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This topic was taking up allot of room on the chapter threads so I thought it deserved it own.
On Arcan creation many people have supported human creation I don't.
First reason arcan humanness. If arcans were made by humans to fight in the war. Said humans would have gone only as far as was necessary to get what they needed. Arcans are to finished in their Physical design. I mean why mix two species. I would compare that to trying to combine two pieces of legacy code that never were meant to go together. Not link, but combine them into a bigger whole. I think it would be easier to start from one base.
Second, intelligence, or sentience, I think everyone agrees that the arcans started out as little better than animals. Some thing like that would not be of help in an industrialized society liked the ancients were supposed to have, they would be good for is manual labor and even then keeping them would require to many resources. They would not be allowed any were near a battle field with that functional level.
Third, variety there are to many different kinds of incompatible arcans. I would think that the military would wait until they had effective arcans until started making other types. With the arcans original level of intelligence, I don't think they would have gone beyond prototypes. Well, Doctor Moreau did, but he was a mad scientist, and didn't have the DoD looking over his shoulder.
Now what do I think could have created them?
1. Experiments with spirit energy before the breach.
2. Some extenuating circumstances when they were exposed to spirit energy during or afterr The Breach.
3. The Spirits.
4. They could have been a pet craze before The War.
5. A "furry" enthusiast could have channeled allot of spirit energy during the breach or maybe spirit energy transformed "furry" enthusiasts (Hey it could have happened and idea just sticks in mind whenever this subject comes up.)

I rather agree with ANTIcarrot's take on it, economics is why they exist.

Why sell one self replicating machine when you can sell lots of different models and keep the design face and make future business to yourself.

One -selling point- may be that they are self replicating, but you know who are going to breed and sell them in reality, as breeding takes time and effort witch regular military organization would like to spend elsewhere.
Heck, i see a business for subcontractors handling breeding, and perhaps basic training, who in turn sell them or are doing it under contract.

The stupid (Arkan) ones may or may not be fixable with modern medicine, heck it could have something to do with supplements during pregnancy for all we know, or something else relative simple.
I doubt they are all a beta version tho, but perhaps not so wherry well developed yet before the "magical emp" happened.

Edit: and it is hardly only military or such places who would be customers.
Heh, it may even be -one- of the reasons or points in the war.

Multiple breeds don't preclude Human genetic engineering. You make the Arcan based on needs. If you need a Soldier Arcan you find Animals that instincts would make good soldiers ie: wolves. Wolves have pack loyalty, they work in grps to accomplish goals which is the heart of small unit tactics. If you need a maid to serve dinner to the rich well a wolf wouldn't be the best choice you need a different breed one prone to less hostile intent. So they would pick and tailor breeds to the jobs they needed done.

It's also possible that someone was working on a method to allow the splicing of specific animal genes into humans to provide for better strength or stamina or night vision or ... to make better soldiers and made a little boo-boo in a virus that escaped and got out of hand. oops.

I mean, it's not like were not already doing cross-species genetic engineering. Somebody could try to come up with a better way to do recombination through viruses that would infect women and change early stage embryos. I was involved in a bio-ethics conference discussion on this once and none of the doctor's could come up with and many wouldn't agree with "First, do no harm."

I'm not propossing that it did happen that way, only that it's not that far out of the bounds of plausibility.

furry_wolf2001b wrote:I rather agree with ANTIcarrot's take on it, economics is why they exist.

Why sell one self replicating machine when you can sell lots of different models and keep the design face and make future business to yourself.

One -selling point- may be that they are self replicating, but you know who are going to breed and sell them in reality, as breeding takes time and effort witch regular military organization would like to spend elsewhere.
Heck, i see a business for subcontractors handling breeding, and perhaps basic training, who in turn sell them or are doing it under contract.

All right, another reason why I do not think the military would want them is predators are sure thing operators. Their instincts would be screaming run away in a combat situation.

The stupid (Arkan) ones may or may not be fixable with modern medicine, heck it could have something to do with supplements during pregnancy for all we know, or something else relative simple.
I doubt they are all a beta version tho, but perhaps not so wherry well developed yet before the "magical emp" happened.

I am assuming a strait forward iteration of today. The ACLU would have a field day with that. The military are only ones that could get away with something like this(requiring something like WWIII,) and they would go strait combat.

Edit: and it is hardly only military or such places who would be customers.
Heh, it may even be -one- of the reasons or points in the war.

kabalman2000 wrote:It's also possible that someone was working on a method to allow the splicing of specific animal genes into humans to provide for better strength or stamina or night vision or ... to make better soldiers and made a little boo-boo in a virus that escaped and got out of hand. oops.

I mean, it's not like were not already doing cross-species genetic engineering. Somebody could try to come up with a better way to do recombination through viruses that would infect women and change early stage embryos. I was involved in a bio-ethics conference discussion on this once and none of the doctor's could come up with and many wouldn't agree with "First, do no harm."

I'm not propossing that it did happen that way, only that it's not that far out of the bounds of plausibility.

