[Wry]

Ok, this is being touched upon on various threads at the moment, so i thought i'd start one just to finally try to pin down the connections.

We all know the T'lan regarded the First Empire as their children/successors, i'm assuming they watched them evolve from imass to human, untill the two races gradually started to diverge. We know that the FE used a huge ritual to try to create an easier way for people to become soletaken, and that the Imass felt the need to step in and clean up the mess. I think we're all pretty much agreed that they didn't just to stop the creation of more potential super powerful adversaries, and that they felt some obligation/responsibility to help the FE.

Ok. Consider then the imass.
Their bonecasters are soletaken, and are the only warren users among them right? i imagine this is more than a coincidence, that the act of learning to access tellann involves some ritual that creates the soletaken ability. It is also implied that the bonecaters don't just use Tellan as a human mage might, i.e. cracking it open and using the power that leaks out, but that they are joined with their warren at a much deeper level. This could lead to the assumption that joining with tellann, which could concievably be/be connected to the beast hold, is what gave the ability to take a beasts form. this may also help explain the lack of a current beast warren when all the rest of the imass joined in the ritual and sucked tellann dry. And also why bonecasters seem imortal, well the one mortal one we've found (excepting silverfox of course)

Fast forward then to post ritual imass, off fighting their wars and in the off time looking in on their mortal cousins, generations pass, imass become more human and lose their imass nature. Their imortal guardians pop by every so often, packed full of with ancient knowledge. The FE empire tries to emulate the bonecaster ritual, but there is no Tellann to join with so they use a spare chunk of KE. The T'lan were horrified at the ritual going awry, and the perversion of their ancient ways (i magine the boncaster ritual was, like everything imass, very much about being one with the land - the FE ritual was about gaining power) so they put it down hard.

Anyone see any glaring holes in this?

[Aptorian]

There's a lot of unknown in there regarding the beast warren and tellan, but I think you have it mostly right... possibly.

I don't really think the Empires people were specifically trying to emulate the bonecasters. I'm sure natural soletaken have existed since the dawn of the beastwarren and the intelligent races asociation with animals. I wonder if the Empire was specifically trying to make D'ivers (like Dejim) or they were just the unintended effect of the ritual going haywire.

Also, the bonecasters aren't uber special, they are just another name for shouldermen/women with access to a once particularly powerfull source.

[Wry]

Quote

Also, the bonecasters aren't uber special, they are just another name for shouldermen/women with access to a once particularly powerfull source.

Well they are pretty special really. A group of them managed to perform a ritual which turned most of their race into imortal, near indestructable killing machines. They're all soletaken that we know of. The one mortal bonecaster we know of (except for...) has been around for hundreds of millenia. Another one turns into a dragon that's the twin of tiam, is credited with being the first soletaken, of convincing a dragon to give fire to the imass (and i imagine that means shape an area of the liosan warren to suit the imasses needs) and they all regularly went up against Jhagut tyrants.

Calling them simple shouldermen/women may be understating it a little, no?

[Venerus]

I really like the point that the bonecasters seem to all be soletaken. It draws an interesting parallel between the FE, the Ritual and the Imass.

There's a nice comment in MOI (in class now, can't get quote) where they talk about the Imass outliving their own gods, which could go with the long-empty beast hold. It's been proposed that the Ritual of the Beast was supposed to make new, human-aspected gods (or warren(s)) for soletaking.

I think your comments do an excellent job bringing the issues of FE and Imass history to the forefront.

[Aptorian]

Wry;254894 said:

Well they are pretty special really. A group of them managed to perform a ritual which turned most of their race into imortal, near indestructable killing machines. They're all soletaken that we know of. The one mortal bonecaster we know of (except for...) has been around for hundreds of millenia. Another one turns into a dragon that's the twin of tiam, is credited with being the first soletaken, of convincing a dragon to give fire to the imass (and i imagine that means shape an area of the liosan warren to suit the imasses needs) and they all regularly went up against Jhagut tyrants.

