So...
Were the vampires Eldrazi creations now? Shaped and formed from some desire to consume and gain energy so they could create the spawn and scion who can absorb and consume from non-living sources?
You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
Awesome story, Drana was an excellent black protagonist, "I belong to no one . . . but they belong to me." Perfect.
I wonder if they're setting Drana up for an ascension. There isn't really room for more planeswalker cards in Oath, but it could be an interesting development for another return. I imagine it would happen from her consuming more Eldrazi.
So...
Were the vampires Eldrazi creations now? Shaped and formed from some desire to consume and gain energy so they could create the spawn and scion who can absorb and consume from non-living sources?
It does seem to be strongly suggested that the Zendikar vampires used to be a type of Eldrazi drone that somehow managed to become something else.
So...
Were the vampires Eldrazi creations now? Shaped and formed from some desire to consume and gain energy so they could create the spawn and scion who can absorb and consume from non-living sources?
It does seem to be strongly suggested that the Zendikar vampires used to be a type of Eldrazi drone that somehow managed to become something else.
Nahiri said there weren't Vampires on Zendikar originally, perhaps they arose as a side effect of the titans being trapped on Zendikar.
Wow, tons of set up in this story! The suspense is in full force now. I got it sort of muddled when Drana was "interpreting" I guess? the Eldrazi sire's "thoughts" or "purpose" or whatever, but two things stood out from me from there if those parts were the Eldrazi and not Drana's thoughts. It sounded to me like the Eldrazi "clean" broken, maybe undesirable? planes. I think someone suggested this. It could also be tied to the greater purpose Ugin thinks they may have. The other thing, and this is the main thing I'm not sure about it, it seems like this might confirm that the brood actually has their own thought processes in so much as Eldrazi can have such a thing.
The other thing unrelated to the Drana and Eldrazi fight was that they seem like they're setting the goal of "sending back" the Eldrazi to where they "wanted to go". I wonder what this means. Maybe Ulamog isn't "defeated" insomuch as maybe "ejected" to the Blind Eternities, or maybe more unbelievably, to the plane they wanted to go before being sidetracked into Zendikar? I guess there's to little to go off of to even suggest something so ridiculous, and the whole point of following Planeswalkers primarily is to make this so such a plot device isn't needed, but maybe the Aligned Hedron Network is a new sort of Phyrexian Portal? There were so many charged and suggestive tidbits in this story, it's really exciting to see where they take everything. The flavor text on Hedron Network doesn't make it sound like that could be the case, though.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
That's a really interesting take. As I read it, I thought they were referring to the individual creatures. You know how pieces of the Eldrazi are all part of a whole, they might interpret individual beings as being 'broken' apart from one another.
I've interpreted Eldrazi calling material world "broken" as something referring to formation of worlds from blind eternities. Would very much want to see such cosmology piece further developed, and the piece of Drana thinking she can use the energy of eldrazi to get "there" (?) further explained. Also want to know what exactly happened to Kalitas and see that side of eldrazi-vampires interaction.
You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
Exactly what crossed my mind. For them, the perfect state seem to be the Blind Eternities. Like an immunity system of the Multiverse trying to eliminate the various tumors and cysts in it.
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100% Vorthos Spike and Storyline Expert
Former Fact Prospector of the Greek Alliance.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Very interesting story. I liked to see Drana and I enjoyed the reading, though I think that the writing strategy of saying one phrase and repeating it over and over is a little bit cheap, it didn't feel as much in this UR.
Some questions and observations:
- I didn't understand why she had to send specifically the orphans to 'distract' the sire. She could have sent regular humans, or other mortals (if the vampires were not eager to sacrifice themselves). I don't see why it had to be kids. The only reason I could come up with is that by sending the kids she forces the Kor to follow the plan so kids are not slaughtered, but it seemed to me that the kors had all the intention to follow the plan anyway.
