Some questions...maybe answered :)
Maxx
this newsgroup (like a big, vast, sucking void!), so I couldn't help but
respond to your queries.
I've heard several other fans expressing the same confusion and asking the
same questions as you. I was in the same boat after reading the first batch
of books. My advice to you is to read The Intervention books on through The
Galactic Milieu series, if you haven't already. All will become clear. I
promise.
But, just in case you're a little impatient to find the answers that you
seek, I could maybe help you out a little. Just stop reading now if you
don't want me to spoil the surprises... :D
Yes, that is Marc playing the part of Atoning Unifex. Apparently when he
and Elizabeth trolliped off together to Duat at the end of the Pliocene
books, he finally got his dream of creating "Mental Man" by engendering the
Lylmik race. I agree, I would love to know more about Marc and Elizabeth's
'life', if you want to call it that, on Duat, how the Lylmik came about,
and/or were engineered, and exactly what he did in those 6 or so million
years between the Pliocene and the Milieu (probably just plotting and
far-spying). But unless JM decides to write a companion series bridging the
two "worlds", as it were, that bit of history will go unwritten. It is
interesting to speculate about, though. JM made it pretty darn clear who
"Le Fantome Familiere" was, especially in Jack The Bodiless which dealt a
good deal with Marc's childhood and adolescence, but primarily in The
Surveillance and Metaconcert, when Uncle Rogi finally figures out who this
bossy Lylmik is, and why he/it is so damned concerned with the Remillard's
family memoirs. The implications sparked by the end of the Pliocene books
were fulfilled for me at that point (as I stated above, Duat, etc.), but it
took a while (and the rest of the series!) for several of my friends to
figure out what was going on with this. And forgive me for being a little
long-winded on this particular subject; the complexities of Marc's storyline
and the story cycle (I'll just say that instead of 'Paradox') it entails
fascinates me- but unfortunately trips me up as I describe the books to
others who are interested in the series. I think you see what I mean...It's
a little complex to be sure!
To my best understanding, none of the other Lylmik supervisors are
identifiable, if you mean 'identifiable' as "are they a former story
character like Marc?". I believe that they are just simply part of the
Lylmik race engendered by Marc, and their supervisory committee is ruled by
his now "Atoning Unifex" character. You can really see what I mean if you
note the naivete on the part of the four Lylmik supervisors when it comes
to human affairs (dress, dogs, sex...you know, the important stuff!). They
seem to be constantly bemused/perturbed at Unifex's attempts to show what it
is like to live "as the poor folk do". But here's an interesting point on
this subject: when Marc still inhabited his corporeal body in the Milieu and
Pliocene, nothing was more important than to create Mental Man (i.e. Jack
envy), and take humanity up a notch, evolutionarily speaking. Yet, after
the aeons of living as a Lylmik (and atoning, I'm sure), he suddenly seems
quite possessed with the idea of forcing human customs and attributes upon
his Lylmik colleagues. A nice change in attitude- a total contradiction!
Could it be due to the dawning demise of the Lylmik race, which is eluded to
in the last set of books, but never really explained in length? I see that
I've taken this answer down a completely different path altogether, but I
would love to hear other's opinions on this topic.
As far as what happened in the Milieu after The Many Colored Land...well, I
suppose that life went on. I mean, we get glimpses through Rogi in the
'present' as he works on and completes the memoirs (the Dartmouth Winter
festival, his meeting with Hagen and Cloud, etc.), and while it appears that
there is still some residual pain and continued healing after the events in
2083, not a whole heck of a lot else is going on. Some have suggested that
JM continue the story set in the Milieu. I have to disagree. Without
characters like Marc, Jack, Dennis, Fury and Dorothea, it's just not a
story. I mean, I love Rogi and all, don't get me wrong! And I honestly
found Hagen and Cloud to be the most boring characters in the series. So, I
do believe that up to TMCL...that's all she wrote, folks. Unless you'd like
a series on Onc' Rogi's drinking habits...
Which brings us to "What's so special about Uncle Rogi". Well...apparently
he's the de facto patriarch of the Remillard clan, playing the father
figure/ grandfather/ confidant to all the important people in the family or
affiliated within. While he inadvertently helped to mold metapsychic
education (Denis), and support the rebellion, his own abilities were always
dreadfully latent, though, on occasion, surprisingly powerful. Perhaps this
is why Marc/Atoning Unifex bestowed the Great Carbuncle upon him. But
Marc/Unifex did live through it once, knowing what it could be used for, so
perhaps that's it. Or maybe there's nothing special at all about him other
than the fact that he could be used as a tool. Let's just say he came, he
saw, he wrote, he drank, he wrote some more, then drank some more, etc. All
that aside, no one knew more personally the family's story, from beginning
to end, than Rogi. No one knew why the Remillards did the things they did
better than he. But more importantly, he lived to tell the tale. And I
think that makes him pretty darn special, don't you?
