On Tue, 3 Sep 2002, Steve Simmons wrote: >An omnibus response to various folks followups. Believe it or not, >this long spiel is all off the top of the head. And most of it is in direct contradiction to the text. Sorry. >Mark Mandel writes (in response to me): >> There are numerous tribes or nations of Easterners [FHYA12]. We don't >> know the names of any of them except Vlad's people, the Fenarians . . . > >Actually, I'm trying to make a different distinction here. Admittedly >it's on thin evidence, so there's probably no way either you or I can >be proven right short of input from a higher authority. But that's >half the fun of conjecture... > >I think the Fenarians are a third branch, distinct from Dragaerans >and Easterners. They're not baseline human, but they don't seem to >be Dragaerans as we know them. [snip language differences, which subject the esteemed Dr. Whom is far better qualified to speak on than I am] [snip] >Mark continues: > >> They don't think of it in those terms. Whatever Alfredo has, the Tree or >> the power behind it cuts him off from. But I don't see why it's not >> straightforward Orb sorcery. > >I can give you a couple of reasons why it isn't. First and foremost, >everyone we've seen who has a link with the Orb is either Dragaeran or >has purchased a title. There was some brief discussion here a week or >two back about how Vlad got his link to the Orb, but whatever the >actual mechanism is, it isn't something that's handed out to common >Easterners who wind up doing farm labor for the lord of the Pepperfields. But that is *exactly* how an Easterner can get an Orb link! It's described several times that besides purchasing a title from the Jhereg, an Easterner can also swear fealty to a Dragaeran lord and join the Teckla who work that lord's lands. Teckla are entitled to an Orb link; Easterners who become Teckla are entitled to an Orb link. Most Teckla might not have the training (or perhaps inclination) to exploit it that much, but they can do just as much sorcery as any other Dragaeran (besides Paresh, I note that the Jhereg who sold Mario the spell he asked for is described as having Teckla features). Anyway, both Miklos & Sandor (ne Alfredo) were Teckla. That's how they got their Orb links. I don't know how Brigitta got hers, though. >Vlad (and everyone else who has it) is very aware of his link to the >Orb. From everything I can see in the text, Vlad is the *only* easterner >who has one. Cawti doesn't. Noish-pa doesn't. I really can't believe >that all three of the Fenarians who've gone into Fairie got one in their >relatively brief stay there. Note that the Taltos family might be descended from Fenarians who immigrated during the Interregnum. No Orb links to get, originally. [snip some more] > >Hmmm, I just had an idea. Maybe Fenarians are actually Dragaerans >of a sort! Maybe they're the remnants of the of the 14 lost tribes. >Maybe they're half-breeds. That's just silly. Half-breeds might be a rare possibility, but a whole population of such is vanishingly unlikely. > I don't recall the textual statements about Easterners and >Dragaerans not being able to inter-breed; do they come from a >reliable source? Do you consider Aliera e'Kieron, semi-professional genescanner, to be a reliable source? She might be *wrong*, but not about a whole population. [snip some stuff] > > [[ And what about Vlads parentage? I remain convinced there are gods > in his bloodline, specificly Verra. ]] Do you think Verra was lying when she told Vlad that he was decended >from peasant stock? >But having the Fenarians be semi-Dragaeran would explain an awful lot. >It would explain why Vlad has the soul of a Dragaeran. We don't know how common cross-species reincarnation is, so this bit may or may not need explanation. [snip stuff addressed above] > Perhaps they all had a lot more of it before Adron's disaster, lost >it like everyone else during the Interregnum, and the powers are >latent until sufficiently awakened by greater proximity to the Orb? You'd think something that important would have been a plot point in "The Phoenix Guards" [snip more stuff] >Another 'hmmm, just had an idea.' Perhaps the Dragaeran extended >lifespan is a genetic trait that's activated by exposure to sorcery? >If this is to be true, we can extrapolate some things by looking at >the texts. First, there's no requirement that the slowdown in ageing >only works if you're an infant during the contact. Sandor was at >least an adult and quite possibly old before going to Faerie. He was a *kid*. Alfedo's story was that he was part of a group of kids (young teens at most), who were sent into Fairie, at least one of whom was supposed to return with the Power of Fairie (i.e., an Orb link) and become the new shaman. Some didn't return because they died, some didn't return because they liked it in Fairie, and some, like Alfredo, figured there were better things for them to do. [snip other aging-related stuff] > Imagine being pregnant for 30 years! In addition, the effect can't >be Orb-specific. Dragaerans didn't suddenly start growing old during >the Interregnum. Yes, Dragaerans are a seperate species, and presumably have different lifespans even without the Orb. I suspect Dragaeran pregnancies last a long time, though - if they reach maturity at ~100, gestation may be approximately 3-5 years. [snip more stuff] [snip more stuff about Sandor nee' Alfredo, which I've already addressed, I think. Alfredo was *not* a native Fenarian ] [snip more stuff] >Others have made the claim that Cawti is Brigettas daughter, "Others", in this case, means "Steven K. Z. Brust". [snip more stuff] >> > When the young Morrolan was sent East for protection, >> > did he learn witchcraft? Or did he learn these Fenarian skills? > >> Vlad and Noish-Pa both recognize blatant signs of Morrolan's witchcraft. > >Correct, but Vlad notes Morrolan doing things (opening and closing hands, >gestures and motion of eyes and mouth - can't recall specific reference) >which are clearly neither witchcraft nor sorcery. Is this Fenarian magic? >Serioli? I suspect it might have been the results of Morrolan's own researches in using witchcraft, or perhaps combining witchcraft and sorcery. He's had many centuries to do that, and perhaps he's been inspired to try some new things by Vlad's little trick in TALTOS. [snip more stuff] >Felix Surnamed Eisen writes: > >> I was under the impression that the area named by the Empire as 'The >> Pepperfields' actually WAS Fenario. > >Possible, but I don't think so. Fenarr gets there by going past the lake >the bears his name; so I think the Pepperfields is the area just NW of the >mountains of Faerie. > I got the impression that the Pepperfields were at least partly the mountain pass between Fenario & Dragaera. Note that it was understood that there would be guards "overlooking" the fields. Can't have overlooks without high mountain walls... I think the geology of the region changed drastically in the thousand years between tPG & BP. I wish SKZB would give us a hint as to *how* things changed...