[Thelomen Toblerone]

...What???

[Optimus Prime]

lasombra;300313 said:

Wow MD is in trouble!She eatin herself dead and chaos is after her ass

He's saying that Mother Dark is in trouble because she is devouring herself and also being "chased by chaos".

[D'rek]

Do note that we aren't actually sure that the K'Chain end-of-existance spell is the same as what is within Dragnipur.

The big factor against this is a comment (I think by Rake) that by pooling the magic of the broods, the Matrons had enough power to keep the Elder Gods from coming to this world. If they were keeping the Malaziworld sealed shut, how would they even know and/or care about MD? This refutes nothing, just something to keep in mind.

[Optimus Prime]

I think that quote was from Kallor, wasn't it? Something about the Matrons having the power to make the Gods quiver?

And maybe the deathspell wasn't meant to target MD specifically, she is just the unfortunate victim of it (like everything else).

And I was just clarifying for TT, not necessarily agreeing with lasombra's statement

[Mentalist]

ger...
Too many unknowns about the K'Chain.
We really need to get their PoV one of these days..

[eekwibble]

Xander;300222 said:

Yeah that sounds like Gravity to me, and the ability to manipulate it and defy it. This also ties into the belief that the KCCM turned Mother Dark into a Black Hole essentially, continually devouring everything around her until all that is left is her own self which too will be devoured.

So the Skykeeps float with some sort of anti-gravity magic.

Yes Xander! Black hole, not string theory. Based on sound magic though.

Quote

With this sorcery, they turned Darkness in upon itself with a hunger none who came too close could defy, an all-devouring hunger that fed first and foremost upon itself.

Maybe the reason MD 'retreated far into Kurald Galain' as quoted by Rake (I think, maybe Korlat) in MoI.

Allow a newb his extended theory;

The Nah'ruk were the original K'Chain, their name being 'bastardised', as Apt so beautifully puts it, and were more prone to violence and better at it than the KCCM that we hear of being around later on. The subject of intelligence, I don't think, needs to be dwelt on all that much.
If you take the words 'more primative' as read, they just mean 'earlier', not 'more stupid'.
No-one says that the short-tails are cleverer than the long-tails, just that they built and 'piloted' the sky-keeps. With the same sized brainzz, and a considerably longer time span to work with, it's no wonder the short-tails got more technologically advanced, got the upper hand and started getting a bit too lairy for the matrons to handle.
Evidence of name lengthening, shortening and... just... changing, resides throughout the series so let's not sit on that.
The Kell Hunters are described in MoI as being the Matrons' first born of each brood so that's not an issue.
The female that punches a hole in Scabandari's head is a Matron, although her name isn't given.
Edit: AAAAARGGGHHH!! OK, so it's Kilmandaros. Just reread last night. So sorry!!!

The Matron in MoI is nuttier than a jack-knifed truck of Ferrero Rocher. She's scared of Moons Spawn because of Rake's presence, not because of bad memories. The Seer makes it clear that she has precious little of that kind of neural capacity left so basic survival instinct must surely account for it.

Ergo:
Matrons' spawn all KCCM inc. both short- and long-tails,
Matrons' have fist clenching capabilities - therefore suggesting that they can spawn offspring with the same,
Matrons' don't care much about their eldest children,
My Matron's better than your Matron!!!

[Kurt Montandon]

eekwibble;300403 said:

The female that punches a hole in Scabandari's head is a Matron, although her name isn't given.

Er, Kilmandaros punched a hole in Scabandari's head, not a KCCM Matron.

[Optimus Prime]

Yeah and most think Killy is tied to the Forkrul Assail, not the K'Chain.

She was not a matron. But you had some good points eek

[Mentalist]

eek--bunch of good points, but I'm still not sold on the "Matrons created both short-tail and long-tails". That really confusing bit about the Shake and K'Chain in RG makes me believe otherwise...

[Tarr]

eekwibble;300403 said:

They were more prone to violence and better at it than the KCCM that we hear of being around later on.

You mean a Nahruk going against a Kell hunter will win? perhaps with their tech but on their own against a Kell hunter no.

eekwibble;300403 said:

The subject of intelligence, I don't think, needs to be dwelt on all that much.
If you take the words 'more primative' as read, they just mean 'earlier', not 'more stupid'.

Good point.

eekwibble;300403 said:

No-one says that the short-tails are cleverer than the long-tails, just that they built and 'piloted' the sky-keeps. With the same sized brainzz, and a considerably longer time span to work with, it's no wonder the short-tails got more technologically advanced, got the upper hand and started getting a bit too lairy for the matrons to handle.

I think they were around at the same time just that they each filled different roles, but I have no proof.

eekwibble;300403 said:

The Kell Hunters are described in MoI as being the Matrons' first born of each brood so that's not an issue.

It depends on if the "brood" contains the Nahruk as well.

eekwibble;300403 said:

The Matron in MoI is nuttier than a jack-knifed truck of Ferrero Rocher. She's scared of Moons Spawn because of Rake's presence, not because of bad memories. The Seer makes it clear that she has precious little of that kind of neural capacity left so basic survival instinct must surely account for it.