So, I hope this helped. I also hope that whomever reads this is still awake
and forgives my typical over-indulgence wordwise. As well, I hope that you
don't think I'm some nutty, kooky person with way too much time on my hands
(only partially true...) But what I really hope is that this might spark
further discussion on-line, peak some interests, and prompt some people to
pass the word along! Julian May is too gifted an author for her wonderful
books to go undiscovered. Tell your friends-tell some strangers! You'll
feel better, I promise.
Amanda ;P
felli...@hotmail.com. "The sagacious reader who is
capable
of reading between
these
lines what does not stand
written in them, but
is nevertheless implied,
will be able
to form some conception."
. Autobiography. Book
xviii. Truth and Beauty.
Cory C. Albrecht
>Yes, that is Marc playing the part of Atoning Unifex. Apparently when he
>and Elizabeth trolliped off together to Duat at the end of the Pliocene
>books, he finally got his dream of creating "Mental Man" by engendering the
>Lylmik race.
Not quite. The Lylmik are purely the product of our own Milky Way
galaxy. The Tanu/Firvulag and their racial congeners over in the Duat
galaxy are not thge Lylmik minus 6 million years of evolution. In
reading the Intervention and Galactic Milieu series one finds out that
after raising the Duat galaxy to true operance (possibly even
coadunation and Unity), not limited by the torcs, Elizabeth died because
she was too tired to continue on any more. No doubt that was a huge
task, requiring many "skin" regenerations, taking potentially a few
million years - I know I'd be tired! From one of the Lylmik Supervisors
we find that Marc returned from the Duat galaxy and gave the Lylmik race
new meaning by manifesting the Protocols of Unification. It has been
suggested that Elizabeth might be one of the Supervisors, but I
seriously doubt that after being tired by her work in the Duat galaxy
that she would return to the Milky Way and start all over again.
As to Marc's Mental Man project - I disagree that his work in the Duat
galaxy or again here in the Milky Way was the finale of that project.
If, for a moment, you consider the Duat galaxy and Milky Way galaxy
works as the original, then Mental Man is a cruel perversion thereof -
chopping off babies' legs and grafting them to motorised carts, as Hagen
Remillard explained it to Diane Manion in The Adversary.
--
Cory C. Albrecht
http://www.sentex.ca/~cory/
laurads...@gmail.com
darksla...@gmail.com
Dear Michael
The living ships of Brede's galaxy were somewhat different. The first one to reach our Milky Way six million years ago was the one that carried the Exiles. Brede's ship was able to enclose a mundane-ish habitat capsule (or create one from its substance) in which the humanoid Exiles traveled. And of course, it had a spouse ...
Now, when Marc and Elizabeth d-jumped to the Duat galaxy to free the Tanu/Firvulag population from torc dependency and introduce other Duat races to Unity, THERE WERE NO LYLMIK. Implicit in my Saga is the notion that Marc and Elizabeth transmogrified into the Mental Man phase of humanity and reproduced, then evolved into Lylmik form rather rapidly. Mental Men don't need human bodies ... or DO they? At an appropriate time--see below for a likely scenario--they migrated back to the Milky Way, led by Marc. He identifies himself somewhere in the Saga as THE Lylmik!
You will recall that it was a psychological thing that made Marc unable to restore his fertility in a regen tank back on earth. He could easily build a tank in the Duat galaxy and engender a race of proto-Lylmik in humanoid form which evolved into "real" Lylmik. Recall how the decadent Lylmik of the Milieu Era took easily to human bodies. Now we know why Marc/Unifex urged this method of revitalization on his Quincunx buddies.
None of the exotic races of the Galactic Milieu knew just how old the Lylmik were. We might assume they were much less than a million years old when Marc and Elizabeth completed the cure for torc-addiction and started many Duat races on the way to Unity.
Thus Marc's redemption was partly accomplished. Perhaps Elizabeth, before she relinquished her life there in Duat, suggested a NEW work for Marc and the Lylmik race back home in the good old Milky Way, where there were countless exotic races with Unity potential, ready to be shepherded by kindly mentors, who would travel chez nous in their spiffy ships.
It would be a long and frustrating task; our galaxy wasn't "ripe" for change like Duat. The Krondaku might have finally come around by 500,000 BC. But imagine how tired of the Milky Way recalcitrants a majority of the Lylmik were by then! On to decadence and elitist withdrawal!
Now you and your Coterie have sampled the unwritten (and never to be written by me) sequel to MAGNIFICAT. As to your original query about Lylmik ships, they were Marc's variation of an ancient Duat race--alas, not requiring shipspouses. To him such a refinement was quite superfluous.
Fond regards,
Julian