Yes, this is possible, but this gets down to the core reason why I object. Fel is a good writer, and there has not been any hint that, The Great Civilization could have made them other than from the loremasters who are not the best sources for the truth. There is no for-shadowing. The civilization would have been lauded for it's control over life, and there would be other examples of bioengineering around. The Loremasters would not be able to pass up the chance for another way to praise The Great Civilization and themselves.

hoppy wrote:Yes, this is possible, but this gets down to the core reason why I object. Fel is a good writer, and there has not been any hint that, The Great Civilization could have made them other than from the loremasters who are not the best sources for the truth.

On the other hand we've seen no evidence for anything about the GAC. No ruins. No artifacts. Characters have vaguely mentioned it, but we know absolutely nothing about it. If we apply your high standards (which are quite reasonable) then the whole GAC might be nothing more than a loremaster myth.

Or at least we've seen nothing identified as an artifact or ruin - behind a few vaguely familiar city names.

Umm, there are other weird creatures around, it says so in the story wherry clearly.
One (as far as i can remember) is a bovine peaceful minotaur kind of creature.
Another is all those monsters that are around.

Or am i mixing this story with some other one in my head? :-/

Remember, anything witch can not breed, and in adequate numbers at that, will -not- be around.
Add to that it has to be able to survive and prosper in wild nature, as the human keepers most likely wont have time or reason or perhaps even the ability to help it stay around, unless it is a -damed- good reason to do so.

furry_wolf2001b wrote:Umm, there are other weird creatures around, it says so in the story wherry clearly.
One (as far as i can remember) is a bovine peaceful minotaur kind of creature.
Another is all those monsters that are around.

Or am i mixing this story with some other one in my head? :-/

Remember, anything witch can not breed, and in adequate numbers at that, will -not- be around.
Add to that it has to be able to survive and prosper in wild nature, as the human keepers most likely wont have time or reason or perhaps even the ability to help it stay around, unless it is a -damed- good reason to do so.

There are the monsters which are obviously post-breach, because they need to eat crystals. The monsters have been used to say that arcans could not have been created by the crystals/spirit-enargy/Breach, because they if they were, they would be like the monsters. I find this very inconclusive. The thing is arcans are not like monsters. So, maybe the arcans ancestors had something different happen with them than whatever happened to the monsters ancestors.
Well, if The Ancient Civilization could create all the species of arcans, I would think they would have made something practical, useful, and simple that would have been kept. If not that, then as I said, why no stories of bio-tech, other than saying that the arcans were created.

I don't think ALL "monsters" need crystals.
I think (but i may be wrong) that some where it said that some monsters eat, or need to eat crystals.
I do not remember if the bovine ones needed em, but i doubt it as that would make em way too expensive to farm.

furry_wolf2001b wrote:I don't think ALL "monsters" need crystals.
I think (but i may be wrong) that some where it said that some monsters eat, or need to eat crystals.
I do not remember if the bovine ones needed em, but i doubt it as that would make em way too expensive to farm.

You are correct, the shadowfoxs don't eat crystals they get their energy directly from the spirit plane. Also the eating of crystals was used in conjunction of powers not as food as shown by the confrontation between Kyven and a Monster on the way to Deep Water.

Some monsters, however, were very dangerous and had crystal-based abilities. They ate crystals and used them to power their abilities, which made them a double scourge. Not only were they dangerous, but they consumed the most precious natural resource to the human world.
Your people have never seen one of my children, she added lightly. They have the power to meld with the shadows, making them invisible in the night. That is how they hunt.
“A sensible way to go about it,” he noted. “Do they eat crystals?”
No. They absorb the energy to grant them that power from the spirit world. It is a minor power and does not require so much energy as a crystal holds to enact. It is for them the same as spirit sight is for you, a passive ability.

Kyven heard bones snapping as the monster probably ate half the deer in one bite, and he left the Ursorax to finish off his deer as he bolted at full speed.

Hmm, I wonder whether there will be living creatures,monsters that will be able to store the power of the spirits in their bodies besides the channeling the way the shaman do.

I remember the shadow creature from tarrin's universe which goes round to absorb the energy, wear magical artifacts.

A shaman that is able to store this energy will somehow be more powerful, as making crystals is a time and energy consuming process. But to store in their body and then able to power magical devices on their bodies will be something else.

Hmm, bypassing the wish/visualization phase and just channeling the power into a device.
That is what would be bypassed as they both use their bodies as battery and capacitor as bridge for the power they channel or ask for their spirits to help with.
-If- i remember it correctly. .-/
And why be a lazy bum, wen you got time and power over there seem no reason no to stock up on "crystal battery's" if they can use em for battery's.
I think they should use some devices when they want to be able to have the maximum pool of power left for whatever when they are on "missions".
But then again, they probably most of the time pass as wild arcans or slave arcans, and those don't run around with such stuff.
And it would probably be them that risk running into a really draining situation.
But i don't know how big a risk it is to run out of "juice" during a mission thats perhaps gone furbar.