According to Dragon myth, the creator of all the sentient races was a Dragon shaped creature named (by itself) Nightslayer. Nightslayer was a horoi created by Vergigorm. Nightslayer then created Dragons in it's own image and all the other races as well. They fought off the Horrors and blah blah blah...

One cycle lasts about 5,000 years. 5 and the beginning of a 6th cycle is about 25,000 and some odd years.

The earliest existing Human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) skull is about 130,000 years old.

Why did the ancients begin counting cycles only 25,000 years ago when there is clearly much more to human history than that?

The age of Dragons was in the 2nd Age. In this time they ruled over all the races. This is also when they created the Immortal Elves to be a higher order of servant.

My hypothesis is that the Dragons came into being (possibly from a metaplane, six limbs and all that) and ruled in the 2nd Age. They discovered a previous, low magic era and called it the 1st Age. The 1st Age was not 5,000 years but much longer. There was no "Zero Age" of magical creation. For whatever reason magic was not present or was too low to give rise (or entry) to Dragon's and other magical creatures.

Dragons invented their Creation Myth to exert some control on their subjects in the 2nd Age. This is much like the Immortal Elves with the Ways and Paths (and after all, where do you think the IE's learned their management style).

Because that's almosty entirely based on carbon dating, which doesn't work like we thing it does making all those dates wrong according to the SR universe.

Possibly, but it's also possible that not all cycles of magic lasted the same length of time. The first few ages could have lasted an immensely long period of time, and the magic level stayed high for longer than people expected it to in the 4th age.

I don't know if it's ever actually explained as a solid 5000 years either. AFAIK the ages are measured from the wake of the first great dragon to when the last goes into hibernation. If it is stated anywhere by someone, it's just as possible the person who mentioned it was lieing.

If magic level is seen as a wave with many smaller preturbations on it, then it's just as possible that there are larger, lower-frequency, waves and that the first age was an insanely long (100k years? down-time and that in a few ages time there will be another equally long (100k years?) up-time for magic. After-all: in the 4th age the magical peak lasted longer than they expected.

Lilt, Ehran the Scribe gave the length of magic cyles in a speech. Here.

As he didn't know that this information was going out to the publc, I think it's less likely he'd lie. Also, I have no evidence that he did lie so I cannot assume that he was lying. He does say that 5,200 years is only an average for the cycles, but just one really long one would screw up his calcultions.

I don't know... it was just an idea.

It'd often alluded to in the SR universe that magic has interactions with radioactivity which aren't very well understood. Dunkelzahn left a chunk of change in his will specifically to research this. Also see the various failed nukes and frequent meltdowns that have occurred just prior to and since the awakening.

It's also then pointed out in several places that carbon dating doesn't work too well with magic. Sometimes returning results suggesting an age of only a few days and other times returning results of thousands of years. Mainly this applies to magical items (Scrolls of Ak'lear for instance) but I'm fairly certain it was alluded to in the case of some Dragon bones in one of the books (maybe Portfolio of a Dragon?)

Chances are there was a super long 'downcycle' during the earths formative period. Seeing as life on earth is what generates the manasphere, when it was no more than a cooling ball of rock there wouldn't have been any mana.

Meanwhile magic rises and falls, generating hundreds upon hundreds (thousands) of 'up' and 'down' cycles... each time the 'up' cycle comes around nothing happens (on earth at least) as there isn't a manasphere.

Life evolves and slowly but surely the manasphere starts to accumulate, rock turns to soil and life permeates it... mother earths aura starts to grow. At this point when we're in an 'up' cycle magic can exist - but there are no sentient life-forms to document it and/or use it. Earth is of no interest to the Horrors when it comes 'close' enough for them to reach it - there are no sentients to torment.

The first age in probably when man first achieved sentience, most likely named retroactively when the 'second' (I use inverted commas because these guys probably called it the second age to distinguish the magic period from non-magical first age, not the zero age as the concept of zero probably hadn't been invented) age came around.

The second age comes, the Horrors finally see something worth visiting Earth for. Dragons come about, etc, etc. Maybe Nightslayer was created in the image of creatures from earth (dinosaurs mayhaps?) and then busts loose and teams up with man and his pals to take on the Horrors. No doubt the creation myth contains a lot of hype and the 'creation' of the other races is maybe more like the Dragons coming here and hooking up with them against the Horrors.

How does that sound for explaining the 5000 year ages of which there've only been 6?

Yes there is all that debate, however the majority of scientists involved accept the validity of radioactive dating (She was really hot! Sorry, bad pun.) In the absence of evidence showng Cosmic Radiation to be variable most assume it is constant.

Prototype, That's actually very similiar to my idea of how it went down. Thanks for articulating it so well.

I once made a timeline based on geological history for Shadowrun (and no, the dragons were not in the Mesozoic, which fell under the fifth age). However I lost it in a crash a while back. If people are interested, I'll rewrite it.

