James Kundert writes:
>Perhaps an irregular dirt clod or a symbolic plant growing from the
>ground for Soil.
I did think about this, but I like my notion that these six represent the
Droyne concept of elements. If they do then Soil is more representative
of all kinds of ground surfaces than of argricultural land only.
>The few Coyn faces we've seen suggest an extremely
>symbolic style, IMHO.
Some of them, like the flame, the sigma wave, and the ice crystal, yes.
But the 'full-body representation of a human' seem pretty direct. That's
one reason why I decided that the six small pictures of the Droyne castes
could concievably be on the coyns.
>Since the major races eventually replaced these, they may also represent
>specific forms of danger, or specific concerns that the Droyne must
>watch for. Grandfather replaced the original Coyns with new ones that
>had different pictures but meant much the same things.
Interesting idea. I'll see if I can make something of it.
Steven M Bonneville writes:
>The concept for an Ancient-era coyn for Eskayloyt is interesting, but
>it should probably be expressed as "Homeworld", since presumably at
>that point it had not yet been lost.
Oh sure. But then, the Phoenix presumably wasn't caled Phoenix either.
This is just a translation. Eskaoyt is what a human archeologist would
cal it if he ever figured it out.
>Also, the Ancient period lasted long enough that it's possible that the
>"Human" and "Vargr" coyns were added before the Final War; humans, at
>least, were fairly well integrated into quite a number of Ancient societies
Agreed. I don't think the Vargr would make it - at that time they were just
one of a number of projects, confined to one world (In my Traveler universe,
at least, the Ancients tried other animals as subject for uplifting, but most
of them failed and none apart from the Vargr achieved major status (there's
one planet in my Foreven Sector with a race uplifted from otters)). But the
humans could have. However, I decided on the assumption that the coyns were
less important to the Ancients - more important than just cards, but not
as important as when the very continuation of your species depend on them.
So I've assumed that they were not modified in Ancient times. Entirely a
matter of choice, of course.
>>3) Grandfather modified the coyns on later visits and introduced the Aslan,
>> Hiver and K'kree coyns (at least). [_Secret of The Ancients_ p 32].
>
>Note that all six species represented on the coyns are important powers.
>Yaskoydray didn't accidentally pick a "minor" race that didn't make it.
>And of those six, five developed hyperdrive independently. It makes one
>wonder if he didn't use something like the Zhodani core artifact to peer
>into the future.
For my part I abhor the causality violation implicit in precognition
(unless the precognition is merely really good extrapolation ability).
So I assume that the Aslan coyn didn't get introduced until the Aslans
were already into space in a big way. As far as I'm concerned Grand-
daddy (or, in my universe, the mysterious beings behind the Grandfather
Legend) made one of his every-10,000-year visits to our universe around
- -1000 and updated the coyns at the time.
>Or tamper with _TRS Pathfinder_ so that the Aslan got
>jump drive just before they could blow themselves into oblivion.
That is another possibility that I've considered, but why would Gramps
bother?
>>Voyages A sailing ship.
>
>Or a STL starship -- the pre-Ancient Droyne did have tech-10 without jump
>drive for thousands of years before the Ancient period; they even had a
>couple of interstellar colonies.
True. But if the six lost coins really was hunting animals then the other
coyns were propably made up at a time when hunting was still important to
the Droyne.
>Also, note some interesting coyn relationships from the table:
>
>Genesis | Aspiration | Sacrifice | Defeat | Death | Achievement
> The life cycle. Observe the droyne lesson; one is born, dreams,
> makes sacrifices (for the common good?), meets eventual defeat,
> then death, but *then* attains true achievement. Defeat and death
> are not the victor. Is this droyne philosophy peeking out? Or
> even a droyne concept of the after-life? Interesting.
A very interesting idea! However, that would mean that Sacrifice couldn't
depict a krinaytsui ceremony. What could it be instead?
> Darkness | Cold | Noise | Signal | Heat | Light
> A progressively more positive line of "energy" or "positive entropy".
> Note how the pairs work. The "Void--Fire" series also may work like
> this.
Interesting.
> Beast | Mercenary | Voyages | Justice | Chance | Phoenix
> Think of this like the "energy" sextet. It would then pair from
> closest to most extreme as: Voyages/Justice, Merc/Chance, Beast/Phoenix.
This one seems a bit strained. But an interesting idea, nonetheless.
Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
[email removed]
- ------------
"A subsector official pompously states that the
subsector armed forces have four Kinunir class
ships in service, each with enough troop strength
to put down any military operations that threathen
the peace of the Imperium."
---Adventure 1, The Kinunir