- I didn't like very much to see the thoughts of the eldrazi with that much clarity. Well, before that, it was not very clear if Drana was remembering that she, in the beggining, was an eldrazi as well that got separated from Ulamog or she was merely mind-reading the sire that somehow got separated from Ulamog himself and was mixing his thoughts with hers. In any case, I think that the eldrazi should remain unfathomable, and for that we should not be allowed to peer into their thoughts, let alone understand them. I would be fine if Drana grasped that they need was to consume and to transform, but that part of cleansing the broken was waaaay too much, and if felt forced, not even sure if they will bother explaining it in the future.
- The way Drana trasmitted the energy from the eldrazi sire to everyone else felt really weird. Mechanically it makes sense with her new card, but what the heck was that? A spell? Something else entirely? That description of pulses of energy, not very clear, and why would the energy hit precisely only the people that Drana was trying to protect and not, well, everything around her, including the eldrazi? That felt like Deus ex Machina moment.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
- I didn't understand why she had to send specifically the orphans to 'distract' the sire. She could have sent regular humans, or other mortals (if the vampires were not eager to sacrifice themselves). I don't see why it had to be kids. The only reason I could come up with is that by sending the kids she forces the Kor to follow the plan so kids are not slaughtered, but it seemed to me that the kors had all the intention to follow the plan anyway.
I believe her intentions were not "Send in the children" but "Send in the Kor." And the easiest way to put the Kor into motion so she could attack the spawnsire (and potentially steal some of that delicious blood from the kor), is to make them think she's sending in Children to be sacrificed.
- I didn't like very much to see the thoughts of the eldrazi with that much clarity. Well, before that, it was not very clear if Drana was remembering that she, in the beggining, was an eldrazi as well that got separated from Ulamog or she was merely mind-reading the sire that somehow got separated from Ulamog himself and was mixing his thoughts with hers. In any case, I think that the eldrazi should remain unfathomable, and for that we should not be allowed to peer into their thoughts, let alone understand them. I would be fine if Drana grasped that they need was to consume and to transform, but that part of cleansing the broken was waaaay too much, and if felt forced, not even sure if they will bother explaining it in the future.
Perfectly fair. I personally thought that it was coming across as "These are the closest words we have to describe their unknowable desires and thoughts," but the point is still valid.
- The way Drana trasmitted the energy from the eldrazi sire to everyone else felt really weird. Mechanically it makes sense with her new card, but what the heck was that? A spell? Something else entirely? That description of pulses of energy, not very clear, and why would the energy hit precisely only the people that Drana was trying to protect and not, well, everything around her, including the eldrazi? That felt like Deus ex Machina moment.
It's just a spell with "Target any number of creatures you control"
Ummm, did she sprout Eldrazi tentacles there for a second? The writing once she went after the Eldrazi was super convoluted and unclear. Decent story. Hopefully, all of the possibilities that it opened will actually be addressed in time as opposed to just opening up ideas that are never followed through on.
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One of these day I have to get myself organizized.
You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
Exactly what crossed my mind. For them, the perfect state seem to be the Blind Eternities. Like an immunity system of the Multiverse trying to eliminate the various tumors and cysts in it.
I wondered something similar; if to the Eldrazi, for whom existence in the Blind Eternities is more "real" than existence on a plane, maybe all mortal existence is an aberration. i.e., that planes and their inhabitants are "broken" not because they're fragments of an older ur-plane, but because they're the result of some sort of fracture of the Eternities. Like the natural state of reality is for nothing but the Blind Eternities to exist, devoid of any life as we'd know it, and the Eldrazi exist to restore that natural state by removing the breaks/contaminants (note the word "cleanse"), i.e., all the planes.
Another story where the Eldrazi lose. Are we sure they're winning right now?
It was a decent story that could have been great if the ending was tragic irony.
Yeah, these Eldrazi are a lot less impressive than I was hoping. I thought Vronos was a cheap way of making us fear a threat (Garruk) but at least he had the decency of having some backstory, unlike all those "victims of the day" in these recent stories who I can't even remember any of their names.
For a moment I was really getting into the story because I thought it would conclude with Drana dying, or falling to the Eldrazi influence, but nope, everything is fine thanks to her strong will, just like in the Digimon episodes of my childhood!
The only thing that threw me off was the part where Drana started to change to an Eldrazi, and then forced herself back. Kinda took me out of the story a bit.