No he actually says that she remembers the Nahruk and because of that she's afraid of moon spawn, they used it against her and her children and may have been the ones to force her to open up that rift.

[lasombra]

WHAT DONT U UNDERSTAND THE NAHRUK CAME 1ste like the IMass THEN CAME THE LONG TAILS LIKE THE HUMANS.

[Flawed]

i always thought of the Short Tails being small little things.

The way the Matrons brought them back and subjugated them to a degree etc but from fossils and from Karsas battle with one they seems to be quite large.

I would kick a short tails backside don't get me wrong but still.....

Yes Apt I'm rambling again

[Seed]

Heh Flawed, I also didn't realise how beefy they were until one of them gave karsa a good run for his money.

Hmm it would be interesting to get more of a glimpse into their society, apart from what tidbits silchas dropped for us. I wonder just how individualistic they are, do they have different err strains like the long-tail brood types hunter etc, the one karsa tumbled with seems to have been a warrior of some type, buried in it's armour, some sort of beneficial internal techno wizardy. Was this particular short tail a good example of his race or a special champion in his age?

Was the corpse icarium found in the pool of melted omtose phellack in the ruined skykeep described as wearing armour? It's implied the corpse was perhaps the pilot of the device. Do they have a err sorceror-engineer caste and some type of warrior caste? What about females, or did the long-tail matrons only produce male shortails to cut down on potential troubles?

Judging by the murals/painting? in the lether ruined keep, they seemed to have champions of sorts venerated, can they Ascend, can they have champions capital C?

I can't wait until the next book to come out, hopefully there might be some juicy imperial warren encounters or something to give us more detail on the skykeeps and whatnot.

[Tarr]

@lasomba

I'm keeping my different tasks theory!!!!!!!!!!

[Blub]

Looks like I'm not the only one who was surprised at the size of the K'Chain

Just a question to the people for whom English is their mothertongue: am I right to see "breed" as something as a "race" and "brood" as the whole of some animal's offspring? That could clear up some things about the K'chain for me.

Quote

No he actually says that she remembers the Nahruk and because of that she's afraid of moon spawn, they used it against her and her children and may have been the ones to force her to open up that rift.

That's how I understood it.

[Mentalist]

i'm not a native English speaker, but that's how I came to understand it..
also, "brood" was a word i first encountered in StarCraft... which made this easy to comprehend

[Wry]

Blub;302677 said:

Looks like I'm not the only one who was surprised at the size of the K'Chain

Just a question to the people for whom English is their mothertongue: am I right to see "breed" as something as a "race" and "brood" as the whole of some animal's offspring? That could clear up some things about the K'chain for me.


That's how I understood it.

Yep, that's pretty correct

[eekwibble]

Tarr;300641 said:

No, he actually says that she remembers the Nahruk and because of that she's afraid of moon spawn, they used it against her and her children and may have been the ones to force her to open up that rift.

Apologies! Finished 3rd read of MoI last week & don't remember that. Not to say it didn't happen, I more than likely just glossed over that bit. It seems I need to concentrate a little more before 'post time'. Meh!

[Tarr]

Don't have the book so I can't give you a page number, but it's where he's (pannion)talking about moon spawn to toc and how it just vanished, he mentions it in passing.

[Venerus]

A said:

Do note that we aren't actually sure that the K'Chain end-of-existance spell is the same as what is within Dragnipur.

The big factor against this is a comment (I think by Rake) that by pooling the magic of the broods, the Matrons had enough power to keep the Elder Gods from coming to this world. If they were keeping the Malaziworld sealed shut, how would they even know and/or care about MD? This refutes nothing, just something to keep in mind.

I think there's plenty of good reasons to think it isn't, really. Acc Draconus, Chaos has always chased Dark (as part of the war w/Order), implying the chaos chasing the KG gate isn't from the KCCM deathspell. Granted, Ganath says the KCCM are chaos-aspected and the KCNR are order-aspected, but that doesn't mean the KCCM let loose the chaos in dragnipur.

There's also the fact that if MD consumes everything, it would also consume some of Chaos' victories (light, shadow) which would make it a pretty poor play for Chaos to make. Unless Chaos doesn't mind pyrrhic victories. Which would defy the notion of raw forces opposing one another.

Xander;300222 said:

Yeah that sounds like Gravity to me, and the ability to manipulate it and defy it. This also ties into the belief that the KCCM turned Mother Dark into a Black Hole essentially, continually devouring everything around her until all that is left is her own self which too will be devoured.

So the Skykeeps float with some sort of anti-gravity magic.

And I still think SE is describing string theory -- the loopy way of describing vibrations we can't sense sounds an awful lot like it. Plus, it would explain their mastery of gravity, since gravity is an emergent property of matter, and acc. SST, matter is the product of vibrating strings. Why even bother with a lengthy monologue about vibrations if all Fear had to say was "the matrons controlled gravity." Seems inelegant, to me. I have more faith in SE as a writer. Just my 2 cents.