- Elves are shown to have close ties to animals, and if this is extended to its logical conclusion, capable of bonding with them. Also, they can breed with ordinary humans, have sharper senses and ubiquitous white hair. Mind, they would be the same to LOTR elves by the time of the books as Buffy vampires are to original vampires: inbred country cousins.
- In Princep's Fury, it's all but stated that "grass lions" are really sabertooths.
- And the Vord's instant-communication through the troops by the Queen.
- Better question: if it did work, would they be able to teach it to humans in this world?
- What if it doesn't work? Maybe that's how the rumor that furycrafting didn't work outside of Alera got started. Someone fell through a portal, didn't realize they weren't on Carna at all anymore, and noticed that they could no longer furycraft. They managed to make it back home but assumed they'd merely been outside Alera rather than outside their world all together.
- Or the reverse happens. Cue grimdark, Hitchhiker's Guide-esque survival story.
- Even if one discounts the differences between the Vord and the Starcraft 1 era Zerg, they're basically identical to the Starcraft 2 Zerg, right down to the new way Queens function.
- You know how Dresden says that reaches of the NeverNever just get weirder and more dangerous as you head out from Fairy? The NeverNever is really really big, the world could well be hidden in there somewhere. Probably the result of a god's hibernation dream or something, which explains the lack of traditional magic and why it's undisturbed.
- In Ghost Story Bob implied that other dimensions can be reached through the NeverNever so this is quite possible.
- Building on this...
- Fridge Brilliance as far as I'm concerned...
- But then who was Sextus' first wife, who supposedly wasted away in despair after Septimus was killed?
- That's coincidence. Gaius was manifesting Alera through his wife in order to conceive a strong crafter for a son, not realizing that it was slowly killing her in the process. Hearing Septimus had died was the last straw for an already sick woman.
- They can also apparently see in the dark. In Real Life, crows are strictly diurnal.
- This theory fits nicely with the one about Carnian animals (including humans) manipulating energy in ways that their Earth counterparts can't.
- Their diurnal nature aside, in Real Life crows do in fact follow groups of armed men in war zones.
- Or maybe the soldiers just don't notice the crows except for before battles.
- Gaius Primus definitely wasn't Julius Caesar, seeing as he didn't establish Alera until 1000 years after the Lost Legion's arrival. Besides, Julius was already long dead and buried when the Ninth Legion marched for Britain. It's possible that one of the Ninth's legionnaires was a descendant of Caesar, but not bloody likely.
- Who Would Win: The Avatar or Gaius Octavian?
- Quite obviously, they would team up. Together, they fight crime.
- Powerwise, Aang beats even Sextus: Alera herself is like a weaker version of the Avatar Spirit that takes a more direct role in the world. He might even have been able to match the Vord Queen in the Avatar State. As far as strategy goes though, I think Octavian needs to take that one.
- It's really the other way around, actually. In raw power, the Alerans are far stronger than Avatar characters in most regards, excepting watercrafting vs. waterbending. Avatar characters, however, have more versatility and endurance than Aleran characters. The average High Lord is an even match for the Avatar, and is likely stronger (Bullet Time, plus metalcrafting means they'd likely cut the Avatar to ribbons in close combat).
- The Avatar world does have plantbending/crafting, it's just that so far it's just one guy in a swamp. Almost any Badass Normal might be an unwitting plant- or metalcrafter who doesn't realize they can do the kinds of flashy things that require a manifested fury.
- That does explain how everyone is some degree of Made of Iron, and the Required Secondary Powers.
- Are the Alerans a Blue deck or a Rainbow deck? The Vord are pretty clearly Green, possibly Green/Black... Also, the Marat are pretty obviously White.
- I had the same thought about the colors of Magic... I would say that the Alerans are White (Well-meaning and orderly but not always "good," able to use lightsabers and The Power of the Sun. The most powerful firecrafting attack, a white-hot sphere that vaporizes everything inside and sears everything outside for a wide radius sounds and looks quite a bit like Wrath of God.), the Icemen are Blue (telepathy and control of air/water), the Marat are Green (closest to nature, most likely to not interfere in the life cycle), the Canim are Red (angry and warlike but disciplined, control over fire and lightning with their blood sorcery) and the Vord are black (only concerned about its own survival, willing to make any sacrifice or commit any atrocity to win, having a Zombie Apocalypse schtick).
- I was looking less at elemental concerns. I don't like to think of Mt G colors as elements, but as strategic styles. Marat are large groups of relatively less-powerful fighters that work well in large groups, the Alerans seem to have either the Blue (ie screwing your opponent with devious cunning at every turn) or Rainbow (Taking bits of all and trying to use them synergistically. The Vord are Green because Green is the master of "Fast yet puny peons now, big huge evil monsters later." Possibly with black because of their propensity for self-sacrifice, as you mentioned.
- I see the Alerans as blue-white. They're blue because they're scholarly and they have the most versatile magic system. Their whiteness comes partly from their organization and a good deal from Alera's I-help-everyone-equally-but-one-side-benefits-from-it-more shtick. The Canim would be red and white. Red because their magic is used almost entirely for killing things and because they're warlike even by Carnia's standards, white because of the caste system, especially when it restricts Varg from sharing information with Tavi.