You will consume. You will scour clean. The remnants of the broken must be consumed and cleansed.
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
Exactly what crossed my mind. For them, the perfect state seem to be the Blind Eternities. Like an immunity system of the Multiverse trying to eliminate the various tumors and cysts in it.
I wondered something similar; if to the Eldrazi, for whom existence in the Blind Eternities is more "real" than existence on a plane, maybe all mortal existence is an aberration. i.e., that planes and their inhabitants are "broken" not because they're fragments of an older ur-plane, but because they're the result of some sort of fracture of the Eternities. Like the natural state of reality is for nothing but the Blind Eternities to exist, devoid of any life as we'd know it, and the Eldrazi exist to restore that natural state by removing the breaks/contaminants (note the word "cleanse"), i.e., all the planes.
That's what I'm thinking. However, we do know that Dominaria wasn't always the center of the Multiverse (Planeswalker implied Equilor was once the center), so it's possible that unfathomable eons ago, the multiverse was radically different and the Eldrazi are remnants from that time attempting to restore a long-gone status quo. (Incidentally, in Marvel Comics, Galactus is actually a survivor of the Universe that existed before ours, and the Eldrazi are partially based on Galactus, so there is a bit of precedent.)
The only thing that threw me off was the part where Drana started to change to an Eldrazi, and then forced herself back. Kinda took me out of the story a bit.
I thought that was only in her mind as the Eldrazi's will tried to consume her ego, but that sequence was rather ambiguous.
As much as I hate the Zendikari winning this early into the story, I kinda liked this UR. I guess partly because it wasn't filler. The most interesting part to me was how the story both answered and raised new questions at the same time.
Also the "cleansing the broken" part sounds a bit to me like the Eldrazi are indeed feeding on damaged and/or dying planes. Though I also find the idea of trying to bring the multiverse back to a state where everything is part of an urplane interesting as well. Maybe the Eldrazi actively fight the natural detoriation process of the multiverse? Similar to how black holes concentrate matter and in a way 'fight' the heat death of the universe of having all the matter spread out too much, maybe the Eldrazi are fighting the process of the multiverse splitting and splintering into more and more planes (cough Alara cough) to keep it coherent. I don't know, but damn do I love speculating and musing about stuff like this.
The part about vampires being eldrazi creations sounds quite strange since zendikari vampires are, plus-minus some horns, quite normal. Did eldrazi intentionally created something similar to one of common races? Are there other vampires created by eldrazi somewhere? Can it be that some other race was created, accidentally or not, by eldrazi?
As much as I hate the Zendikari winning this early into the story, I kinda liked this UR. I guess partly because it wasn't filler. The most interesting part to me was how the story both answered and raised new questions at the same time.
Also the "cleansing the broken" part sounds a bit to me like the Eldrazi are indeed feeding on damaged and/or dying planes. Though I also find the idea of trying to bring the multiverse back to a state where everything is part of an urplane interesting as well. Maybe the Eldrazi actively fight the natural detoriation process of the multiverse? Similar to how black holes concentrate matter and in a way 'fight' the heat death of the universe of having all the matter spread out too much, maybe the Eldrazi are fighting the process of the multiverse splitting and splintering into more and more planes (cough Alara cough) to keep it coherent. I don't know, but damn do I love speculating and musing about stuff like this.
Boy did this story raise questions. I seriously want to know the deal with the Zendikari vampires. Maybe Sorin created them to learn about the Eldrazi or maybe as a way to get Eldrazi power for himself in a way related to how Drana did? Maybe he feels shame for those ambitions? There's so much hinted at. I just wonder how much of it we're going to learn and how soon.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
I did enjoy this story a lot but I'll say that it didn't do a good job of showing that thousands of lives were lost in this battle. Yeah thousands of Eldrazi were killed but that doesn't mean anything. Unless you kill the titan the Eldrazi are endless but lives of the Zendikari aren't.
Also: The language used as Drana was feeding on the Sire sounded a lot like that which is used when talking about a planeswalker sparking. Particularly Jace who slipped into the eternities and then was pulled back.
