Author Topic: Questions and Musings: The Eyes of Utha  (Read 836 times)

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Offline Implementor

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Questions and Musings: The Eyes of Utha
« on: June 22, 2021, 04:32:28 PM »
What did the job of the Eyes of Utha before the Eyes of Utha. I mean, they were created to 1. Mitigate the Essaence/dimensional instability 2. Holding Kulthea in the interstice to allow magic 3. Prison-wall, at the end of the K'ta'viir reign, but the Essaence/Essaence-breach was a thing for 10000s of years prior.

As to the mitigation I can roll with they didn't care. Having full force Essaence and easy access to creatures and portals was probably preferred by them as it would facilitate study and manipulation.

But I have to admit I'm having a large failure of conceptualization and/or a failure of imagination in regard to the Essaence breach and the idea that the planet would fall either way.
I mean it's not like Kulthea is a static entity balanced like a beach-ball on the inner ring of a vertical hula-hoop, tethered by a string to a clamp on either end (the eyes), where it will fall one way or the other should the supports disappear. It's a planet on an orbit around a star.
Where is this essence-breach? (in terms of the solar system) How large is it? Is it static? Does it move?
If Kulthea was on the 'south-side' of the sun and the breach on the north, and the eyes failed why would the planet be sucked one way or the other (I suppose as it got closer it would/could)

Now, about an hour ago I read a quote of once of those SW material chapter introductions that was an Althan scientist musing on their discovery which indicated the source of this energy is somewhere between Kulthea and the second moon. Mmmmmm. I don't know where to find this and if it is from canon material.
Would that mean the breach is tethered to the planet/moon in some way? I suppose that solves the falling one way or another question if it were.
But then why would all magic fail? Kulthea is still in/part of our universe, the Essaence-breach is still there flooding the system with radiation, and the planet is in the same orbit- less magic maybe, wonky magic perhaps, but completely none?

Offline metallion

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Re: Questions and Musings: The Eyes of Utha
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2021, 10:52:43 AM »
I start by looking at the overall history of the Althans, as you note about30,000 years - a longer span than the whole of human history.  I've dived in and created several ages of their civilization, also stretching the history to about 37K years. 

The next thing I note is that the interstice itself is not typically the case of all of Kulthea's woes.  It creates a baseline for allowing magic and portals, sure, but it's Great Sa'Kain that really brings the catastrophe.  We have the year of the first coming of Sa'Kain:   14,000 years after the dawn of Althan civilization.  With a periodicity of about 1,500 years we should expect to have seen it nine times before.  Either some sort of cataclysm happened to send Sa'Kain moving or Sa'Kain is an engineered phenomenon. 

Either way, 16,000 years is more than enough time for Althans to have developed from the stone age to the fusion age.  And all of that would be knocked to rubble when the comet came and suddenly there were demons.  Think about would would happen on Earth today if we suddenly had demons coming out of portals on land, sky, and water.  And we are not where the Althans would be -- 16K years ago our big achievement was pet dogs.

So Althans have to start from near scratch once Sa'Kain passes.  This would have been the first period of serious magical experimentation, too, all that essence in the air gives opportunities to experiment that hadn't been there before.  But 1,500 isn't that long of a time when starting a technology from nothing, so they'd have still beenn in something of a magical stone age when Sa'Kain returned.  It would still have been catastrophic, but increased understanding would mitigate matters.

Eventually, if the decision is made to fight them on Althan terms instead of demonic turns.  Thus, roughly mid-way through the whole of Althan existence, they start exploring the Pales and sending ships into space past their solar system.

Long story short, this new society has factions and politics and motion, and every 1,500 years they're better at handling Sa'Kain using the entire resources of their empire - including treaties with demonkind that form the basis of demonic magic in Game-present-time.  One of things that happen is that Althans start breeding for psions and spellcasters, which eventually produces K'ta'viir.

Which brings us back to your question of why Kulthea didn't fall into the breach one way or the other.  One reason is The Lords of Orhan.  I posit that another reason is that the world falling into one universe or another would be no more natural an occurrence than Great Sa'Kain, and the powers that want that derived more benefit from the interstice remaining open.

So why the eyes?  Because as the Althans rose, their ability to dictate terms rose, with Kadaena representing a zenith of power.  The sudden loss of the Althan empire means that demons who were being exploited suddenly have free access the existing control mechanisms off the table.  The Eyes are a new control mechanism, perhaps one aligned to Utha's philosophies on compelling labor from demons rather than Kadaena's.  Onndoval is confident that he can safely close the eyes because he sees himself as Kadaena's successor to the throne and believes that the Shadowstone will give him the full power it gave her.

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Re: Questions and Musings: The Eyes of Utha
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2021, 06:14:00 PM »
What a thoughtful reply, thank you

Yes the first and subsequent appearance of the comet was something I was trying to factor in, though the starting from scratch after a first pass was an interesting addition. I figured the interstice was a lot more secure and less permeable before it's first appearance

In general your post conforms to how I was thinking (but wonderfully more detailed), that basically they were powerful enough to deal.

A vested interest in maintaining the interstice is something I think I vaguely may have thought of, but I like the statement on why not fall into the breach: the lords of orhan.

See, this is why I took a chance (fear of humiliation) and started posting these- to break through my blind spots.

I really like this setting. A lot.