At Alain's request, I will give my opinion here, for whatever it's worth.
Alain wrote:Okay, so I reviewed the Anvil Galaxy and just wanted to clear up some erroneous claims...
- The Altess are... descended from the humans that inhabited the Three Galaxies.
This is, unfortuantely, impossible. Humans, the Humans of Terra Prime, did not arrive in the Three Galaxies until -10,000 years ago (at the beginning of the third Galactic Era). They were reduced to barbarism and spent teh next 5000 years learning how to be a space faring race.
The Kilter Atrocities took place 9000 years ago, during which time the Humans on Terra Prime were probably re-discovering fire. There is no way they could have settled the Anvil Galaxy, which is 30,000 light-years away.
If the two races, Humans and Altess are in anyway related, it is because the Altess were likewise placed in the Three Galaxies by persons unknown.
Take for example, the fact that Altess Prime is their "origin world." Yet on Galdon, a compeltely different planet, we find ancinet temples, dedicated to the worship of the Cosmic Forge, that "predate Altess history". And the Altess have some reason to beleive that their barbarian ancestors lived here... so how can one species be from two different planets?
The answer of course, is that Bill Coffin had never even looked at a Phase World book until Kevin told him to write Anvil Galaxy; he even admits it in the book's intro. Many, many times throughout Anvil Galaxy Mr Coffin writes one thing and then contradicts it pages later. Not his fault, and I still love teh book, but the above problem with the Altess is a good example. We cannot take the author's at their word.
Now, Plato puts the sinking of Atlantis in 9300 BC (really, Plato said it happend 9 millenia before his time). Assuming synconisity across the MegaVerse, which I do, it would seem that the Atlanteans were far more advanced than the Altess (who were in the midst fo the Atrocities at teh same time, and only became immortal rich high-tech people
after the killing), and the Humans of Terra Prime, whom, as I've said, are busily making flint weapons.
So if anyone is descended from anyone, it is the Altess who are the descendants of the Atlanteans. but, since the Altess do not bear the Marks of Heritage, this is very unlikely.
Alain wrote:- I don't know the relation between Atlantis and the earth humans, but it would make sense that the Atlanteans are descendants of the original human race on Earth. They travelled from the future into the past.
I'm not sure where you get the time travel notion, but the Atlanteans are Earth, as in Rifts Earth, natives. They evolved here, and just happened, by their atunement to all things magical, to have created the Earth's first, great civilization. We all live in their aftermath.
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Alain wrote:he Altess might be interested in Rift Technology as a means to go back in time before the Kilter Massacre, and save their lost genetic heritage.
Very possible. Maybe they are already working on it...although, if certain sentences in my upcoming Phase World book remain unedited, it is impossible to go back or alter the past (doesn't mean you can't try, just means that the past is the past, and it cannot be changed).
Alain wrote:- The Sunaj assassin's reason to destroy their own race are quite dubious (could someone fill me in?).
Basically, they are just jerks.
In short, it's a very interesting theory, with some compelling ideas, but personally, I just don't buy it. The Altess are not related to Altantis or the displaced human race from Terra Prime. They are simply aliens who rolled low on the alien appearance table, and thus were "indistinguishable from a human being"