Setr's 1000 Year Reich

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Just thought I'd toss this in to see if anybody can find an answer better than I can ... When Setr/Garsecg meets Art/Able, he speaks of his coup in Aelfrice as dating from 1,000 (Mythgathr) years in the past. On the other hand, there is nothing to suggest that his brother Arnthor or their father gained the Mythgathr crown in any particularly exceptional circumstances. For instance, there's nothing to suggest (a) that their father Uthor suddenly reappeared in Mythgathr after a 1000 year absence, or (b) that Arnthor has held the throne for some exceptionally long span of time, or (c) that he was ancient when he ascended to it, or (d) that Setr and Arnthor have different fathers, or ... So how does this work? Put a gun to my head and I'll pick (a), that in fact Arnthor/Morcaine/Uthor did reappear in Mythgathr after a 1000 year or whatever absence. The barest little hint of that is Uri telling Art/Able that A & M could not really have been nursed to any great extent in Aelfrice, despite stories to the contrary, because otherwise they'd be much younger than they are now. But if they had actually spent 1,000 Mythgathr-years in Aelfrice, I guess they could easily now be in their 20's or 30's or maybe 40's in their own time-lines, which is what they appear to be. But I don't really believe it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Note: This signature can be verified at https://www.hushtools.com/verify Charset: UTF8 Version: Hush 2.5 wkYEARECAAYFAkbnbzgACgkQBctFqdKBBTu3igCeKEsOWEvekxM5qQZOThr5KlKy3+UA oI568QynVLLPitWl4rXJEz95Xxyn =4isN -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Do you have the citation for that figure? -Roy

Yup, a couple of places: - Knight, end of Ch.22. Garsecg to Art, as they first come to the tower & before Able has guessed that he is Setr. Garsecg has told Able that Setr made the Aelf build it & gather weapons there, before some of the Aelf drove him off. Nevertheless, Setr returns from time to time. Then: "We have been pillaging his trove a thousand years ..." - Knight, beginning of Ch.26. Garsecg to Art, talking about the Aelf-war which drove Setr out. "A thousand of your years have passed since that war ..." Some other bits & pieces: - In Ch.22, Garsecg says to Art: "The king's [Anthor's] royal father lay with a woman of my race ... Of their union, three children were born." A single union, resulting in triplets? If so, can't solve the puzzle by assuming that Uthor sired Setr a long time before Arnthor (although Uri does tell Art in Wizard Ch.34 that Setr was the oldest child). - But we do know that Setr's birth occured at least 40-50 Mythgathr years before his meeting with Art - simply because he took Mag when Able was an infant, and Berthold is 30-40 years older than when Able left.

Another data point comes from Beel, who says he's a younger son of Uthor's younger brother. (Wizard, Ch. 48) Art calls Beel "middle aged" - say 50. Say he was born when his father was 30. Say that the age difference between Uthor and Beel's father was 10 years. That would put Uthor's birth 90 years in the past. In any case, surely not much more than 100 years. So it seems that Setr was probably born quite a lot less than 100 Mythgathr- years ago. Setr was lying about the 1000 years, then. I wonder why? On another point, it seems likely to me that he started stocking women on the top of tower soon after completing it - 50 years or so before Art meets him. This would answer the question of why he stopped taking women there: it's because he was driven out by Dsiri and other "loyal" Aelf soon afterwards, and it is no longer a permanent base for him. By the same token, it explains why the persecutions described by Mag in her suicide letter have stopped by the time Art arrives. His plans were thwarted by the "loyal" Aelf, and Dsiri et al have assumed the role of gods for the peasants in that region, partly by default - and perhaps also to prevent the peasants from going back to worshipping dragons.

Andrew quoted:

and wrote: [snip]

There was no reason for him to lie about it, and I don't think he did. The tower was built by the Aelf and had its roots in Aelfrice. The apparent age/time discrepancies are explained by the difference in the rate of time flow between any two levels of "reality". The lower the world level, the slower time passes relative to the level immediately above it. Thus, a thousand years in Mythgarthr may well have passed during the natural life-span of a being in Aelfrice, just as Able spent twenty years in Skai while his absence was hardly noticed in Mythgarthr. -Roy

Here's the argument: - The Aelf built the tower under Setr's compulsion. - Setr was the son of Uthor. - Uthor was born 100+/- Mythgathr-years ago. - Therefore Setr was born (probably) less than 100 Mythgathr-years ago. - Therefore the tower was built less than 100 M-years ago. - Therefore Setr lied about the 1000 M-years. Presumably, Setr did not want Art to realize that Garsecg & Setr were the same being. I guess the lie was part of the deception program. But Art saw through Garsecg almost immediately, which must have been quite shockin for Setr.

Um, I know this is just a silly semantic quibble, and you didn't mean it this way, but I don't think it's fair to say his absence was hardly noticed. Brief, yes. Hardly noticeable, perhaps. But I seem to recall some to-do. ---H