This is going to be a lot more disjointed and terse than was originally planned however many months ago. Having written and attempted to post it 3 times, and been foiled each time by the eccentricities of b.org, I'm afraid I'm somewhat fatigued.
: There are the "Four Ages" mentioned in the
: Avatara flavor text, though we know of at least five
: different ages: the Axe Age, the Age of Reason, the
: Wolf Age, the Wind Age, and the Sword Age. So the
: "Four Ages" must refer to a specific set of
: four important or recent ages.
I thought "Age of Reason" might be a synonym for one of the other four ages, since it has a slightly different format from the other age titles. Or maybe Alric's reign in the Sword Age is sufficiently important that the previous ages/eras are lumped together as the "Four Ages."
: But as for Eras, there have been at least six so far,
: with Myth II in the seventh. There are four unnamed
: Levelers who were killed, *IN ADDITION TO*
: Tireces/Moagim (five) and Connacht/Balor (six), and
: now Alric reigning in the Seventh Era.
As I see it there have only been four Levelers so far. Tireces is the third and Balor is the fourth. Each Leveler's era ended at the moment when he died or his power was broken, so each Leveler's body was actually destroyed in the next era; the first Leveler's body was destroyed in the Second Era, and so forth. If this is so, then the epilogue was intended to fill us in on the ends of all Levelers we hadn't already witnessed being destroyed. So Alric would oversee the Fifth Era.
: Nothing much about the fir'Bolg is mentioned in Myth 1.
: As for Caliban being Alric, perhaps avatara hide their
: true names just like the Fallen do; Bahl'al is The
: Watcher's true name, and it's still left in the flavor
: text, even in Myth II. So, perhaps Alric is really
: named Caliban, but knowing his true name gives people
: some power over him (" ... rather like knowing
: [The Watcher's] true name, only better.")
I just figured if the Dwarven king was mentioned (in Myth II), then the fir'Bolg king would be too, if they had one. Also, the Fallen Lords go by titles which are obviously not true names (Soulblighter, The Deceiver, etc.) whereas the Nine and other Avatara have designations which seem much more like true names than titles ("Cu Roi," for instance, doesn't *mean* anything). So I think those *are* their true names. I also think "Caliban" is a rather unlikely name for a heroic wizard; in the tempest, Caliban was a brutish and not-too-smart monster. Perhaps Soulblighter didn't break the cycle, and when Alric's possessed by the Leveller he'll be reborn as Caliban? In the future, at the time the flavor texts are being written, they might know him better as the Leveler Caliban than as the good guy Alric.
: The narrator doesn't say that Myrdred is over a thousand
: years old. He says, reffering to his conflict with the
: Watcher, that "some of the Fallen are over a
: millenium old, and their rivalries go back just as
: far." So, yeah, he does imply that, but doesn't
: state it flat out.
Well, if we paid no attention to implications, would this forum even exist? For that matter, would I even exist (make of that what you will.)
: Well, the Sword Age could be from the time Alric arose
: until the next Leveler comes, not from when Balor dies
: on. If so, then the Wind Age began as soon as Connacht
: started fighting the Myrkridia, not when Moagim died.
: I suspect this is the case.
But Alric predates the Sword Age; Mazzarin died during the current Great War (since Tyr is in the West), which has only been going for 16-17 years, and Alric's about 30 at war's end. And Mazzarin died in the Wind Age. So the Light ages would have to start not when the heroes were born but when they first rose to power and fought against the Dark, which seems a little weird to me. But I barely even remember what we're arguing about, so I'll shut up and go start checking for improper semicolon use in the Encyclopedia.
--SiliconDream
P.S. From a Cortana message:
"Unexpected contact with indigenous human
populations on four "lost colony" worlds..."
Now is that an invitation to Myth/Marathon/Halo general theories or what?