Calling them simple shouldermen/women may be understanding it a little, no?

Think of the Tano Spiritwalkers or The Cirkle that brought down the CG. The Ritual was a HUGE feat but not something impossible to pull off for another group of people.

[Wry]

Sure but then i'd wouldn't class the tanno spiritwalkers or the circle as particularly ordinary either

[H'Ranga]

Wry;254894 said:

Calling them simple shouldermen/women may be understanding it a little, no?

We just know of those über-powerfull bonecaster because those are the only ones who succeeded in "surviving" (undead) that long. You shouldn't forget that there are no "new" bonecaster, there are no kids (I don't want to think about a pregnant, undead, flintaxe-swinging woman giving birth to an undead baby.... :eek: ) who could become bonecaster, which means the amount of bonecaster can only decrease. In the passing of millennia more and more bonecaster were destroyed/died and only the strongest could survive all the wars the T'lan Imass faught and we don't know about those not-so-powefull ones because no one cares. So here is the difference to human/barghast/and so on mages/shouldermen, they have children who become new "not-so-powefull" mages.
e.g.: "nobody" knows about Kulp (the meanas-caster from DG), he was just a cadremage who died....

I hope I made my theory clear.

[Wry]

Sure it's clear, but there's no evidence at all to say that there were loads of other bonecasters. afew dying to atrition, like monok, sure, but not enough to think that the ones left are some kind of exception.

Are any others mentioned in the various flashbacks?
Plus i'm pretty sure there's a quote somewhere that lists the bonecasters involved in the ritual, meaning they were representing a fair majority of the lmass nation, and there was only a handfull of them. I'll look for it when i'm home with my books.

[Mentalist]

We have many Eleint Soletaken. There's a bunch (prior to DG, a lot more) solotaken roaming about, I don't think all of them came from that particular ritual... Hell, we're theorising that QB is a soletaken and he hasn't been around that much
To reiterate, saying that "the only soletaken we have are bonecasters" might be too much. As for the rest....
from what we know/guess, the Elder warren of tellan was connected/associated with the Beast Hold. and, I would assume, its respective gods. However, during the ritual, the Imass have altered the fabric/nature of their warren--if you subscribe to the "warrens are other worlds theory", that's a major achievement. Ofc, it took their entire race, and since the Imass had such close communal ties (solitude was a crime), that must have allowed them to gather power on a deeper level. nonetheless, stil remarkable.
The Ritual of the Beast, on the other hand... well, what DO we know?
1) a large bunch of humans turned into soletaken
2) apparently, a warren was sundered
3) Dissembelackis, who was sorta in charge of the project, aspired to create a god.
Now, we'd undoubtedly need a lot of power to do any of those (esp. 2), but the most glaring difference, imho is the fact that the ritual of Telann was the effort of an entire race (more or less, slow boaters and latecomers don't count), focused in a single desire, fueledby a feeling of righteousness. Whereas in the ritual of the Beast, we face a group of very arrogant people who desired power for no reason other than power in itself.
Also, I daresay, the power they tapped into was more ancient, and thus,more chaotic, harder to control. If we make a crazy assumption (as I do here) that extreme focus is required to maintain control of such power, and we take into account the factors mentioned in 1) and 3), the reason for why things went awry become clear...
wow, now this was a very long ramble. I hope i got the point across, though..

[pastures]

I think all (powerful) magic users have the potential to become Soletaken. It's an inherent skill (though some may not achieve it if they are not powerful enough. All Bonecasters were powerful, however, since there were so few as a proportion of their race.). Just look at all the Soletaken out there, even those from elder Elder times. I think the FE merely tried to further that and create D'ivers. But that may have resulted in extreme psychological stress that caused them to go psychotic, hence the Purge.

edit: My other theory is that magic users become Soletaken if they identify with a certain being. This identification is most easily done through the drinking of the blood (see Rake, and also Bonecasters wear the hide of the animal they veer into, possibly after they have hunted them they drink their blood). This theory takes no account of the power of a mage. That said, it may well be that both power and drinking blood are needed.

Also, humans aren't evolved from Imass. Imass are akin to Neanderthals (lookit the brow ridge in wiki). Humans are evolved from TTT (hence the term "children"). TTT and Imass are two distinct species from way back when.

[D'rek]

some great quotes related to this comes from Heboric in DhG when he, Felisin and Kulp are in a FE city. Around page 510 in DhG paperback edition for me.

Quote

Heboric: "There is a bond between the T'lan Imass and Soletanken and D'ivers, a mysterious kinship that was unsuspected by the dwellers of this city..."

That says to me that the citizens of the FE didn't understand the link between Bonecasters and Soletaken. So either the FE method of becoming soletaken was not based on the Imass way, or else only the upper echelons of the FE society understood the bond (maybe just Dessimbelackis, even)

Quote

Heboric: "Her daughter chose the Path of the Soletaken, a fraught journey, that. She was hardly unique, the twisted route was a popular alternative to Ascension. More... earthly, they claimed. And older, and that which was old was in high favour in the last days of the First Empire." ... "It was understandable that Elders of the day sought to ease their children's chosen path. Sought to create a new version of the old, risk-laden one - for that had crumbled, weakend, was cancerous. Too many of the Empire's young were being lost ..."

So I get out of this that a lot of young people in the time of the FE wanted to live forever (or just be more powerful), and the classic way was to Ascend, but later on they figured out a way to become Soletaken (which does seem to offer longevity). Says it was "more earthly", which just screams at us "spirit magic" and "Imass-like", so it probably was the same way as the Bonecasters (or similar). But the method became super-difficult (beacuse of the T'lan Imass of because of Tellann, perhaps?) so the "Elders" tried to invoke the Ritual of the Beast to make it much easier and safer. Heboric also talks about how the ritual went rampant through homes and converted those who didn't want to change and that there was no proper 'initiation', so lots went mad.

[thesalus]

I always thought that humans are a result of the union of Kilava and Onrack.

Quote

But her heart had been given to the one man with whom she lived. That law was sacrosanct.
Oh, but he'd been so sensitive. His hands following his eyes in the fashioning of forbidden images of that other woman, there in the hidden places. He'd used those hands to close about his own heart, to give it to another - without a thought as to who had once held it for herself.
Another, who would not even give her heart in return - she had seen to that, with vicious words and challenging accusations. Enough to encourage the others to banish her for ever.
But not before the bitch killed all but one of her kin.
Foolish, stupid man, to have given his love to that woman.
Her rage had not died with the Ritual, had not died when she herself - too shattered to walk - had been severed from the Vow and left in a place of eternal darkness. And every curious spirit that had heard her weeping, that had drawn close in sympathy - well, they had fed her hungers, and she had taken their powers. Layer upon layer. For they too had been foolish and stupid, wayward and inclined to squander those powers on meaningless things. But she had a purpose.
The children swarmed the surface of the world. And who was their mother? None other than the bitch who had been banished.

Though this is all from the mouth of a certain crazed goddess.

And the Teblor have no racial memory left to them, so I believe Karsa and co's referring to humans as children is simply a comment on their stature. Plus, TTT's have radically different anatomy - four lungs anyone?

[pastures]

ok fair enough on the TTT point. but Imass are neanderthals, not humans.

and concerning Kilava's child:

Spoiler

still Imass. and they were kept hidden in a warren. they never evolved to become humans.

"The children swarmed the surface..." could mean something else, though i agree it hints strongly at humans.

But let's see now, arent Barghast, Rhivi, Toblakai, etc all descendents of TTT? It seems only Toblakai keep the four lungs feature. But now that i think of it, it could be possible that humans are evolved from Imass.

anyway, coming back on point, it says that Olar Ethil is the first Soletaken yeah? So, obviously the kinship would be through that. However, how can non-humans like the Tiste or demons also be Soletaken? I take it to be a kinship in the astral realm. Hence, magic users all could potentially walk the path of veering, but it is not always straightforward. and the queen of that path is Olar Ethil. that is why the Imass are the "stewards" of veering. but i'm sure SE will explain this later. at least, i hope he does.

[Venerus]

I don't think the relationship between Imass, humans, TTT, Barghast, Edur, Andii, Trell and Moranth is fully understood. Different characters suggest different lineages at different times in the novels. At one point, Heboric suggests that the Barghast grew up in the shadow of the Edur, consistent with learning that they fled the Edur "demons" in MOI. Also in MOI, it's suggested that the TTT and Barghast lived together, possibly as part of the same race. Both Moranth and Barghast seem to have descended from Imass, but Trell are either Edur/Imass hybrids or TTT/Imass hybrids or something else. Humans are referred to as the "children" of the Imass but Barghast and Moranth are never said explicitly to be human, even though they certainly seem compatible. Apparently, Tiste Andi can breed with humans. Etc, etc, etc.

There's *so much* and it's not really simple to tie it all together. There's so much stuff about the lineages, cross-breeding, possible historical, cultural, genetic etc etc linkages that I don't think anyone but SE can make absolute claims on heritage. The characters in the series make mistakes, they make inferences that might not be consistent, they calls it like they sees it at the time. I don't think we can point to quotes and say "This must be the truth!" because the characters aren't even sure in their certainty.


All this is merely to say that connections between races are tenuous at best, and I like to ramble and equivocate.

Ok this sums it up:
--->Maybe I had another point when I started writing this. Something about "the power of soletaken seems to be in blood" rings true, and nearly all the races *might* share some mixed blood, so, soletaken or the potential for soletaking(??) abounds.<---

[Sinisdar Toste]

hm, about the human evolution, in BH when bottle meets the eres and she touches him he realizes she was the last innocent being and "after her, theres just... us" now this could be taken to mean that humans are directly descended from the eres'al, the nerek of lether certainly are. i used to think that imass came before humans, but now im thinking, humans are to eres as barghast are to imass, the barghast are certainly descendant of imass, at the end of MoI anaster toc mistakes a mortal tool for a barghast. now the barghast of genabackis did have some mingling with the TTT in the past but those genes are probably latent, just like the moranth mingled(perhaps) with the edur.

[Aptorian]

My god, people, before you start getting into arguably one of the toughest subjects on the forum, check around... somewhere there's a thread that outlines the most logical list of races and their heritage.

EDIT: and of course now I can't find it... bah.

Of the top of my head:

Humans are direct descendants of the Imass, who are the direct descendants of the Eres'al.

Moranth are Edur and maybe TTT or Imass.

Barghast are TTT and Imass.

I don't remember the theory on the Trell.

Jhags are Jaghut and any other possible race but many may have come from direct contact between the TTT and

Rhive er just humans... aren't they? Or are they another offshoot of the Barghast ancestors?

[pastures]

im pretty the eres are the ancestors of all the native humanoid races on Wu, be it Imass, TTT, or human or their relations.

[Pallol One Eye]

There's a section in MOI when a lot of the ancestry is revealed. Hetan demands from the mask council access to the remains of her Barghast ancesters. Then Brukhalian or Itkovian reviews the history carved into the prows of the war canoes with her.

If I remember correctly the barghast fought the the "Grey skinned demons" (Tiste Edur) in their voyaging. They, the barghast were descended from TTT and Imass union. The TTT were on the canoes during this barghast voyaging. It mentions decrease in stature over time as TTT blood was diluted. The moranth are an offshoot of the barghast and went their seperate way and developed their famed alchemical munitions due to a relationship with possibly the Edur (memory a little hazy) and I'm at work and can't check . It also mentions the Trell in that section and they to are possibly descended from TTT and Imass.

[Urb]

Here's the link Apt was talking about...
http://malazanworld.com/forums/showthread....&highlight=tree

[Mentalist]

Moranth MIGHT have some Edur blood...bbuit I doubt itr, and we got no proof, lol