If this is even slightly accurate, how does Nahiri, now no longer an oldwalker who can just mosey around in the Blind Eternities, bring Emrakul to Innistrad, in physical form? But Innistrad is small, and doesn't strike me as very mana rich. And Ugin was the one studying the Eldrazi all the time, so he knew how to get them to Zendikar. So how did Nahiri, no longer an oldwalker, generate a new type of network in a super short period of time to lure Emrakul to a not really bounteous mana plane, and how did she know how to do it? Maybe this is something that will be explained in upcoming stories, but that was a major question I had.
Its unclear. We're only about halfway through the story but Nahiri does have the advantage of knowing more about the Eldrazi than probably anyone except Ugin. IIRC the summoning of the Eldrazi was done by Sorin using sympathetic magic. There's also the possibility that Innistrad and Zendikar are in some sense "close" within the Blind Eternities which would make summoning Emrakul from one plane to another easier.
Then: I thought Jace and Tamiyo described an eldritch moon pressing down into the plane from beyond the plane, as if something was being pulled down toward the ground via gravity. That sense is delivered quite strongly, I thought, especially with the spinning pillar of angels above the Drownyard Temple. If it's described as a moon, is pulling down toward the ground, the angels are soaring in a pillar above the temple...why does Emrakul emerge from the sea? That makes almost no sense to me, except to be a casually flung in on-the-nose reference to Lovecraft to appease Lovecraft fans. How does a 'moon', as Jace sensed it, come out of the sea?
We don't know enough about the ritual used to summon Emrakul, what Jace actually saw, or the topology of the Blind Eternities to answer this question. It seems unlikely that Emrakul is either above or beneath Innistrad.
Finally: Was Jace's vision of Gideon a madness-inspired vision, or did he actually get to Gideon on Zendikar? It wasn't very clear, from my perspective.
Like his sudden clarity is actually him giving in to Emrakul rather than being protected by Tamiyo?
Then: I thought Jace and Tamiyo described an eldritch moon pressing down into the plane from beyond the plane, as if something was being pulled down toward the ground via gravity. That sense is delivered quite strongly, I thought, especially with the spinning pillar of angels above the Drownyard Temple. If it's described as a moon, is pulling down toward the ground, the angels are soaring in a pillar above the temple...why does Emrakul emerge from the sea? That makes almost no sense to me, except to be a casually flung in on-the-nose reference to Lovecraft to appease Lovecraft fans. How does a 'moon', as Jace sensed it, come out of the sea?
We don't know enough about the ritual used to summon Emrakul, what Jace actually saw, or the topology of the Blind Eternities to answer this question. It seems unlikely that Emrakul is either above or beneath Innistrad.
Picture the three spatial dimensions, height, depth, and width. They each are perpendicular to each other, describing a three-dimensional space. Now try to picture a fourth dimension, perpendicular to all three of them. That is the direction Emrakul entered Innistrad from.
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Emrakul isn't physically manifested on Innistrad as far as we know.
Well, to clarify, Emrakul is probably not fully manifested in Innistrad, but a part of her is. To use Ugin's excellent metaphor, Emrakul is kneeling at the side of the pond with both arms in the pond messing with the poor little fish. We, the fish only see her arms and think thats the entire Eldrazi titan. When the titans were sealed in Zendikar, that was like driving a stake through their hands and pinning them to the bottom of the pond. They still aren't fully in the plane, but they can't go anywhere or do anything either.
Kozilek and Ulamog were only killed because they were forced to be completely inside Zendikar before they were burned. Otherwise, they would have only been severely damaged but free to run off to other ponds that don't have vicious pirahna that could bite.
Well the point is that the eldrazi normally lack physical forms. They were given physical manifestations by the planeswalkers on Zendikar so that there could be a "something" to trap. In other words, the fact that Emrakul can be seen is contradictory to what we had been told about the nature of the eldrazi.
Now that said, I don't think it will end up being a retcon, and here is why.
Yes it is a tough sell that Nahiri, as a neowalker, by herself, in one year, accomplished the equivalent amount of work that took 3 oldwalkers 40 years to complete.
But what if she didn't do it all by herself?
In the gap between Stone and Blood and Emrakul Rises, Nahiri was at the Eye of Ugin. What other major character do we know was at The Eye around the same time? Ugin. We know Ugin distrusts Sorin and that repairing the hedron network would be nearly impossible with 3 titans rampaging about. From the Zendikar story we know that Ugin was adamant that Kozilek and Ulamog not be killed, almost as if he knew that there were other plans to deal with them.
Obviously this is baseless speculation, but it does fill in a lot of gaps. And to my credit, thus far I've been correct months in advance about Nahiri having been in the Helvault and her bringing Emrakul to Innistrad.
Finally: Was Jace's vision of Gideon a madness-inspired vision, or did he actually get to Gideon on Zendikar? It wasn't very clear, from my perspective.
