The Ceasures

[Zahir]

Maybe I'm all wrong but this is what I'm assuming from what has been written/published so far...

The Falls were created approximately 100 years ago in the Land, however within each one time simply doesn't operate the way we're used to it. Inside a Fall, all time exists simultaneously. However, each Fall moves in space as well as time, traversing the Land. More, evidently each Fall is only sometimes perceivable prior to their creation. The Ur-viles found one. Anele was found by one.

Does this mean a paradox? No necessarily. Because a paradox implies that events have genuinely been changed by time travel. What if, on the other hand, the consequences of time travel have always been part of the past????? We just haven't noticed them before!

Perhaps this is a reason the Demondim were defeated, because so many of them were brought thousands of years into the future? Hmmmm?

[drew]

The ceasures stared 100 years ago, but Anele sensed them about 3000 years ago, the Demondin can access power from 7000+ years ago..Esmer can go back and forth. BUt the Haruchai only remember them from 100 years ago. So whats up with Anele/Esmer/and the Demondim?
...well Earthpower flows through both Esmer and Anele...and the Demondim posses tons of lore, I think that's the reason why they can be affected from the future..and not regular people. Even Kevin and Berek were regular people who could use earthpower, but Anele has Earthpower flowing through him---you know since he died and was resurected in-utero.

But...think of the begining of the 2nd Austin Powers movie....don't think about it too much, just site back and enjoy the ride.

[CovenantJr]

I wasn't going to mention anything from today's SRD Q&A until tomorrow, but since one of the comments is about Runes, I might as well lob it in here now.

In answer to my question (which I will mention tomorrow, if anyone's curious) SRD eventually mentioned something about caesures (incidentally, this is pronounced "seizures"). He said he created them because he needed something that would fulfill a specific purpose, something that would represent a particular dilemma facing Lord Foul What do you make of that?

[High Lord Tolkien]

Does this mean a paradox? No necessarily. Because a paradox implies that events have genuinely been changed by time travel. What if, on the other hand, the consequences of time travel have always been part of the past????? We just haven't noticed them before!

Perhaps this is a reason the Demondim were defeated, because so many of them were brought thousands of years into the future? Hmmmm?

Excelent ideas.
I've thought about the same things.
That's what's so great about this.
Anything is possible.

But I'm getting worried here though.
The time travel nerds are out in force now.
With all their "rules" and "laws" and what not about time travel.

(Hey, relax I'm just teasing)
But it does seem silly talking about the scientific cause and effect of time travel on a world built on the back of a Worm.

But then again we do have over a year till the next book....

[I'm Murrin]

The way I see these things working is as folows:
100 years ago (in the Land) Joan's access to White Gold began the caesures. They roam around the Land once created, and everywhere they go they are able to touch every moment of time which has occured in that spot. In this way, every now and then the caesures can pick up people/things from the past and deposit them in the present - Kresh, Ur-viles, Demondim, Anele. This way the caesures move things in time without altering history (which they would do if they deposited their contents at any other point than the present, or if they transported objects/people backwards in time).

[ur-bane]

The way I see these things working is as folows:
100 years ago (in the Land) Joan's access to White Gold began the caesures. They roam around the Land once created, and everywhere they go they are able to touch every moment of time which has occured in that spot. In this way, every now and then the caesures can pick up people/things from the past and deposit them in the present - Kresh, Ur-viles, Demondim, Anele. This way the caesures move things in time without altering history (which they would do if they deposited their contents at any other point than the present, or if they transported objects/people backwards in time).

I would think that a bringing forward to the future of anyone from the past would alter history. For one simple reason:
The acts that would have been performed by those beings in their true timeline would no longer be enacted. So in essence, an interruption of events of the past. I can't see how that wouldn't alter the future present.

Unless the original design was for that to happen in the first place.
Too many complications.

I think the best bet is to wait and see how SRD handles it.

[Aleksandr]

I would think that a bringing forward to the future of anyone from the past would alter history.

I think that very few people (or living things in general) are able to suvive the trip. Anele did because of his inate Earthpower-- and even he emerged seriously addled. The Ur-Viles and Waynhim meanwhile were protected by their lore, and Esmer too is sufficiently gifted to ward himself during the transition. Linden, even with the Wild Magic, almost didn't make it, and her human companions were violently ill after the trip. Since we don't have lots and lots of time trvelers lose in the Land my guess is that the Caesures normally kill anyone they encounter.

[I'm Murrin]

Although the Kresh (wiped out by the Sunbane or possibly just gone after Foul's First Chrons defeat) seem to have come through unscathed.

[Aleksandr]

Although the Kresh (wiped out by the Sunbane or possibly just gone after Foul's First Chrons defeat) seem to have come through unscathed.

Do we know they came through a caesure? I thought maybe they had survived the Sunbane in the Lower Land or somewhere outside the Sunbane's influence.

[I'm Murrin]

Well, they made a point of mentioning that the Kresh first reappeared at the same time as the caesures began (at least some 4000 years since their last appearance), so I assumed.

[IVB]

Well... I think this is the reason why:

Ceasures are very rare, that we know. But all the Ceasures that do exist, exist in Linden's time... and each one goes to one different place at one different time...

So the Ceasure that was around 3500 ago was the only one in that time... So it was so rare that the Haruchai didn't notice it.

