An amusing thought struck me amidst insomnia - but first the customary spoiler disclaimer....
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Now, at the end of Myth 3, Connacht orders Damas to scatter the various artefacts he finds(such as the SunHammer, the Tain, etc etc) and hide them even from himself, as he knows that he will return as the Leveller/Balor in the next Age(Sword?). However, as Damas eventually becomes Soulblighter, that kind of renders all of that effort moot - it stands to reason that the first thing Balor would ask his new Fallen Lord henchman Soulblighter goes along the lines of "Damas, old chap, where did you put those artefacts of mass destruction I asked you to hide away in my previous misguided incarnation? They'd really help a lot for my whole population control imperatives.."
The SunHammer would certainly fit the profile of an artefact which nuked the Cath Bruig empire and created the Barrier....(although if that's the case, one wonders why didn't he use it a *lot* more during the various sieges and battles et. al...)
Of course, Soulblighter could just have easily kept his trap shut(under the excuse of doing some facial embroidery at the time) since those artefacts could be of use to him at some later date(Taramist's Mirror is an obvious example, and is even mentioned specifically at the end of Myth 3) should his master end up with an outbreak of mortality.... and I guess during all that time, he could have lost track of a few, such as the Total Codex or the Eblis Stone Alric eventually got hold of. It *would* explain how Soulblighter was possession of the Tain in TFL.
(but not why he didn't use it much earlier in the war)
Another curiosity - the Total Codex is a physical book, mentioned specifically by name in Myth 3(Mazzarin claims to have read it), but the knowledge in it, or at least choice fragments, was magically burned into Connacht's brain via magic. So where is the actual book at the time? And how did it end up in Covenant during Myth:TFL? Did Damas hide it there? If so, how come he didn't go back for it later when he turned colours? And did the Cath Bruig empire during the Wind Age have access to it? If so, how come the Avatara or Myrdred or the Warlocks didn't do anything about it?(Myrdred clearly knows about the Codex, as he refers to Mazzarin as Master of the Codex)
And finally, despite the presumed identification of the Head as Mjarin(just because Mjarin's head was preserved doesn't *necessarily* mean it was THE Head, since there's an insinuation that *other* heads have been similarly preserved.. although I will confess the depiction of The Head in TFL *does* synch with Mjarin's appearance in Myth 3), it still remains far from clear what his intentions were in Myth: TFL. He also appears to have no real grief with Ravanna/Shiver, as claimed in Myth: TFL, although his loathing for Connacht is obvious. So what's his deal? Is he trying to gain vengeance on his former enemies via the proxy efforts of Alric's forces? If so, why betray Alric to people whom he has every reason to loathe - his ex-pupil Myrdred/The Deciever, or Damas, or Ravanna, or Balor himself? And why cause all the havoc among the Nine? Why play to the advantage of the Fallen Lords who, presumably, are the ones you are pissed off at, having stuffed you in a box for a thousand years or so.
Speculatively, I can see why Connacht decided to just run with the press release that he defeated "Moagim Reborn", which became the accepted history a thousand years later - as new Emperor of a recovering-from-war empire, it may not have been politically sound to reveal the previous Imperial Adviser's treachery.
For that matter, I never really understood why Mjarin bothered with the whole resurrecting-Moagim debacle in Myth 3(with the assumed aim of slaying Leitrim and becoming the next Emperor), when he could have quite easily ruled the Cath Bruig empire by subversion behind the scenes with his powers(at least in one mission's intro, it is implied that Mjarin has some kind of mental control/influence over the aging Emperor) - although as Leveller, the imperatives to go do war, cause havoc, break some heads may have something to do with that...
All in all, IMHO the retcon that Myth 3 represents fits in quite nicely with the gaps in the previous two games, and despite the occasional jar(such as the disparity in the length of the Trow-Oghre wars), it's an excellent prequel that does a great job of fleshing out further the whole Myth mythos(excuse the pun).
It would be nice to see the mod-makers out there re-enact some of the historical battles alluded to in Myth 3; such as the first defeat of Moagim, the Watcher discovering the Dream of Unlife in Si'wanon, or Bahl'al's murder of Mazzarin....