Like his sudden clarity is actually him giving in to Emrakul rather than being protected by Tamiyo?
Yeah, but on a second read-through, maybe he did get there. The transition/planeswalk didn't read the way they usually do, so I wasn't certain that he actually got there, or if he just went totally batty. Shrug.
So Ugin knew this and sent Jace to find Sorin knowing it'd lead to his likely death? Clever way to get back at somebody...
Yeah, I'll admit the theory falls apart there. But given the fact that Jace so royally screwed up on Zendikar, Ugin may have just wanted him out of his hair (or horns, or whatever) just like most of us feel about Jace. Or Ugin may have wanted to have a LONG talk with Sorin and was just using Jace as an errand boy. Or some combination therein.
Yes it is a tough sell that Nahiri, as a neowalker, by herself, in one year, accomplished the equivalent amount of work that took 3 oldwalkers 40 years to complete.
The hard work was not luring the Eldrazi titans to Zendikar, it was setting up the prison before they did it. It doesn't take long for Nahiri to focus the mana in the plane enough to entice Emrakul to come on over to Innistrad.
Depending on Nahiri's motives, either Nahiri looked at the silver moon and saw a ready-made prison already set up to use, or she didn't care about trapping the Eldrazi and simply wanted to destroy Innistrad.
Your theory creates more questions and disturbances than it fills holes. As to why Nahiri was able to build a network to summon Emrakul so fast when it took 40 years last time is because of the fundamental difference between the two tasks. It took 40 years to build a beacon, prison combo and it was the first time she had done such a thing, requiring constant guidance by Ugin to align the dragonic runes appropriately. Now she has the experience of doing something similar and not requiring a prison function. All she built was a network to redirect leylines, its not even clear if it required a special function or if she was able to simply use the massive amount of mana to summon Emrakul herself.
Finally neither Nahiri nor Ugin were at eye in-between those stories. Nahiri left off on Bala Ged and then as far as we know immediately went back to Innistard to F-it. While Ugin wasn't at the eye at the same time but a number of months later so it makes your theory even harder.
We don't know that she hasn't had to modify the moon to make it function as a prison. Sorin clearly had to work to make the Helvault, he didn't just cleave a chunk off the moon.
The point about The Eye is that there is an oddly convenient gap in the story and an oddly convenient lack of clarity on the specifics of the timeline.
The bigger issue is that the Eldrazi aren't supposed to have physical forms when feeding on a plane. The manifestations on Zendikar were the work of the planeswalkers to create a form that could be trapped. According to this logic, Emrakul should be invisible on Innistrad.
The theory is obviously baseless speculation. I'm just noting some odd coincidences and tying them together in the most probable way.
We don't know that she hasn't had to modify the moon to make it function as a prison. Sorin clearly had to work to make the Helvault, he didn't just cleave a chunk off the moon.
The point about The Eye is that there is an oddly convenient gap in the story and an oddly convenient lack of clarity on the specifics of the timeline.
The bigger issue is that the Eldrazi aren't supposed to have physical forms when feeding on a plane. The manifestations on Zendikar were the work of the planeswalkers to create a form that could be trapped. According to this logic, Emrakul should be invisible on Innistrad.
The theory is obviously baseless speculation. I'm just noting some odd coincidences and tying them together in the most probable way.
We also don't know if she plans on imprisoning Emrakul in any way so that point is moot.
What you call convenient gap and convenient lack of clarity is actually explained in great detail. Nahiri was freed at the end of original Innistrad, and immediately went to Zendikar saw the world was wrecked and went back to Innnistrad to wreak unholy vengeance. Ugin was awoken by Sorin after original Innistrad and then spent some time in Tarkir before heading to Zendikar so there should have been no interaction between them.
That does seem a problem but it a rather small retcon in comparison to what they have done before.
There is a difference between baseless speculation and contradictory speculation either is possible to be right because of a liberal handling of the story but only one should be considered.
It sounds a lot like "Goodbye Jace, I've protected your mind (at the cost of my own), go and bring your people, now I'amrakul". I certainly hope that's not the case.
Also, thought Shattered Angel was spooky enough until this fused one... Am happy that Linvala didn't go that way.
The bigger issue is that the Eldrazi aren't supposed to have physical forms when feeding on a plane. The manifestations on Zendikar were the work of the planeswalkers to create a form that could be trapped. According to this logic, Emrakul should be invisible on Innistrad.
This much we do know to be false. Nahiri saw one of the Eldrazi titans (Ulamog?) on a nameless plane shortly before its annihilation. The main body of the titan is outside the plane but their presence is definitely not invisible. It's also implied that Ulamog's and his brood are a single contiguous organism so if Ulamog were invisible all his spawn would be too.
Ugg, I am getting frustrated and I feel like every point I am attempting to make is being missed entirely. I am going to bed after this.