We know that Joan is causing the ceasures and that she needs her ring to do it. At the end of WGW, she is seemingly recovered. But after a period of time in the county's finest care she falls ill again. She has possession of her ring until she is commited when it was stored with her personal effects until LA returned it to her. Is it possible that she caused the ceasures that grabbed Anele and the urviles used? And once the ring was removed from her person, the ceasures disapated?

Once the Haruchai took over there was nothing to notice.

Still, this does not explain the Kresh. Perhaps they followed thier natural prey, the great horses, out of the land but returned when LF called them in when it was close to the time of the summoning so that the wolves could be used to put pressure on LA and company. Imagine how hard it is to coordinate across worlds with different time flows

[Creator]

*POSTS Moved*

There were great posts re: DC comics and artists and graphic novels. Unfortunately they had little to do with Caesures.

I've created a TCTC Comic Art & Graphic Novel Musings thread in this forum to contain this discussion. [They really aren't Runes related either so the Forum might shift in the future for that thread - I'll let you know!]

[dlbpharmd]

I went ahead and moved the thread to TC forum, but I left the shadow thread so everyone will know what happened to it.

[PitchDude]

Excellent job of moderating, Creator!

All hail the Creator!

Seriously though, I think it's great that the off-topic stuff is moved to its proper place. Some of these threads are long enough...

Jim

[Creator]

Excellent job of moderating, Creator!

All hail the Creator!

Seriously though, I think it's great that the off-topic stuff is moved to its proper place. Some of these threads are long enough...

Jim

Thanks! And to my co-Mod dlbpharmd for finding a good home for the split!!

[Plissken]

I'm not sure I can put this clearly, as time travel discussions confuse me, but here goes:

On the subject of the Law of Time bending to correct for alterations in the timeline, isn't it possible that Joan's Ceasures are what triggered the need for Covenant to come to the Land in the first place?

What I'm imagining here is the idea that the alterations in time removed from the Land it's OWN defender against Foul, so the Creator had to manipulate Foul into summoning a WGW, because of white gold's connection to the Arch of Time, BEFORE the Ceasures came into existence in the Land's (and Foul's) timeline.

Did that make sense?

[Rick Stuckwisch]

(Linden): "Tell me about the caesures, Falls. What are they? What do they do?"
Without shifting his gaze, Esmer nodded. "They are flaws in time, caused and fed by wild magic." . . . "Within them'" he explained, "the Law of Time, which requires that events transpire in sequence, and that one action must lead to another, is severed. Within them, every moment which has ever passed in their ambit as they move exists at once."


The key, it seems to me, is the last sentence here. The caesures contain every moment which has ever passed in their ambit; i.e. from the time of their creation (by Joan, or whomever) to the "present" (and on into the future). Because the caesures themselves, externally, do exist within time and space; it is only within the caesures (internally) that the Law of Time is broken. At least, that is how I understand and interpret Esmer's words.

Thus, as I (and others) have queried elsewhere, how is it possible -- given that the caesures only began to appear in the Land about 100 years ago (presumably at the time when Joan was given her white gold ring back) -- that Anele, et al., were able to move through caesures thousands of years into the future? And how were Linden and company able to swim upstream through a caesure thousands of years into the past? There shouldn't have been "moments of time" existing within the caesure they entered beyond the period of time that it had existed in the Land.

Unless I'm missing something, or misinterpreting Esmer's words.

[Jerico]

On the SRD website the GI answered from the horses mouth so to speak

Question to SRD: If falls only started appearing '90 years agao' or so, how did Anele get trapped in one roughtly 3,000 years in the past?

To which SRD replied:
Ya'Know I really thought I explained this clearly in the book. How was Linden able to go back to the past in order to retrieve the Staff? Because a Fall stirs together every moment which has ever existed in the place it happens to occupy as it moves around. The real question isn't, how did Anele get trapped 3000 years before Falls were first created? The *real* question is, Why hasn't everyone who has ever lived in the Land been trapped the way Anele was?
The convenient answer is that Falls are (still) comparatively few and far between. But the rasl answer involves the fundamental nature of Law. First, the Law of Time resists corrosion, and heals itself as quickly as it can. And second, the Law of Time is not in its essence separate from any of the other Laws which govern life. For example, the Law of Death, like the Law of Life, is obviously a manifestation or Avatar of the Law of Time. While the Law of Death, and later the Law of Life, were intact, the inhabitants of the Land, like the Land itself, were protected from encroaching Falls (violations of the Law of Time). And the violations of the Laws of Death and Life--unlike the violation of the Law of Time--were *not* actions which operate retroactively. Why? Because, among other reasons, the Laws of Death and Life were not violated by wild magic. Therefore the power of the Falls to affect the Land *prior* to Hollian's ressurection is severely limited. Indeed, without the aid of a guiding intelligence (e.g. the Demondin), Falls may have no power *at all* to affect anything prior to the breaking of the Law of Life (which itself could almost not have happened if the Law of Death had not been broken first).
<whew> That may be more of an answer than you were looking for.
#end comment#

Well there it is from SRD himself

[Rick Stuckwisch]

Thanks for providing the response from SRD from the GI. I'm embarrassed that I didn't find that for myself (as I submitted a similar question there). But when I did a search of the GI for the words "caesures" or "falls," I didn't come up with anything that pertained.

When did SRD offer the helpful response that copied here?

Thanks!

[Jerico]

You have to go under "spoilers from Runes of the Earth". It was posted in november, I think it was the first Spoiler question answered. There are about 15 I think.