They eventually bred magic, or the ability to influence chaos, albeit
indirectly, into the humans, maintaining a control group of "Easterners".
But if the humans and dragaerans were their lab rats, then the Gods were
their chimps.  And like any chimp in the any lab, they became the next
subjects.

But the Gods weren't just chimps; the Jenoine underestimated their
abilities, especially their abilities once they'd had controlled chaos
grafted onto them.  And the Gods rebelled, not only killing the Jenoine
scientists, but stealing their only sample of The Wall Of Heaven in their
possession.

This was a problem, because without it, the Jenoine couldn't realize their
ultimate goal.  They weren't experimenting just to indulge their inner mad
scientists; it was to eventually splice the ability into themselves, so
that they could control Chaos directly and thereby become, truly, the
Masters of All Creation.

But, as thoroughly as they were booted out of their lab, and prevented from
returning to it, there was nevertheless progress that had been made...and
eventually the "Military" began experimenting on themselves anyway...and
found (eventually?) some success, as well as another piece of The
Wall...this small success, and this monumental find, was enough to harness
a small flow from the "hole" in reality they made in order to better study
Necrophia, and bring it to the planet that features prominently in Issola.

The Jenoine can control Chaos; but only inexpertly.  If they should be
allowed to continue their experiments, there's nothing in the 'verse that
could stop them.

Thoughts?




Regards,

Jon Carey, B.A.(Hon), CHRL, CHRP