: By the time Myth 2 was out and we were all speculating on
: it, it had somehow become "common knowledge"
: around here that the cycle was 1000 light, 1000 dark,
: 2000 total. (I'm going to call that the "Long
: Cycle"). But the only thing I can think of that
: seems to concretely claim this is the "...at
: least not for another 940 years" bit from the end
: of the Myth 2 epilogue.
Oh, and also, the whole bit I quoted later in that post about the Levellers of the Second and Third Eras dying 1000 years apart. But then, that doesn't necessarily mean 1000 years of Light and 1000 years of Dark, especially since that would make it scheduled to be a Dark age now, contradicting the notion that Soublighter went against the cycle.
: Now, GURPS and Myth III explicitly state that the long
: cycle theory is correct. However, GURPS has shown many
: many faults in the past (despite my previous defense
: of it), and Myth III was based on research that Scott
: Campbell did from GURPS and from this very website, so
: errors in those places would carry over into Myth III.
: Given all the above, I'm inclined to think that the
: cycle really is short, and that GURPS, Myth III, and
: many of my own previous and popular theories were
: completely wrong.
Though now that I think about it, with the new theory I settled on, a lot of what they wrote could even be reconciled.
: The Sword Age for some reason was long thought (here) to
: be the current age, during which TFL takes place -
: either the new age just beginning with the Great War,
: or the age ending with the Great War. But the only
: quote about it seems to be this: Long enemies of the
: civilized nations, the truce which brought the
: fir'Bolg and their famed bowmen into the Light was
: forged by ou'Kahn the Great King and Caliban during
: the Sword Age.
: -Archer Flavor Text, Myth TFL
: Since the fir'Bolg were thought to be recent allies, I
: can see why this would make us think that the Sword
: Age was recent.
Also, I forgot: Caliban was a prerelease name for Alric, which was revealed by beta testers soon after TFL came out, and since Alric is fairly young, that would make us think the Sword Age was recent or even current, if the Caliban of that quote was just a relic of Alric's prerelease name, and not the same name being reused for a different character.
But given the rest of the evidence, especially the Voluspa, I'm inclined to think that Caliban is someone other than Alric (the name just got recycled) and that the Sword Age was a long time ago. It would still give 1000 years at least for mankind and fir'Bolg to be enemies, fulfilling the "long enemies" part.
: According to the "Tales from Myth TFL" comic
: (which is Bungie canon material), the Trow ruled from
: time immemorial, being the first race, and they seem
: to have had their own dealings with the Leveller (and
: kicked his ass repeatedly). For detailed info, see the
: comic itself:
: http://myth.bungie.org/legends/relics/comic.pdf
I was rereading this again last night, and something struck me. The Trow say that the Oghres were enslaved for 1200 years before their rebellion, and that Connacht fell upon them right afterwards. This would make the Trow's dominion of the Oghres roughly coincide with the Third Era / Wind Age. However, the Trow say that the Oghres were the more advanced of the younger races who had just begun to appear, and Acer Magnum Malus seems to imply that they were almost immediately in conflict with the Trow. However, if that happened at the start of the Third Era, then there's 2000 years of known history (known to mankind) prior to that. Either the Trow's elongated since of time makes those 2000 years brief enough not to warrant mention (or they just didn't notice the younger races for 2000 years), or something weird is going on.
They say that they had had an "aeon" of peace between when their own millennial troubled ended and when the younger races appeared. That could be 1000 years; or it could be longer. I'd be tempted to say that the first two Eras were the years when the Trow were having their conflicts with the Leveller, except that they said that that happened many times, not just once. If the Eras were equal to a period of Light or Dark - i.e. 500 years each - then that would make perfect sense, as the Younger Races would have only been around 2000 years anyway (500 x 4). But the Myth II epilogue explicitly states that each Era is 1000 years long.
In light of all that, I'm inclined to think that maybe Bungie did actually change mid-development after all, but it can be written off and my new theory saved from this one piece of evidence against by claiming that the Trow just didn't notice (or care at all about) the younger races for some 2000 years. We weren't worthy of attention until a century or two before Tireces and the Age of Reason, and even then, the Oghres were more noticeable to the Trow than humans were. And while the Trow enslaved the Oghres, mankind grew in power and within a millenium, Connacht finished off the last of the Trow empire.
Which raises another interesting question. Acer Magnum Malus says that the Trow, after enslaving the Oghres, were "worthy of the Mantle of the Leveller". If this timeline is correct, then the Oghres' enslavement happened at a time when the Leveller was around and doing big evil things. Might the Trow have been somehow (unwittingly?) a part of the Great War which ended the Second Era, and then continued their evil ways even throughout the Age of Reason until the end of the Third Era?
