The Elders, as described by Caruith to Jaan, have features in common with the Others in Poul Anderson's The Avatar. Both races evolved early, help emergent intelligences and can record and merge personalities.
Caruith's version of the Elders is a fiction within the fiction, composed by Aycharaych to mislead Jaan into instigating a jihad. Deliberately built-in contradictions will generate heresies and schisms:
cosmic life guided by the Elders will attempt to create and become God although Christian Aeneans are bound to regard such a goal as blasphemous;
a rival group of Elders, coincidentally called "Others," seeks not to overcome but to accept entropy so some Aenean cultists can be expected to support these "Others" against Caruith's Elders.
Aycharaych's responsibility as the last surviving Chereionite should be to encourage understanding and harmony, not to foment delusion and conflict.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
At MOST, we only have Aycharaych's word for it that the Chereionites helped "emergent intelligences" before the Chereionite race became extinct. Aycharaych's extremely questionable behavior makes me doubt the Chereionites, as a race, were esp. benevolent!
Happy New Year! Sean
I would expect the last surviving Chereionite to be batshit crazy, though.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
A good point. In fact, at one point Flandry asked him a question like this, at their last meeting: "Are you crazy, is that what drives you?"
Ad astra! Sean
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