22 réponses à ce sujet

[eschilde]

 Okay! This is what I think happened, please poke holes in it as freely as you want, I would like to hear others' views on this.

1) At some point the humans, elves, and dwarves all worked together to build some cities.
2) The elves at this point worshipped their own pantheon, which has since been revived. The elves had knowledge of many forms of magic, and at this point they had very long lives and ended them by going into the long sleep in the Fade.
3) The Black City did once exist in the Fade as the Golden City. The City might have had something to do with the long lives of the elves.
4) The humans (Tevinter) wanted the long lives of the elves
5) The humans and elves traded knowledge, the human mages learned of a connection and possible path to the City
6) Because the path was not strictly open to them they had to do some crazy rituals, probably involving the summoning of spirits to find out what was going on, maybe to build a bridge or something, implying blood magic. Given that the Tevinters worshipped the dragons, maybe they tried to use the dragons to get there.
7) They figure out how to get to the City, but opening up a path for them also opens up a path for other forces, like bad spirits, and weakens the veil, causing spirits to flood out and destroy the old civilizations, like the Brecilian forest, and causing the original downfall of the elves
8) ???
9) Darkspawn
10) ???
11) Enchantment!

[Herr Uhl]

The life expectancy of the elves had plummeted before they reached the golden city and Arlatchan fell before that too.



I wonder if the elves ever lived for as long as they claim though.

[ReubenLiew]

Probably as made up as the theory that the man is purposefully spending inordinate amounts of cash to keep the black man down.

[eschilde]

Herr Uhl wrote...

The life expectancy of the elves had plummeted before they reached the golden city and Arlatchan fell before that too.

I wonder if the elves ever lived for as long as they claim though.

Is that really true? :S the history from that period seems to be kind of scattered.

I thought Arlathan was the period when they had long lives? The Codex mentions that the long life of the elves withered from contact with the Imperium, which is why I was thinking they were related >.>

[Kohaku]

The enchantment part threw me. XD



This is one of the main reasons I love going to the Dalish camp. Their stories on how everything went down make me wish I could stay there or that they were real. I really would love to get more information about them. Even a bigger DLC subquest or something involving them and their history.

[mousestalker]

I've always blamed the Illuminatis use of mind control lasers on the gnomes of Zurich to explain everything. The freemasons and the elders of zion merely run interference for our true masters, the girl scouts.

:innocent:

Modifié par mousestalker, 07 janvier 2010 - 05:02 .

[Herr Uhl]

eschilde wrote...
I thought Arlathan was the period when they had long lives? The Codex mentions that the long life of the elves withered from contact with the Imperium, which is why I was thinking they were related >.>

Well, I'm not 100% on when they fell, but they had elven slaves aplenty when they reached the golden city. Their blood was put to good use.

[ReubenLiew]

Quite frankly the idea that somehow contact with an outside race would quicken their lifetime is somewhat absurd, unless some magic was involved in it, which is doubtful as men were supposedly somewhat crude then.

They probably saw mummified remains of their ancestors ala egyptians and thought at one point immortal life was the territory of elves once.

[robertthebard]

I actually postulated once upon a time that the tainting of the Golden City is what actually caused the "quickening" of the elves. When it became tainted, they lost their life spans. The order of these events is questionable at best, from lore we have. Tevinter subjugated the elves first, which is when Arlathan fell, and after some time they lost their immortality. Andraste freed the elves, albeit not her intended goal, but a side effect of the March, hence we got the Dales, and ultimately the Dalish, since the Chantry resented the elves for not allowing a Chantry to be built in their lands.



I can't remember what thread that was in, but it seems that David Gaider shot that down in that thread.

[Kohaku]

When I talked to Layna I thought that was somewhat strange too. There wasn't really a good explanation about it either.

[Skadi_the_Evil_Elf]

Herr Uhl wrote...

The life expectancy of the elves had plummeted before they reached the golden city and Arlatchan fell before that too.

I wonder if the elves ever lived for as long as they claim though.

I wonder this myself. Long life and immortality ruined by the mere presence of humans? Somehow, it seems wishful thinking, and a story element to futher harden the indignation of the elves against the humans. As with all lore in DA, it's very much open to interpretation and speculation.

Somehow, I do not think the mere presence of humans would be enough to strip something as potent as immortality away. If they were immortal, or at least extremely long lived as they say, there has to be something more to the story than simple contact. perhaps the elves were engaging in some form of dark magic, such as blood magic themselves, or some other seriously nefarious practices that started shortening their lifespans. Maybe they learned these things from humans, or, from other sources, and it began weakening their race.