Physics in SR won't difer from reality on at least one point: a theory is true only until somebody modify a parameter and obtain a counter-example.

Now, I assume an "Age" is half a mana-period, beginning with an Awakening or a "fall" and ending with the other. As for counting how long exactly it is, difficult task. I doubt even an immortal could remind and count the exact number of sunrise he saw during an Age. And you have to make such count for at least two or three ages to validly claim their constant in length. There are few IEs who have lived throughout Fourth and Fifth Ages (I remember Alachia does, but that's not my field). Dragons are older, but sleeps during downcycle and can't count them. So even the oldest like Dunkelzahn have actually only seen one full Age (born during the 2nd, saw the 4th completely, still in the 6th). Calendars and stories kept by the rest of the human race may help a lot to do the math, if reliable sources are available. If an IE remember some guys called Menes unified Creana/Egypt around the beginning of the downcycle, it gives a rough idea of how long was the Fifth Age, still with an imprecision of several centuries. And as I said, we need at least the length of two ages to say they're regular. Was there comparable history records in Earthdawn to know how long was the Fourth Age, including a starting point at 7,000 BC with the common theory, and a precise knowledge of how long the Scourge was ?

Another question, I just reread Nightslayer legend in the ED dragons.pdf. Has somebody a quote where it's precisely said the "Age of the Dark One" was directly followed by the "Age of the Dragons", that the dragons ruled the world as soon as Verjigorm left ? Or after which event are the Ages numbered ?

Actually there's an even more obvious reason Dragon Creation Legends are Bunk.

Horrors can only visit Earth during high-mana points.

Mana is created by life on Earth.

Without life (Placed here by Nightslayer the Friendly Horror) no Horror can get here.

Without a Horror (Nightslayer) no life can get here.

Ergo we have a massive chicken-and-egg problem going on.

Idea: perhaps in the 0th age the mana level was permanently high, and Verjigorm did all sorts of crazy things to the world. Then, it created Nightslayer and was driven forth. Somehow or other Nightslayer does the dance of major mojo and starts the cycles turning. The beings created by Nightslayer survive into the First World, the first mana downcycle.

~J

Prototype (and Pthgar, in answer to your original posting), I'd take that magic/radioactivity thing a bit further - ignoring downcycles and that kind of thing, but concentration on what you said about magical items. Its possible, that during previous Ages of Magic, the mana field messed with vast areas (especially around power sites and the many mana lines and so on) in terms of how accurate the carbon dating is. So yeah, that plain old human skull might show as 130000 years old. But maybe its actually only 6000.

If you just want the Star Trek explanation, its because the flangegasket is suffering wangmanglatronic interference and it just IS that way, ok?

Or the wacky sci-fi theory: the world of 2060s shadowrun can be wildly different to ours, since its time line is already obviously different it must be a parrellel universe where the laws of probabilty are already stretched a bit thin purely by the existence of magic, and therefore "our" science may well not work the same there.

But if you dont' like the idea of the figures as you've worked them out, and can't reconcile carbon dating not being accurate, just change the history, man. Who's gonna know except you and your group?

Has there ever been any indication of exactly *why* the mana level fluctuates? Even a pseudoscience Star Trek-explanation?

Spotlight, it's not about any problem I have with SR "history". I just had an idea and wanted to see what everyone thought of it. If it makes for an interesting discussion, so be it.

Mana fluctuates because of the 10th planet Nemesis rotational period brings it around every 5000 years it's made of Orichalcum, see, and when Halley's comet broke off the Dragons rode it here to Earth, or as it was called back then, Perelandra that was before the planet that was between Mars and Jupiter blew up and released Vergigorm and all the Horrors a little later the Grey Aliens created all the rest of the intelligent life on Perelandra which was nearly wiped out by the return of the sencient dinosaurs who left to colonize their own world only now they are returning to earth to suck up it's water and eat us all...

I don't need it. I have imagination.

Pthgar: while my suggestion has no more evidence to support it than yours, it stands a few notches up according to Occam. Shall we be serious now?

~J

Forgetting about the carbon dating, where do all the ancestors of Homo sapiens sapiens fit in? Were there several humanoid ape species in the ED world, all at different stages of evolution? Or did evolution in the ED/SR world work 50 times as fast as it did IRL? What about all the other evolved species: Were the thousands of different dinosaurs just dragons, or were dinosaurs a form of life in the 1st/2nd/3rd ages? What about such oddities as wingless bird-predators, all of the early mammals, and the ancestors of all the current major animals that have gone through significant evolution?

You're going to have to fuck up a whole lot more than just carbon dating to make the Dragon Creation Legends work. I'll refrain from commenting on RL creationism.

[Edit]Granted, I know next to nothing about the Dragon Creation Legends. If they can be understood in such a way that they allow for life on earth millions of years before the 4th world, and even (semi?)sentient life a few hundred thousand years before the 4th age, then they can be worked with.