- Obviously the Vord are the Slivers, I think a mix that's mostly green and red since they mix cheap self sacrificing minions in endless swarms with raw physical power. Throw in some blue control spells for the Vord Queen. The Alerans are a white - blue SOCIETY, but the Aleran Military is White-Red: their tactical doctrine is based on mutual support, healing, and setting up for devastating fire blasts. The archery effects of woodcrafting and healing of watercrafting all fold neatly into white, while the fire blasts are obvious. The Marat are Red-Green like the vord, the classic barbarian colors, but with an emphasis on quality over sheer quantity. Canin are red-white like the Alarans, but with more focus on individual creatures than the Aleran side's support emphasis. Their spells are offensive and very good at damaging fliers even if they can heal when necessary, while red also encompasses their ferocity. Through in a lot of high-attack first strikers.
- Or they're Wolverines.
- The biggest problem with that seems to be that the Vord's telepathic powers are far greater than the Marat's- we have no indication that any Marat is capable of anything more than forming an empathic bond with their chala, while the Vord Queens not only maintain full telepathic control of their "children" (or at least, a few thousand in the immediate vicinity) but they also have completely unrelated abilities like mind-reading and illusion crafting. Also, the Vord's telepathy is so integral to how they operate that it's hard to imagine they could have ever not had it. I'd guess that if they did take anything from the Marat, they only strengthened what they already had.
- I actually like this idea. The Vord were probably always a hive with the ability to adapt, but before the queen had to give orders like anyone else. Then they copied the Marat telepathy, developed a true Hive Mind, and developed conscious control over it to the point that they can create temporary bonds with creatures to read their minds and create illusions. It's even stated that Vord mindreading is reciprocal if you take advantage of the opportunity. It fits with the Vord Queen becoming the greatest furycrafter, just as the vord had become the greatest telepath in the past.
- Following on from this, the only Marat in existence are those on Carna; they have likely been driven extinct on their home planet.
1. The Vord Queen is initially sealed inside a tree that, upon closer inspection by Tavi, doesn't actually look like a tree at all.
2. The Wax Forest is inside a huge crater, with the aforementioned tree at the very center.
3. The prime Queen mentions that "among the stars, between the worlds, we conquer".
The Vord didn't come from a wormhole like the Alerans, or the Canim, or the Marat, or any of the rest of the creatures inhabiting Carna.
They came from space.
- More or less 'Confirmed, with Word of God explicitly describing the Wax Forest as an impact crater.
The fact that so many of Carna's inhabitants would normally be facing nothing but death in their places of origin is no coincidence. Carna itself is a sentient being, and the wormholes that bring other lifeforms to it occur on purpose: Carna knows these beings are threatened, and wants to help them. Thus, it takes them away from whatever danger they're in and brings them to itself, where they become free to establish themselves. Of course, it doesn't always put a lot of thought into its actions, so the proto-Alerans wound up having to become a "baby factory death cult" that slaughtered its way through entire civilizations in order to survive. But hey, it worked. Modern Alerans now have a whole continent to themselves and are in (almost) no danger of being wiped out again.
Carna being an intelligent being is also how the Fury Alera can casually talk of entire civilizations rising and falling like sparks from a campfire even though she's only been a coherent being for about a thousand years, and bound to Alera (the continent) at that, unless entire civilizations have risen and fallen right beneath the Alerans' noses. She might be an independent entity now, but before that all her component parts were part of the world-spanning consciousness of Carna.
- But what about all the races the Alerans destroyed?
- It's quite possible that Carna is a Sink or Swim Mentor; it gives threatened beings a second chance to survive, but only a second chance, and leaves the survivors to figure out how to ensure their continued survival instead of "babying" them.
- It'd make sense. It's apparently a common sentiment among Septimus' surviving friends, and Septimus' inner circle were apparently all quite close with one another. It'd also conveniently explain why, after five books of revolutionary activity, he ultimately throws in his lot with Septimus' son.
- With Alerans and Marats allied and living together there a likely to be a lot more cases like Kitai's of bonding to an Aleran Chala. How is that going to play out with both cultures?
- And what about Marat/Canim bonds?
- Clan Fox were wiped out by Clan Herdbane (probably with the help of Clan Wolf), apparently in a way that was so far outside Marat social norms rules of conflict that at least two clans were looking for any excuse to get revenge on them. What reason did Atsurak have for it? Why is Doroga so vehement with the "whelp-killer" epithet?
- Why? Atsurak demanded to be with a Fox-Clan woman and got his ass kicked by her in a Trial of Wits. Given that he led a Marat horde against Alera later on out of vengeance for losing a relative in the battle where Gaius Septimus died, he's canonically the kind of person to take a grudge to lethally-disproportionate levels.
- Whelp-killer? Kitai had a sibling, who was staying their mother when Clan Fox were slaughtered.
- Among the members of the Legion and its followers were a few Demigods (a la Percy Jackson and The Camp Half-Blood Series). Over time the powers they'd inherited from their godly parents got spread among their descendants, and these powers resonated with Carna's active elemental powers, until "furies" emerged. The first Gaius Primus may have been a son of Jupiter. Woodcrafting comes from Demeter, Metalcrafting (some of it anyway) from Mars, and so on.
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