Who knows.

[KilrB]

Herr Uhl wrote...

eschilde wrote...
I thought Arlathan was the period when they had long lives? The Codex mentions that the long life of the elves withered from contact with the Imperium, which is why I was thinking they were related >.>

Well, I'm not 100% on when they fell, but they had elven slaves aplenty when they reached the golden city. Their blood was put to good use.

... could explain why they didn't live nearly as long under the Imperium.

[Valmy]

robertthebard wrote...

I actually postulated once upon a time that the tainting of the Golden City is what actually caused the "quickening" of the elves. When it became tainted, they lost their life spans.

But...the Golden City is a Chantry thing and the Elves do not even worship or believe in their religion.  Wouldn't the Elves get their immortality, presuming they had it, from their own Gods and not the Maker?

Further the supposed tainting of the Golden City did not happen until right at the end of the Imperium, long after the Elves had been enslaved by the Imperium and lost their supposed immortality.

Who knows if any of that stuff really happened in the Dragon Age universe.

[Valmy]

KilrB wrote...
... could explain why they didn't live nearly as long under the Imperium.

I find it hard to believe you buy all the rest of the stuff but have a hard time believing that contact with humans takes away elvish immortality.  Being an elf is obviously something that requires some sort of purity and isolation from other races anyway.  For example any breeding between an elf and something else always results in something else.  Elves have a bizarre and supernatural physiology.

[Greenphrog]

11 is for sure true!

[ReubenLiew]

Quite frankly those elves should be glad they're no longer immortal.

Nothing destroys drive and creativity like excessive amounts of time.

[KilrB]

Valmy wrote...

KilrB wrote...
... could explain why they didn't live nearly as long under the Imperium.

I find it hard to believe you buy all the rest of the stuff but have a hard time believing that contact with humans takes away elvish immortality.  Being an elf is obviously something that requires some sort of purity and isolation from other races anyway.  For example any breeding between an elf and something else always results in something else.  Elves have a bizarre and supernatural physiology.

I'm referring to the fact that the Imperium's use of elven slaves for sacrifice to power it's Blood Magic rituals would have a tendency to shorten their life-spans, drastically.

I don't know what you're driving at ...

[eschilde]

Well, the Golden City does get perpetuated by the Chantry, but it's not unbelievable that the Black City once existed in a non-black form :S and the Black City is always visible in the Fade, the only constant thing about it, so there's got to be something about it.

I can't remember what thread that was in, but it seems that David Gaider shot that down in that thread.

David Gaider shoots down a lot of theories fistshakes and sandpandas

[Maconbar]

Why would humans want to have the long life that the elves have? I am sure that they know the story from the Akallabeth.

[eschilde]

Well, as motives go it's not any worse than "let's go to the golden city, for the hell of it, and also because it's shiny." That isn't necessarily the reason, it could be for any number of things, but it would be convenient if that was the motive.

[Eruanna Guerrein]

With the fall of Arlathan, the elves lost most of their heritage. My thought was that magic was a bigger part of their heritage than it even is DA time and that that played a part in the loss of their longer life spans.

[Maria Caliban]

eschilde wrote...

Is that really true? :S the history from that period seems to be kind of scattered.

I thought Arlathan was the period when they had long lives? The Codex mentions that the long life of the elves withered from contact with the Imperium, which is why I was thinking they were related >.>

1 FA: Founding of Arlathan
4,500 FA: Humans and Elves first meet
6,405 FA: Tivinter Imperium founded

"Humans spread across Thedas as various tribes of people known as the Ciriane, the Planacene, the Hacian, and the Alamarri—but it is the Tevinters, centered on the port city of Minrathous, who became ascendant.

History records that elves and humanity were hostile and that Tevinter led the way in aggressive retaliation against the elven city of Arlathan. The elves responded by retreating from human contact, and Tevinter thus flourished and spread. The first “dreamers” learned the use of lyrium to enter the Fade from elven captives, and these dreamers later became the first of the Imperium’s ruling magisters."

7,205 FA: When the Magisters supposedly tried to enter the Golden City.

[AndreaDraco]

I agree that, at some point, some Human Tribe and the Elves must have worked together in building what we now see as the ruins in the Brecilian Forest, and I also think that the Golden/Black has played a pivotal role in the fall of the Elves - at least, even if the Chantry made it the seat of the Maker, there is no reason not to assume that the City has always been an integral part of the Fade, and maybe a place "worshipped" even by the Elves.