Also the second: Enkindi was annoying. I mean he's seemed like they wanted a Gideon that they could kill off. The idea that people have such reservations as "we can't use children" in a war against the literal end of days drives me up the bloody walls.
Speaking of Gideon he was there in spirit as there was some whipping to be had.
I'm actually wondering if the Eldrazi are some sort of artificial life form, designed expressly to "fix up" the Blind Eternities. (The pre-existing hunger would be the "programming".) With the first symptom of "decay" being the five-way mana split. There's been mention about the Thran and Ugin being able to see the unity of mana, past color. For the Eldrazi, that there's a disunity at all must seem like a Bad Thing, less like sedimentation and more like decay. And it's a "good" thing they're scavengers, reprocessing the disunity into proper void. The Zendikar lure worked because it was the smelliest lesion anywhere in the Eternities. Not necessarily the biggest, just the most noticeable. The feeling from the sire that the Eldrazi shouldn't be on Zendikar was just the sense the titans felt of being stuck in corporeal shells, when they should be feeding from without.
Which makes the infection metaphor a bit odd, since the normal feeding routine is to establish spawn in the targeted world, arguably a kind of infection itself. Granted that even bacteria get viruses, but...
Of course, I also wonder if the three Eldrazi titans are actually distinct entities, but rather three components of a single will, much like the spawn are actually extensions of a particular titan.
They can't be "artificial" since they predate everything.
Source? I mean we know they're ancient but we don't know that they predate everything. They may well be as old as the multiverse but that doesn't mean that if the multiverse was created by something that the Eldrazi aren't the "recycling system" made by that creator.
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Were the vampires Eldrazi creations now? Shaped and formed from some desire to consume and gain energy so they could create the spawn and scion who can absorb and consume from non-living sources?
Is it just me or is that suggesting that the multiverse is not the original state of Dominia? That there was at some point a single universe that somehow turned into the various planes. If so it suggests that the purpose of the Eldrazi is to somehow return the various planes into one.
I wonder if they're setting Drana up for an ascension. There isn't really room for more planeswalker cards in Oath, but it could be an interesting development for another return. I imagine it would happen from her consuming more Eldrazi.
It does seem to be strongly suggested that the Zendikar vampires used to be a type of Eldrazi drone that somehow managed to become something else.
Nahiri said there weren't Vampires on Zendikar originally, perhaps they arose as a side effect of the titans being trapped on Zendikar.
The other thing unrelated to the Drana and Eldrazi fight was that they seem like they're setting the goal of "sending back" the Eldrazi to where they "wanted to go". I wonder what this means. Maybe Ulamog isn't "defeated" insomuch as maybe "ejected" to the Blind Eternities, or maybe more unbelievably, to the plane they wanted to go before being sidetracked into Zendikar? I guess there's to little to go off of to even suggest something so ridiculous, and the whole point of following Planeswalkers primarily is to make this so such a plot device isn't needed, but maybe the Aligned Hedron Network is a new sort of Phyrexian Portal? There were so many charged and suggestive tidbits in this story, it's really exciting to see where they take everything. The flavor text on Hedron Network doesn't make it sound like that could be the case, though.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
That's a really interesting take. As I read it, I thought they were referring to the individual creatures. You know how pieces of the Eldrazi are all part of a whole, they might interpret individual beings as being 'broken' apart from one another.
So many questions, so short UR...
The whole concept of drinking the eldrazi's essence was awesome.
Drana doing the human-Puncture Blast into the eldrazi was awesome. (and yea not human, she's vampire, but y'know)
Exactly what crossed my mind. For them, the perfect state seem to be the Blind Eternities. Like an immunity system of the Multiverse trying to eliminate the various tumors and cysts in it.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Some questions and observations:
- I didn't understand why she had to send specifically the orphans to 'distract' the sire. She could have sent regular humans, or other mortals (if the vampires were not eager to sacrifice themselves). I don't see why it had to be kids. The only reason I could come up with is that by sending the kids she forces the Kor to follow the plan so kids are not slaughtered, but it seemed to me that the kors had all the intention to follow the plan anyway.
- I didn't like very much to see the thoughts of the eldrazi with that much clarity. Well, before that, it was not very clear if Drana was remembering that she, in the beggining, was an eldrazi as well that got separated from Ulamog or she was merely mind-reading the sire that somehow got separated from Ulamog himself and was mixing his thoughts with hers. In any case, I think that the eldrazi should remain unfathomable, and for that we should not be allowed to peer into their thoughts, let alone understand them. I would be fine if Drana grasped that they need was to consume and to transform, but that part of cleansing the broken was waaaay too much, and if felt forced, not even sure if they will bother explaining it in the future.
- The way Drana trasmitted the energy from the eldrazi sire to everyone else felt really weird. Mechanically it makes sense with her new card, but what the heck was that? A spell? Something else entirely? That description of pulses of energy, not very clear, and why would the energy hit precisely only the people that Drana was trying to protect and not, well, everything around her, including the eldrazi? That felt like Deus ex Machina moment.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
I believe her intentions were not "Send in the children" but "Send in the Kor." And the easiest way to put the Kor into motion so she could attack the spawnsire (and potentially steal some of that delicious blood from the kor), is to make them think she's sending in Children to be sacrificed.
Perfectly fair. I personally thought that it was coming across as "These are the closest words we have to describe their unknowable desires and thoughts," but the point is still valid.
It's just a spell with "Target any number of creatures you control"
It was a decent story that could have been great if the ending was tragic irony.
Your mods are terrified of me.
For a moment I was really getting into the story because I thought it would conclude with Drana dying, or falling to the Eldrazi influence, but nope, everything is fine thanks to her strong will, just like in the Digimon episodes of my childhood!
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That's what I'm thinking. However, we do know that Dominaria wasn't always the center of the Multiverse (Planeswalker implied Equilor was once the center), so it's possible that unfathomable eons ago, the multiverse was radically different and the Eldrazi are remnants from that time attempting to restore a long-gone status quo. (Incidentally, in Marvel Comics, Galactus is actually a survivor of the Universe that existed before ours, and the Eldrazi are partially based on Galactus, so there is a bit of precedent.)
I thought that was only in her mind as the Eldrazi's will tried to consume her ego, but that sequence was rather ambiguous.
Also the "cleansing the broken" part sounds a bit to me like the Eldrazi are indeed feeding on damaged and/or dying planes. Though I also find the idea of trying to bring the multiverse back to a state where everything is part of an urplane interesting as well. Maybe the Eldrazi actively fight the natural detoriation process of the multiverse? Similar to how black holes concentrate matter and in a way 'fight' the heat death of the universe of having all the matter spread out too much, maybe the Eldrazi are fighting the process of the multiverse splitting and splintering into more and more planes (cough Alara cough) to keep it coherent. I don't know, but damn do I love speculating and musing about stuff like this.
Boy did this story raise questions. I seriously want to know the deal with the Zendikari vampires. Maybe Sorin created them to learn about the Eldrazi or maybe as a way to get Eldrazi power for himself in a way related to how Drana did? Maybe he feels shame for those ambitions? There's so much hinted at. I just wonder how much of it we're going to learn and how soon.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
Also: The language used as Drana was feeding on the Sire sounded a lot like that which is used when talking about a planeswalker sparking. Particularly Jace who slipped into the eternities and then was pulled back.
Also the second: Enkindi was annoying. I mean he's seemed like they wanted a Gideon that they could kill off. The idea that people have such reservations as "we can't use children" in a war against the literal end of days drives me up the bloody walls.
Speaking of Gideon he was there in spirit as there was some whipping to be had.
Which makes the infection metaphor a bit odd, since the normal feeding routine is to establish spawn in the targeted world, arguably a kind of infection itself. Granted that even bacteria get viruses, but...
Of course, I also wonder if the three Eldrazi titans are actually distinct entities, but rather three components of a single will, much like the spawn are actually extensions of a particular titan.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Source? I mean we know they're ancient but we don't know that they predate everything. They may well be as old as the multiverse but that doesn't mean that if the multiverse was created by something that the Eldrazi aren't the "recycling system" made by that creator.