Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> >On Mon, Sep 09, 2002 at 12:48:40AM -0400, Steve Simmons wrote: >> Damn, I must have missed that. What specificly are you referring to. >The whole resurrection thing they go to the Paths of the Dead for? I could be dense, but IMHO this wasn't Aliera at all. It was something Sethra did, and we know she's not a god. Or were you driving at something else? >> Actually, I'd counted her as a god, and she enters at the same time as >> the others (Issola 226). You say she's "unclassifiable". From all the >There's no evidence to classify her as anything we've seen before. There's no >evidence gods normally travel back in time and such, or exist before they're >born. . . . There's good evidence time isn't what it seems in the plane of the gods. We meet Barrit there before he's dead, and he's darned unhappy about it. And time-binding needn't be a universal talent, just as different gods seem to have different abilities. One could minimise the whole time travel problem by assuming it's a one-off. We see Devera in BROKEDOWN PALACE (pg 17), walking towards Fenario because a friend said she needed to learn something there. It could be that she's moved back in time once and once only. That makes all her other appearances reasonable. As for her continuing to be a little girl -- remember, she's a shape-changer. She probably looks like what she wants to look like. > . . . If anything she's closer to the Serioli Morrolan talks to. If she's >a god, she's way more powerful than the others, being able to take down a >Jenoine by herself. She didn't. Check the scene again. The dark cloud took down the Jenoine, Devera got him when he was already unconcious or dead. Which, now that I think about it, doesn't contribute a whole lot to the battle if he was already down. Maybe she was just making sure he was dead, given Jenoine vitality. > Aliera is Verra's daughter, and isn't a god. Godhood seems to be acquired, not inherited. It might even be losable. 'Godslayers' real name is 'Remover of aspects of deity'. If Godslayer removed a gods ability to manifest in more than one place, the resulting being would no longer be a god. Perhaps Verra picked up her sobriquet because there was a time when she could be compelled? If so, she's been a god, a demon, and is now a god again. It's perfectly possible that Alieras daughter could attain godhood before her mother. >> to move back and forth widely in time . . . or maybe Aliera gives birth >> to her far in the past . . . after all, Brust says Keiron is her father. >"I haven't been born yet." Tenses are *soo* difficult when you're talking time travel. :-) I took Devera's comment to mean that as far as Vlad and Aliera's current experience is concerned, Aliera has not yet given birth to Devera. This is more than a bit difficult to explain to a guy who's delirious, so she took the shorter if less detailed description. And remember, Keiron is dead. Perhaps Aliera has to travel back to his time to conceive and deliver? >We may not know much about the Lords of Judgement, but nothing indicates that >Devera is one of them. She could be, but we cna hardly say so. I don't think Devera is one of the Lords, but there are more gods than just the Lords of Judgement. IIRC, Vlad gets told that pretty explicitly. Vlad knows the Lords are (among other things) opposed to the Jenoine. It seems to be his assumption in ISSOLA that it's the Lords showing up. It could be Verra, some of the Lords, and some other gods. Or non-gods, for that matter, if one doesn't count Devera as a god. -- 'Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.' -- credited to various people, I heard it from Robert A Heinlein.