Anyway, you can read such legends like modern christians read the bible (and I suppose the same goes for muslims with the Quran, and any other significant religious texts): Just leave out the parts you don't like (just consider them "products of their time" etc), and interpret the rest the way you do like.[/Edit]

Still in the realm of plausible speculation, perhaps the Namegiver races existed and evolved before the incident with Nightslayer, but only were given their ability to Namegive by Nightslayer.

~J

Magic and Nuclear Power Fluctuate because somewhere there's a Godlike Computer named ARDNEH which can control the laws of physics. Whenever it seems too likely that mankind will wipe itself out with nuclear weapons ARDNEH changes the force of nuclear power into magical power. This has the unfortunate effect of turning any sustained nuclear reactions into demons (Horrors). When magic looks like it's going to wipe out mankind ARDNEH turns things around and brings back the nuclear forces to save us all.

Yeah, I read too much Saberhagen.

Sorry about that
Yes, levity is good; I've just been following the Ancient History/Master Shake debates too much recently and as such am sorta constantly on the lookout for attacks of the kind. No harm done on this end, and hopefully none over there

~J

It's all good, SR brother.

Just an idea:

The dragon creation myth is a myth. It was created in the prehistory of dragons. It has truths in it, maybe, but it's not the truth.

So AH, which parts are true literally, which are true symbolically, and which are total bunk?

Could it be possible that fossils are just the remains of the creatures created by Vergijorm before Nightslayer? That could explain the gap. Not even the Dragons know Vergijorm's age.

I've always assumed that the dragon creation myth was pretty much the same as Genesis - ie factually inaccurate but reflecting aspects of the culture that created it. The takehome lessons for me were, from the perspective of the dragons:

1) Dragons are the oldest, biggest, and most badass of the Namegiver races,
2) Dragons deserve to be in charge of the other races,
3) Verjigorm hates them specifically, and
4) Verjigorm is a total hardcore ass-kicker.

Beyond that it's just a nice story.

Note that I'm not trying to trash (too much) on the personal beliefs of any creationists on this board. I don't happen to agree with you, but that's a totally different debate that isn't really relevant.

Well, I reckon that the Dragon Myth is just a story, but with some truth. Specifically I reckon that Nightslayer either endowed intelligence and/or namegiving ability on the primitive humans (orks, etc.) he found. With their new namegiving power they helped him kick ass.

As for the fluctuating manacycle. This is the best I can come up with, it's not too complicated but requires some sort of explanation so let's see if I can lay it out.

Imagine the metaplanes as a big mystic-cluster, all swirling around a central point. This central metaplane is the one (or ones) which the horrors are located in. Picture the manasphere around earth as a field which increases in size as we approach the metaplanes and more mana comes through.

Now, imagine our plane as being in elliptical orbit around the metaplanes. When we are at the furthest points from them in our orbit the manacycle is 'down' and when we reach the closest points it is 'up'. The closer we get to the metaplanes the more mana is able to come through and interact with earth to create a manasphere here and the more our mana field expands, eventually overlapping with these planes and allowing interaction and cross-over.

Only at the very closest points are we near enough the center for our plane to overlap with the Horror plane.

Of course, there is also the possibility that other metaplanes are whizzing around having mana-cycles as well thus creating various parrallel realities and the like. It's not the most solid of theories, but it offers some explanation as to how things work!

i've always wondered why everyone puts so much faith in a story whose only witness is the physical manifestation of everything that makes the baby jesus cry.

A) It's just a game.

B) The cycle of magic is based very loosely on certain South American Myths.

C) Earthdawn wasn't originally designed as the "history" of Shadowrun.

D) It's just a friggin' game. Get over it.

Bull

Psst! Bull is really an agent of the Horrors and wants us all to be unprepared when the Awakening hits!
Really, we're not so bad. You have people complaining about the fact that in Marathon the main character mentions remembering being taller than everyone else in his youth back on Mars when a comparison of his height with that of some of the aliens with stated heights shows him to be about 5'7", you've got Myth fans up in arms about the fact that the calendar in the games doesn't entirely line up, and then you've got us.
Well, I suppose you have a point, come to think of it...

~J

My thoughts.

p. 21, Dragons {"On Dragon History and Beliefs"}

Cool, maybe banisment also reduced the mana-level thus causing the 1st (non-magic) age to begin!

Alternatively, maybe the mechanism of banishing was to reduce the mana-level, but it didn't work 100% or something! thus why it occasionally comes back up.

Anyway, it's all good... great stuff!

I love this place. Toss out a theory based on nothing whatsoever, and sooner or later someone comes around to support it (though requiring it to be tweaked, of course)

~J

What support? Never in there did I say that humans were older, nor how long the mana cycles were.

My theory was, at it's most basic level, the rather unimpressive statement that the count of ages begins not so much at the beginning of the world as at the beginning of the Horrors-getting-kicked-out. Essentially, I'm grasping at straws

~J