About a year ago Nahiri escaped. Relatively recently she completed the cryptolith alignment. Within that time gap we know that Ugin was at The Eye and had been there for an unknown period of time. Also I have heard nothing of Ugin spending time on Tarkir after waking up. At most Nahiri and Ugin missed each other by 6 months, easily less.
I would have to go back and reread the story, but the story Vorthospike is referencing about Nahiri seeing the eldrazi destroy an unknown plane. I remember the story not having physically manifestations of the eldrazi.
What I am attempting to establish is if their is concrete evidence that eliminates this theory. As of yet I haven't heard any. Does it seem unlikely? Sure, but if there is any thing I've learned from Wizard's storytelling its that just because something seems improbable given the current info, that doesn't eliminate it as a possibility.
I'm very confident that Emrakul will be trapped in the moon. My record thus far with plotline predictions has Been perfect.
I am assembling a narrative that does not rely on retcons and stretches on Nahiri's abilities. The eldrazi should not be visible on Innistrad, that is quite clear and has been established, so without a RETCON that they are always visible, there needs to be some explanation as to why we can see Emrakul on Innistrad. Ugin's involvement makes the most sense.
So, I had believed that the eldrazi didn't normally have physical forms. I think this was said when they were first introduced but I can't find anything from that far back. Reading The Lithmancer it seems from that point on they had always used physical forms. I remember them seeing Ulamog on the dying plane but I had assumed that it only showed up because the plane was nearly dead and that maybe only Ulamog worked that way but this quote implies otherwise.
"We can imprison them," said Ugin. He conjured another illusion, this one a blueprint of some impossibly complex network of thousands of nodes and hundreds of gently curving lines. "Bind them to one plane using their physical forms as anchors, and force them into dormancy. Unlike killing them, that might actually work. And it would give me time to study them without allowing more worlds to fall."
Bolded for emphasis.
This implies they always use a physical form so that isn't a retcon, at least not a current one.
Back to Phrexetherium's theory. In order to support it you have to think the either Nahiri lingered on Zendikar, a plane she believed doomed, for a few months; or she went back to Zendikar for unknown reasons and met Ugin then. Neither make any sense. Yes given Wizards handling of the story (Nahiri in the Helvault) they have no problem using previously unlikely or impossible events whenever. It still doesn't make sense to purposely speculate that the future won't make sense with current or past.
PS. In case anyone is wondering, we will not be getting two stories this week. So no new story tomorrow. I asked Kimberly Kreines on Twitter and she confirmed.
We don't know that she hasn't had to modify the moon to make it function as a prison. Sorin clearly had to work to make the Helvault, he didn't just cleave a chunk off the moon.
The point about The Eye is that there is an oddly convenient gap in the story and an oddly convenient lack of clarity on the specifics of the timeline.
The bigger issue is that the Eldrazi aren't supposed to have physical forms when feeding on a plane. The manifestations on Zendikar were the work of the planeswalkers to create a form that could be trapped. According to this logic, Emrakul should be invisible on Innistrad.
The theory is obviously baseless speculation. I'm just noting some odd coincidences and tying them together in the most probable way.
We don't even know that she gives a damn about imprisoning the Eldrazi. We don't know for sure about her intentions, but after reading the last story, I tend to think that she is purely focused on destroying Innistrad and nothing else matters.
Its not difficult for her to ring the dinner bell to get Emrakul to come over to that plane.
PS. In case anyone is wondering, we will not be getting two stories this week. So no new story tomorrow. I asked Kimberly Kreines on Twitter and she confirmed.
Thanks for the confirmation.
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"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Ugg, I am getting frustrated and I feel like every point I am attempting to make is being missed entirely. I am going to bed after this.
About a year ago Nahiri escaped. Relatively recently she completed the cryptolith alignment. Within that time gap we know that Ugin was at The Eye and had been there for an unknown period of time. Also I have heard nothing of Ugin spending time on Tarkir after waking up. At most Nahiri and Ugin missed each other by 6 months, easily less.
I would have to go back and reread the story, but the story Vorthospike is referencing about Nahiri seeing the eldrazi destroy an unknown plane. I remember the story not having physically manifestations of the eldrazi.
What I am attempting to establish is if their is concrete evidence that eliminates this theory. As of yet I haven't heard any. Does it seem unlikely? Sure, but if there is any thing I've learned from Wizard's storytelling its that just because something seems improbable given the current info, that doesn't eliminate it as a possibility.
I'm very confident that Emrakul will be trapped in the moon. My record thus far with plotline predictions has Been perfect.
I am assembling a narrative that does not rely on retcons and stretches on Nahiri's abilities. The eldrazi should not be visible on Innistrad, that is quite clear and has been established, so without a RETCON that they are always visible, there needs to be some explanation as to why we can see Emrakul on Innistrad. Ugin's involvement makes the most sense.
I don't know why this is complicated or difficult for you to grasp.
It is extremely difficult and time-consuming to construct a vast, plane-wide hedron network to imprison the Eldrazi.
It is not difficult at all to attract the attention of the Eldrazi and encourage them to come on over and destroy this plane. And also they do seem to need to be visible to destroy a plane, Ulamog was visible when he was devouring the plane that Nahiri and Sorin was on.
There you go, all conflicts resolved. This particular plane has a very weird, unique (and convenient) silver moon that seems to be made out of stuff that can imprison demons. Maybe Nahiri isn't even thinking about trapping Emrakul at all, and later after she learns that Zendikar was saved, she tells the gatewatch+friends about the moon, but right now it does not require a retcon to say that Nahiri is figuratively yelling "hey Emrakul, over here! this is a good plane to destroy", if all she wants to do is see that world die.
PS. In case anyone is wondering, we will not be getting two stories this week. So no new story tomorrow. I asked Kimberly Kreines on Twitter and she confirmed.
Much obliged.
On a separate track, MaRo at some point vehemently insisted that Nahiri was correctly put into R/W color combo even if it seemed she wasn't because we didn't know the whole story. And yet, I have a hard time parsing plane-wide genocide as something R/W...
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On a separate track, MaRo at some point vehemently insisted that Nahiri was correctly put into R/W color combo even if it seemed she wasn't because we didn't know the whole story. And yet, I have a hard time parsing plane-wide genocide as something R/W...
You're thinking Boros. RW can manifest itself in more ways than Boros. In this case R stands for Madness. Nahiri's immortality slowly ebbed at her sanity (and likely being in proximity of the Eldrazi didn't help), followed by being betrayed by Sorin and locked with demons, followed by finding the Eldrazi devouring her home with no hope in sight. I think that qualifies as enough to break someone's mind *way to go Sorin* and send them on a path to vengeance. Now, within this madness (or rage) induced vendetta against Sorin, Nahiri may hope to trap Emrakul in the moon, which would save the multiverse from eventually becoming one with Emrakul. That's a W aligned goal to save others for the sake of saving others.
At this point, to reverse a metaphor Jay13x used somewhere else that I don't want to hunt down at the moment, saving the multiverse is the icing on the cake of screwing over Sorin. (We would like to hope that it's the other way around, but nothing has indicated that so far.)
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I'm not saying Nahiri is faultless, but in fairness, Sorin and Ugin are also at the same fault - they did the exact same thing to Zendikar. More stuff. Honestly, none of the trio are "innocent" in any way. To say one deserves a fate worse than the other two is rather hypocritical in my opinion because I am of thought they all crossed a threshold that makes all them equally bad already.
Sorry, no. Just... no.
You can argue Sorin and Ugin are bad for actions that they took regarding other stuff, but definitely not Sorin's reaction and the plan for the eldrazi imprisonment.
Sorin and Ugin have something that Nahiri really did not have: perspective. They are much longer lived than her, and the way they think and act goes accordingly to their age. When they planned to lure the Eldrazi in to trap it was, in fact, for the greater good. You're saying Sorin's lack of empathy is the same as inviting eldritch monstrosities with the express purpose to destroy a whole plane. No, that is absurd. It is not the same thing, not even close to the same thing. Sorin acted like a jerk, but there was no imediate problem to be solved anymore. Nahiri came and said she had dealt with the issue, and Sorin was okay about it up until when Nahiri got pissed and attacked him. Your quote of him to say that he didn't see Zendikar as a responsibility is also wrong. He said that "not trust, obedience" thing to express how he still sees himself as a mentor and a superior to Nahiri, meaning: he made her what she was and that she had no place in expecting things from him just because they were friends, but she still should follow his orders. It is a dickish thing to say, but it doesn't correlate at all with "I didn't care about my responsibility towards Zendikar". Him not receiving the signal was an unfortunate coincidence, that's all. He even went back to Zendikar in Teeth of Akoum to try and seal the eldrazi, and when he knew they were free or something he went after Ugin. These are the actions of someone that does care about their responsibility, I'm sorry.
About Ugin: you're really pushing it here. He didn't eradicate the eldrazi and his position is PERFECTLY defensable. He saw them, studied them and then found a solution to contain them up until he could get more information. That is probably, in a vaccum, the best decision anyone could've made. If he just killed the titans right off the bat (assuming he could), he didn't know what could happen. The eldrazi are unfathomably old, it is pretty reasonable to expect they are a crucial part of the multiverse. Ugin tricked two planeswalkers into trapping them... so what? His decision was still the best one, and his solution was perfectly solid. You're also speculating on the part of "Ugin could have done something before, he just didn't want to". Maybe he didn't have the resources at the time, maybe he really needed to find people like Sorin and Nahiri, etc.
Anyway, from what we know from these 3 so far, Nahiri is by far the worse of them. Mind you: I don't blame her at all. I can't imagine what would be like to try and do the right thing just to be imprisioned for countless years in a complete void, all alone and then with demons around. Terrible. I wouldn't blame anyone who just wanted to see the world burn afterwards. That said, she is still responsible for her actions, and her actions were pretty pretty terrible. She is the worse of the three at the moment, but that might change once we know more about her motivations. For now she doesn't fit white philosophy at all. At all. Purging a whole plane full of bystanders to get rid of just one guy (Sorin) is not what a white character would do, unless the guy was some tremendous threat for much more people, which is not the case.
Thank you for this
This just shows how far down the rabbit hole Nahiri fans would go to defend a genocidal maniac.
I probably should be offended to be shoved into the assumption of "Genocidal Maniac Nahiri Fan jumping down the rabbit hole to defend her" when I'm not one. But before I just simply point fingers I should take a look at my own stance again and clarify it, since it's easy to mis-translate intentions.
My main point is that the Eldrazi themselves are "Natural Genocides" waiting to happen. Ugin knows that. That's where the morality issue comes into play - if it's a "Natural Genocide" then is stopping it really "the best decision anyone could've made"? People assume that sealing the Eldrazi itself is a "good W" action in by itself and that's what I'm questioning.
Ugin has been observing the Eldrazi for ages. Even if we put his ability to destroy them aside (which admittedly is an unknown factor, although it's still likely considering he possesses all the factors needed to destroy them from the way the Gatewatch did it), what made him suddenly decide to seal them? Simply to observe what happens to the Multiverse when 3 Eldrazi Titans are missing?
Sure, it's easy to be optimistic and think that if nothing happens, then the trio did a multiverse a huge favor preventing random genocides from happening to planes (and if Nahiri takes the "I planned to seal Emrakul all this while, just on Innistrad because I'm both petty and I think the Moon can do it", she'll have a bit of leeway, but if she isn't then I would also agree she's just a genocidal manic that needs no defending).
But my point is - drop that optimism. Ugin never knew what would happen in a multiverse without 3 Eldrazi Titans. Said Eldrazi Titans are "Natural Genocides" by themselves. Did he really think that if something happened, releasing three Eldrazi Titans would fix the issue? Sure, it's an assumption, but "something happens" is very likely going to be a lot worse than "Natural Genocides" in terms of scale for sure. But that's the point - assumptions... you don't know what are the true repercussions of keeping three "Natural Genocides" sealed and yet you risked not just some planes, but possibly the entire Multiverse to find out what.
Considering Ugin berated Jace (and the Gatewatch) for these repercussions, it seems awfully hypocritical of him considering he himself has no idea what will happen and just outright said "and I'll prepare accordingly". Most people couldn't even prepare accordingly for the "threat" that is the Eldrazi Titans and Ugin seems utterly confident he'll be able to do so for the repercussion of missing/dead Eldrazi Titans (especially when we're not even sure if he can deal with the Eldrazi Titans themselves anyway).
What seems like a "heroic action" of sealing Eldrazi Titans to you seems like a very poorly thought-out experiment based on unsure hypothesis that could potentially endanger the entire multiverse as a whole to me. Which is why I think Nahiri cannot be redeemed either, even if she brought Emrakul with the intention to seal her... the very idea of sealing itself was a questionable one. I think bringing up Sorin and Ugin along made it sound like I was siding with Nahiri, but I was actually condemning her for her actions already, because regardless she seals or not, there's no "heroism" in that.
One could say with Ulamog and Kozilek dead, it shouldn't really matter if Emrakul is sealed, but once again I point out that the entire experiment is hypothetical, we don't even know if the repercussions scale with an increased number of Titans dead/sealed. Is the risk of a potential greater repercussion to the multiverse because Emrakul was sealed along with Ulamog and Kozilek dead one you would take?
On a side note, I don't exactly consider taking 1000 years after Nahiri reminded you the lock might be coming loose before you actually go check on Zendikar is to be caring about responsibility. Even if you had a grudge against Nahiri and sealed her, you did seal the Eldrazi for partially selfish reasons and considering Sorin should at least know how fast the Eldrazi destroy planes, it's not really a matter of 1000 years in relative to Sorin's age, but rather 1000 years relative to the possibility of Eldrazi freeing themselves entirely in that timeframe. Sorin's probably the most "innocent" of the trio by now due to actions, but it would still be a stretch for me to consider him actually "responsible".
So I had an idea about the eldrazi after reading the most recent story. What if there was only ever 1 eldrazi titan, Emrakul. Emmy eldrazifies all life on a plane. Maybe, rather than true titans, Kozilek and Ulamog were just the largest and most powerful of Emrakul's transformed spawn. For example, Em shows up on a plane, her mojo mutates a kraken and a wizard, and a few thousand years later you get Ulamog and Kozilek. I'm not saying this is where the story will head but I think it would allow an alternative direction for the story. Instead of either destroying Innistrad or being defeated by the Gatewatch, Emrakul stays long enough to do her thing and then just leaves. Leaving Innistrad full of mutated semi-eldrazi and using it as a nursery world to breed the next Ulamog and Kozilek. Over time most of the eldrazi mutants get killed off but the biggest and most powerful could hide in the ocean and the deep places of the earth, growing bigger and more powerful until they were strong enough to escape into the blind eternities. This would make Em a suitably powerful foe, allow Innistrad to still exist and keep it's core themes (with a dash of eldritch horror now added)and allow for the printing of interesting new (and more expendable) eldrazi titans while preserving emrakul as a recurring foe in the rogues gallery.
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So I had an idea about the eldrazi after reading the most recent story. What if there was only ever 1 eldrazi titan, Emrakul. Emmy eldrazifies all life on a plane. Maybe, rather than true titans, Kozilek and Ulamog were just the largest and most powerful of Emrakul's transformed spawn. For example, Em shows up on a plane, her mojo mutates a kraken and a wizard, and a few thousand years later you get Ulamog and Kozilek. I'm not saying this is where the story will head but I think it would allow an alternative direction for the story. Instead of either destroying Innistrad or being defeated by the Gatewatch, Emrakul stays long enough to do her thing and then just leaves. Leaving Innistrad full of mutated semi-eldrazi and using it as a nursery world to breed the next Ulamog and Kozilek. Over time most of the eldrazi mutants get killed off but the biggest and most powerful could hide in the ocean and the deep places of the earth, growing bigger and more powerful until they were strong enough to escape into the blind eternities. This would make Em a suitably powerful foe, allow Innistrad to still exist and keep it's core themes (with a dash of eldritch horror now added)and allow for the printing of interesting new (and more expendable) eldrazi titans while preserving emrakul as a recurring foe in the rogues gallery.
I must say that I entertained a similar thought recently, because what Emrakul shows she is capable of really dwarfs everything the other two could. Ulamog was a simple mindless hungry beast, and Kozilek, though more interesting and formidable mind-warper, was just a mere trickster compared to her.
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No, but they have retroactively changed some elements of the continuity.
That's not really a retcon. We knew nothing about the Eldrazi's nature so defining a nature for them contradicts nothing.
Its unclear. We're only about halfway through the story but Nahiri does have the advantage of knowing more about the Eldrazi than probably anyone except Ugin. IIRC the summoning of the Eldrazi was done by Sorin using sympathetic magic. There's also the possibility that Innistrad and Zendikar are in some sense "close" within the Blind Eternities which would make summoning Emrakul from one plane to another easier.
Emrakul isn't physically manifested on Innistrad as far as we know.
We don't know enough about the ritual used to summon Emrakul, what Jace actually saw, or the topology of the Blind Eternities to answer this question. It seems unlikely that Emrakul is either above or beneath Innistrad.
Like his sudden clarity is actually him giving in to Emrakul rather than being protected by Tamiyo?
Picture the three spatial dimensions, height, depth, and width. They each are perpendicular to each other, describing a three-dimensional space. Now try to picture a fourth dimension, perpendicular to all three of them. That is the direction Emrakul entered Innistrad from.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
Well, to clarify, Emrakul is probably not fully manifested in Innistrad, but a part of her is. To use Ugin's excellent metaphor, Emrakul is kneeling at the side of the pond with both arms in the pond messing with the poor little fish. We, the fish only see her arms and think thats the entire Eldrazi titan. When the titans were sealed in Zendikar, that was like driving a stake through their hands and pinning them to the bottom of the pond. They still aren't fully in the plane, but they can't go anywhere or do anything either.
Kozilek and Ulamog were only killed because they were forced to be completely inside Zendikar before they were burned. Otherwise, they would have only been severely damaged but free to run off to other ponds that don't have vicious pirahna that could bite.
Now that said, I don't think it will end up being a retcon, and here is why.
Yes it is a tough sell that Nahiri, as a neowalker, by herself, in one year, accomplished the equivalent amount of work that took 3 oldwalkers 40 years to complete.
But what if she didn't do it all by herself?
In the gap between Stone and Blood and Emrakul Rises, Nahiri was at the Eye of Ugin. What other major character do we know was at The Eye around the same time? Ugin. We know Ugin distrusts Sorin and that repairing the hedron network would be nearly impossible with 3 titans rampaging about. From the Zendikar story we know that Ugin was adamant that Kozilek and Ulamog not be killed, almost as if he knew that there were other plans to deal with them.
Obviously this is baseless speculation, but it does fill in a lot of gaps. And to my credit, thus far I've been correct months in advance about Nahiri having been in the Helvault and her bringing Emrakul to Innistrad.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Yeah, but on a second read-through, maybe he did get there. The transition/planeswalk didn't read the way they usually do, so I wasn't certain that he actually got there, or if he just went totally batty. Shrug.
Yeah, I'll admit the theory falls apart there. But given the fact that Jace so royally screwed up on Zendikar, Ugin may have just wanted him out of his hair (or horns, or whatever) just like most of us feel about Jace. Or Ugin may have wanted to have a LONG talk with Sorin and was just using Jace as an errand boy. Or some combination therein.
The hard work was not luring the Eldrazi titans to Zendikar, it was setting up the prison before they did it. It doesn't take long for Nahiri to focus the mana in the plane enough to entice Emrakul to come on over to Innistrad.
Depending on Nahiri's motives, either Nahiri looked at the silver moon and saw a ready-made prison already set up to use, or she didn't care about trapping the Eldrazi and simply wanted to destroy Innistrad.
Finally neither Nahiri nor Ugin were at eye in-between those stories. Nahiri left off on Bala Ged and then as far as we know immediately went back to Innistard to F-it. While Ugin wasn't at the eye at the same time but a number of months later so it makes your theory even harder.
The point about The Eye is that there is an oddly convenient gap in the story and an oddly convenient lack of clarity on the specifics of the timeline.
The bigger issue is that the Eldrazi aren't supposed to have physical forms when feeding on a plane. The manifestations on Zendikar were the work of the planeswalkers to create a form that could be trapped. According to this logic, Emrakul should be invisible on Innistrad.
The theory is obviously baseless speculation. I'm just noting some odd coincidences and tying them together in the most probable way.
What you call convenient gap and convenient lack of clarity is actually explained in great detail. Nahiri was freed at the end of original Innistrad, and immediately went to Zendikar saw the world was wrecked and went back to Innnistrad to wreak unholy vengeance. Ugin was awoken by Sorin after original Innistrad and then spent some time in Tarkir before heading to Zendikar so there should have been no interaction between them.
That does seem a problem but it a rather small retcon in comparison to what they have done before.
There is a difference between baseless speculation and contradictory speculation either is possible to be right because of a liberal handling of the story but only one should be considered.
It sounds a lot like "Goodbye Jace, I've protected your mind (at the cost of my own), go and bring your people, now I'amrakul". I certainly hope that's not the case.
Also, thought Shattered Angel was spooky enough until this fused one... Am happy that Linvala didn't go that way.
This much we do know to be false. Nahiri saw one of the Eldrazi titans (Ulamog?) on a nameless plane shortly before its annihilation. The main body of the titan is outside the plane but their presence is definitely not invisible. It's also implied that Ulamog's and his brood are a single contiguous organism so if Ulamog were invisible all his spawn would be too.
About a year ago Nahiri escaped. Relatively recently she completed the cryptolith alignment. Within that time gap we know that Ugin was at The Eye and had been there for an unknown period of time. Also I have heard nothing of Ugin spending time on Tarkir after waking up. At most Nahiri and Ugin missed each other by 6 months, easily less.
I would have to go back and reread the story, but the story Vorthospike is referencing about Nahiri seeing the eldrazi destroy an unknown plane. I remember the story not having physically manifestations of the eldrazi.
What I am attempting to establish is if their is concrete evidence that eliminates this theory. As of yet I haven't heard any. Does it seem unlikely? Sure, but if there is any thing I've learned from Wizard's storytelling its that just because something seems improbable given the current info, that doesn't eliminate it as a possibility.
I'm very confident that Emrakul will be trapped in the moon. My record thus far with plotline predictions has Been perfect.
I am assembling a narrative that does not rely on retcons and stretches on Nahiri's abilities. The eldrazi should not be visible on Innistrad, that is quite clear and has been established, so without a RETCON that they are always visible, there needs to be some explanation as to why we can see Emrakul on Innistrad. Ugin's involvement makes the most sense.
Bolded for emphasis.
This implies they always use a physical form so that isn't a retcon, at least not a current one.
Back to Phrexetherium's theory. In order to support it you have to think the either Nahiri lingered on Zendikar, a plane she believed doomed, for a few months; or she went back to Zendikar for unknown reasons and met Ugin then. Neither make any sense. Yes given Wizards handling of the story (Nahiri in the Helvault) they have no problem using previously unlikely or impossible events whenever. It still doesn't make sense to purposely speculate that the future won't make sense with current or past.
We don't even know that she gives a damn about imprisoning the Eldrazi. We don't know for sure about her intentions, but after reading the last story, I tend to think that she is purely focused on destroying Innistrad and nothing else matters.
Its not difficult for her to ring the dinner bell to get Emrakul to come over to that plane.
Thanks for the confirmation.
"You say 'learn from history,' but that does not mean 'learn the same bull***** the people in history learned alongside phrenology and alchemy.'" - The Blinking Spirit
I don't know why this is complicated or difficult for you to grasp.
It is extremely difficult and time-consuming to construct a vast, plane-wide hedron network to imprison the Eldrazi.
It is not difficult at all to attract the attention of the Eldrazi and encourage them to come on over and destroy this plane. And also they do seem to need to be visible to destroy a plane, Ulamog was visible when he was devouring the plane that Nahiri and Sorin was on.
There you go, all conflicts resolved. This particular plane has a very weird, unique (and convenient) silver moon that seems to be made out of stuff that can imprison demons. Maybe Nahiri isn't even thinking about trapping Emrakul at all, and later after she learns that Zendikar was saved, she tells the gatewatch+friends about the moon, but right now it does not require a retcon to say that Nahiri is figuratively yelling "hey Emrakul, over here! this is a good plane to destroy", if all she wants to do is see that world die.
Much obliged.
On a separate track, MaRo at some point vehemently insisted that Nahiri was correctly put into R/W color combo even if it seemed she wasn't because we didn't know the whole story. And yet, I have a hard time parsing plane-wide genocide as something R/W...
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
You're thinking Boros. RW can manifest itself in more ways than Boros. In this case R stands for Madness. Nahiri's immortality slowly ebbed at her sanity (and likely being in proximity of the Eldrazi didn't help), followed by being betrayed by Sorin and locked with demons, followed by finding the Eldrazi devouring her home with no hope in sight. I think that qualifies as enough to break someone's mind *way to go Sorin* and send them on a path to vengeance. Now, within this madness (or rage) induced vendetta against Sorin, Nahiri may hope to trap Emrakul in the moon, which would save the multiverse from eventually becoming one with Emrakul. That's a W aligned goal to save others for the sake of saving others.
At this point, to reverse a metaphor Jay13x used somewhere else that I don't want to hunt down at the moment, saving the multiverse is the icing on the cake of screwing over Sorin. (We would like to hope that it's the other way around, but nothing has indicated that so far.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Jesus people how many times do I have to say it?
I probably should be offended to be shoved into the assumption of "Genocidal Maniac Nahiri Fan jumping down the rabbit hole to defend her" when I'm not one. But before I just simply point fingers I should take a look at my own stance again and clarify it, since it's easy to mis-translate intentions.
My main point is that the Eldrazi themselves are "Natural Genocides" waiting to happen. Ugin knows that. That's where the morality issue comes into play - if it's a "Natural Genocide" then is stopping it really "the best decision anyone could've made"? People assume that sealing the Eldrazi itself is a "good W" action in by itself and that's what I'm questioning.
Ugin has been observing the Eldrazi for ages. Even if we put his ability to destroy them aside (which admittedly is an unknown factor, although it's still likely considering he possesses all the factors needed to destroy them from the way the Gatewatch did it), what made him suddenly decide to seal them? Simply to observe what happens to the Multiverse when 3 Eldrazi Titans are missing?
Sure, it's easy to be optimistic and think that if nothing happens, then the trio did a multiverse a huge favor preventing random genocides from happening to planes (and if Nahiri takes the "I planned to seal Emrakul all this while, just on Innistrad because I'm both petty and I think the Moon can do it", she'll have a bit of leeway, but if she isn't then I would also agree she's just a genocidal manic that needs no defending).
But my point is - drop that optimism. Ugin never knew what would happen in a multiverse without 3 Eldrazi Titans. Said Eldrazi Titans are "Natural Genocides" by themselves. Did he really think that if something happened, releasing three Eldrazi Titans would fix the issue? Sure, it's an assumption, but "something happens" is very likely going to be a lot worse than "Natural Genocides" in terms of scale for sure. But that's the point - assumptions... you don't know what are the true repercussions of keeping three "Natural Genocides" sealed and yet you risked not just some planes, but possibly the entire Multiverse to find out what.
Considering Ugin berated Jace (and the Gatewatch) for these repercussions, it seems awfully hypocritical of him considering he himself has no idea what will happen and just outright said "and I'll prepare accordingly". Most people couldn't even prepare accordingly for the "threat" that is the Eldrazi Titans and Ugin seems utterly confident he'll be able to do so for the repercussion of missing/dead Eldrazi Titans (especially when we're not even sure if he can deal with the Eldrazi Titans themselves anyway).
What seems like a "heroic action" of sealing Eldrazi Titans to you seems like a very poorly thought-out experiment based on unsure hypothesis that could potentially endanger the entire multiverse as a whole to me. Which is why I think Nahiri cannot be redeemed either, even if she brought Emrakul with the intention to seal her... the very idea of sealing itself was a questionable one. I think bringing up Sorin and Ugin along made it sound like I was siding with Nahiri, but I was actually condemning her for her actions already, because regardless she seals or not, there's no "heroism" in that.
One could say with Ulamog and Kozilek dead, it shouldn't really matter if Emrakul is sealed, but once again I point out that the entire experiment is hypothetical, we don't even know if the repercussions scale with an increased number of Titans dead/sealed. Is the risk of a potential greater repercussion to the multiverse because Emrakul was sealed along with Ulamog and Kozilek dead one you would take?
On a side note, I don't exactly consider taking 1000 years after Nahiri reminded you the lock might be coming loose before you actually go check on Zendikar is to be caring about responsibility. