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[Secret History] Ire's Age


Oversleep

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On my reread of Secret History I noticed something - when Nazh gives Kelsier his knife, he says that "Ire were doing this much longer than us". Us meaning him and Khriss.

While we don't know when Khriss started her cosmere scholar career, it was definitely after White Sand. We know White Sand is before Elantris and we know Elantris is less than two thousand years before Mistborn First Era.

Well, now we don't know how long is "much longer" or when Khriss started doing her thing. We don't know how long before Elantris is White Sand. We know that Ire are really, really, really, really, really old.

But all in all together I think we can safely assume Ire (as a group) were doing their thing long before Reod occured.

Edited by Oversleep
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Well, we know that the city of Elantris was built "hundreds of years if not over a thousand years" before the book takes place. And we know that the first Elantrians likely predate the city, since it was built as an Aon that only Elantrians can draw.

So not only can we safely assume that the Ire were around a while ago, there exists a large span of time for them to have shown up in.

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Wow, that's really interesting.  I'm positing two ideas, then.

First, I agree that the Ire were around before the Reod, and I think it was before the splintering of D&D as well (that would mean that AonDor, or at least the concept of Aons providing magical power, existed prior as well, which I'll explain more in a moment).  I also think that they were not on Sel at the time of the splintering, but were off in the Cognitive Realm or on another world at the time, and thus were affected differently by the Reod.  However, they still would have had some of the effects, and they managed to return through the CR, discovered the "storm" of the Dor that Odium had pressed into there, and figured out how to siphon off some of it in their pipeline to ward off the effects of the Reod, as it were.

Secondly, we've been told that the regionalized magic of Sel is because of large splinters from Devotion and Dominion that have begun gaining sentience (I can't recall the exact WoB, but it's along those lines), and we've been assuming that the Aons are based on the geography of Arelon only since that time, or at least I've seen that posited.  I think instead that AonDor (or rather, a similar form of magic using the Aons) existed prior to the splintering, set up by Aona or perhaps both Aona and Skai, and they taught the first Elantrians how to build the city as a power booster.  When the splintering of D&D happened, though, the original Elantrians were killed or all left (those who left and survived becoming the Ire?), leaving the city abandoned and ready for the Arelish people to find eventually, and then turn some of them into Elantrians, but the Shaod and that current method of Initiation (becoming an Elantrian) is mostly caused and guided by a splinter of Devotion and/or Dominion (perhaps a combined splinter of both?) that has "landed" in Arelon in the Cognitive Realm, and has both bonded to the land and begun gaining sentience.

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As far as we know, Splintering of D&D is the earliest post-Shattering event. Khriss says it happened "during the days of human prehistory on Sel". She also says that Ambition's clash with Odium in Threnodite system happened "soon after the Shattering" and that was already after Odium Splintered D&D.

So I really, really doubt anybody on Sel had time to go cosmere-advanced before the deaths of Aona and Skai.

31 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Secondly, we've been told that the regionalized magic of Sel is because of large splinters from Devotion and Dominion that have begun gaining sentience (I can't recall the exact WoB, but it's along those lines),

Is that a new WoB? i don't recall any WoB like that although I have to admit there are lots of Selish WoBs I'm not aware of (the famous one being my discovery of Nahel bond being Passed like the Seon bond).

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49 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Wow, that's really interesting.  I'm positing two ideas, then.

First, I agree that the Ire were around before the Reod, and I think it was before the splintering of D&D as well (that would mean that AonDor, or at least the concept of Aons providing magical power, existed prior as well, which I'll explain more in a moment).  I also think that they were not on Sel at the time of the splintering, but were off in the Cognitive Realm or on another world at the time, and thus were affected differently by the Reod.  However, they still would have had some of the effects, and they managed to return through the CR, discovered the "storm" of the Dor that Odium had pressed into there, and figured out how to siphon off some of it in their pipeline to ward off the effects of the Reod, as it were.

Secondly, we've been told that the regionalized magic of Sel is because of large splinters from Devotion and Dominion that have begun gaining sentience (I can't recall the exact WoB, but it's along those lines), and we've been assuming that the Aons are based on the geography of Arelon only since that time, or at least I've seen that posited.  I think instead that AonDor (or rather, a similar form of magic using the Aons) existed prior to the splintering, set up by Aona or perhaps both Aona and Skai, and they taught the first Elantrians how to build the city as a power booster.  When the splintering of D&D happened, though, the original Elantrians were killed or all left (those who left and survived becoming the Ire?), leaving the city abandoned and ready for the Arelish people to find eventually, and then turn some of them into Elantrians, but the Shaod and that current method of Initiation (becoming an Elantrian) is mostly caused and guided by a splinter of Devotion and/or Dominion (perhaps a combined splinter of both?) that has "landed" in Arelon in the Cognitive Realm, and has both bonded to the land and begun gaining sentience.

One thing we have against the first point is this from Khriss

Quote

I believe that early on, the Shards took an unconcerned approach to humankind—and society was shaped by the slow, steady discovery of the powers that permeated the landscape. This is difficult to determine for certain now, however, as at some point in the distant past, both Devotion and Dominion were destroyed. Their Investiture—their power—was Splintered, their minds ripped away, their souls sent into the Beyond. I am uncertain whether their power was left to ravage the world untamed for a time, or was immediately contained. This all happened during the days of human prehistory on Sel.

Now she may be wrong of course but unconcerned approach and prehistory doesn't sound like it's likely.

I've definitely seen the regional splinters discussed on here but I don't think there's a WoB confirming it? Just that it's regional because it's cognitive. But I for one tend to like the theory. I like a fair bit else of what you've said but I feel the timeframes are off unless Khriss is wrong. The confirmation that the killing of Aona and Skai was shortly after the Shattering tends to confirm that.

But @Oversleep i like the analysis. Seems to make sense to me with the White Sand timeframe.

Edit - erp ninja'd again!

Edited by Extesian
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Probably we'll know more of Khriss's history when White Sand is complete. At the very least, she must have figured out some kind of life-extension or immortality trick within her natural lifetime.

(minor White Sand stuff)

Spoiler

Though I guess she could actually have some kind of Darksider Investiture that makes you live really long -- we don't know what the Darkside magic system is yet. From the little we see in White Sand vol 1, though, she seems to me like a scholar interested in magic but who isn't magical herself. And the beings we've seen who are "inherently" ageless are generally pretty obviously magical.

 

The Cosmere history goes back a long way. The Stormlight Archive prelude is 4500 years (presumably Rosharan years, so almost 5000 of our years) before the main books, which are around Mistborn Era 2, and a lot's happened on Roshar before that.

(Stormlight backstory stuff)

Spoiler

I believe there's a WOB that the 99 desolations is just a legend, and there weren't really that many, but there were definitely a bunch, enough that the Heralds can talk about what usually happens (how many usually die etc.), and the time between them was enough for humanity to recover from something like a 90% population loss.

Now, in a depopulated world with most of the best food-producing land available/unclaimed, a 10x population increase might not take that long, but it's still significant time.

And the Desolations couldn't have started until a while after the Shattering, since Odium did other stuff before he got to Roshar, and Honor and Cultivation showed up before Odium.

So I'd imagine there's at least a couple of thousand years between the Shattering and the SA Prologue, which would make the Shattering at the very least six or seven thousand years before Mistborn Era 1.

If Elantris (the book) is less than 2000 years before, there's plenty of room to fit in the mysterious 'original' Elantrians. I doubt AonDor existed in any form before the Splintering of Devotion and Dominion.

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1 hour ago, strumienpola said:

We know now for sure that IRE is older than Reod, because I asked Brandon if Reod affected IRE and he said "it did in some way". Not much, but just leaving it there :P 

Per my memory of terms, I thought the Reod was when the chasm happened, only 10 years before the Elantris book. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

I would assume that the Ire wouldn't be on world at the time of the Reod just because they seem too.. exploratory. That would segue into your question quite nicely, as how it would affect them while offworld is an interesting thought

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2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Per my memory of terms, I thought the Reod was when the chasm happened, only 10 years before the Elantris book. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

I would assume that the Ire wouldn't be on world at the time of the Reod just because they seem too.. exploratory. That would segue into your question quite nicely, as how it would affect them while offworld is an interesting thought

Well, the Ire Population could be an offshoot of the ORIGINAL inhabitant of Elantris. It is never explained where the original Elatnriam population went. The city was discovered abandoned before the events of Elantris. Perhaps the original Elantrian population all migrated into the Cognitive realm for some reason, and those people are experiencing the time-dilation we keep seeing hints of?

 

As an unlikely side-note:

It would be interesting to see a struggle between older Cognitive Realm Elantirians and the newer Physical Realm Elantrians. 

Edited by teknopathetic
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On 3/19/2017 at 10:57 PM, The One Who Connects said:

Per my memory of terms, I thought the Reod was when the chasm happened, only 10 years before the Elantris book. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong)

I would assume that the Ire wouldn't be on world at the time of the Reod just because they seem too.. exploratory. That would segue into your question quite nicely, as how it would affect them while offworld is an interesting thought

Yeah, there's no question the Ire were not founded between the Reod and Elantris.  The question at hand was whether they predated the Reod, or post-dated the events of Elantris.

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4 hours ago, Yitzi2 said:

Yeah, there's no question the Ire were not founded between the Reod and Elantris.  The question at hand was whether they predated the Reod, or post-dated the events of Elantris.

My point was that I was curious how it affected them because I doubted they were on-planet at the time, not that I didn't think they existed at the time.

We know they existed before the Reod. It's in Strumienpola's post.

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