[Aptorian]

There have been different evolutions of the KCCM. They may have existed for millions of years in different itterations. The Short Tails are examples of extinct ancestors being brought back.

As for the founding races. I believe this simply means that these 4 races were the dominant/growing ones at this time. The ones who had civilizations. Races like the TTT, Deragoth, Tistes, Eres'al, etc were all (still) around but their presence did not take shape as anything constructive or ordered on Wu. As such they were not a part of the Founding Races.

As for Burn. I think she probably always sleeps. She is the avatar of the planet or something crazy like that. When she wakes, there is upheaval. The Mountains crumble, the seas boil, the sky falls, that kind of fun stuff. The sleep she entered within the last 2000 years was a coma. She was too sick.

Maybe the "Burns Sleep" thing is a GotMism that Erikson just kept using. After all in GotM Burn is a young entity. Yet in later books Burn is described as being very very old.

[D'iversify]

I'd like to ask whether at any point in the books it actually specifies that the KCCM are cold-blooded, as the Jaghut Theory for the beginnings of their decline is heavily predicated on it. If Erikson is really modelling them on dinosaurs, they may well be warm-blooded. Additionally, though actual biological viability is less relevant in the case of a fantasy world, many of the KCCM are bipedal and highly active, which is a lifestyle very difficult to maintain without metabolical regulation of temperature and is very unlike that of 'cold-blooded' reptiles, whose bodies tend to hug the ground to retain heat and are more 'sluggish'.

[Sinisdar Toste]

D, on 17 May 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

I'd like to ask whether at any point in the books it actually specifies that the KCCM are cold-blooded, as the Jaghut Theory for the beginnings of their decline is heavily predicated on it. If Erikson is really modelling them on dinosaurs, they may well be warm-blooded. Additionally, though actual biological viability is less relevant in the case of a fantasy world, many of the KCCM are bipedal and highly active, which is a lifestyle very difficult to maintain without metabolical regulation of temperature and is very unlike that of 'cold-blooded' reptiles, whose bodies tend to hug the ground to retain heat and are more 'sluggish'.

well... i imagine SE had the idea for the KCCM back when people still thought that all dinosaurs we're cold blooded. i mean, others may have known of it earlier, but as far as i'm aware, the theory that some dinosaurs, like t-rex, are warm-blooded is relatively new. like within the last five years new.

also, just because mappos says that the wolf and bear who gave their blood to the hounds were from the 'age of the imass' doesn't mean that they weren't in existence for millions of years prior to the rise of imass or even eres. additionally, simple statements likes those quotes are generalizations, and have no hope of capturing the complexity and ambiguity inherent in 500,000 years of evolution. it's never so simple as eres beget imass beget human.

[D'iversify]

Sinisdar Toste, on 17 May 2011 - 07:04 PM, said:

D, on 17 May 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

I'd like to ask whether at any point in the books it actually specifies that the KCCM are cold-blooded, as the Jaghut Theory for the beginnings of their decline is heavily predicated on it. If Erikson is really modelling them on dinosaurs, they may well be warm-blooded. Additionally, though actual biological viability is less relevant in the case of a fantasy world, many of the KCCM are bipedal and highly active, which is a lifestyle very difficult to maintain without metabolical regulation of temperature and is very unlike that of 'cold-blooded' reptiles, whose bodies tend to hug the ground to retain heat and are more 'sluggish'.

well... i imagine SE had the idea for the KCCM back when people still thought that all dinosaurs we're cold blooded. i mean, others may have known of it earlier, but as far as i'm aware, the theory that some dinosaurs, like t-rex, are warm-blooded is relatively new. like within the last five years new.

Warm-blooded dinosaurs have been in vogue for about 20-30 years, though when Erikson was creating the KCCM the cold-blooded thesis was probably still hanging around

[worry]

I'm not sure warm-blooded dinosaurs would survive being surrounded by glaciers either though. Unlike the humanoids, KCs don't wear much in terms of fur. Or maybe it just freezes all the grease in their nanobots and blood has nothing to do with it.

[Kanese S's]

All their various oils and such might not do that well in the cold.

[IgnatiusKruppe]

Kanese S, on 18 May 2011 - 04:39 AM, said:

All their various oils and such might not do that well in the cold.

True.. I believe there is some point where thats actually mentioned.

And granted, i know it isnt as simple as eres>imass>human.. I just can't seem to wrap my head around the idea of the Deragoth "domesticating" the Eres if the Eres were the first to be touched by 'awareness'.. but with the general timelines of dominance looking like KCCM>Jaghut>Imass>Human, the whole "first awareness" thing just throws me for a loop. Perhaps they were largely concurrent with the Jaghut (the Eres lived in warm climates-perhaps particularly to stay away from the Jaghut/OP, perhaps just because warm climates were the only places where society could grow while the Jaghut were icing everything down) and 'awareness' is specifically tied to the ability to use magic. Personally, I think SE just thought it was a sweet idea to have dogs domesticating humans & damn the consequences - Its just hard to reconcile but I know I'm tying myself into knots over nothing. So the domesticators weren't "conscious" but the creatuers they domesticated were. No biggie. hehe.

I can't help but think of the KCCM as predating everyone else due to the levels of technology their society acheived. With these time scales they could have developed to the Sky Keep level and crashed back down to solitary hunter-gatherers several times in the meantime but it seems to me that the KCCM society was stable for an extremely long time before they got too cutesy with their genetic manipulation. Much later, the Eres got decently ok with tools before their evolutionary leap and/or before they got Neandrathalized & the Imass acheived predominance.

[Sinisdar Toste]

that seems the most likely course. when onrack says that the eres were the first to carry the spark of awareness, i assume he means the first hominids, as he understands them. the first short-lived species to gain sentience, all the others (jaghut, kccm, thel akai, tiste, FA) being very long-lived.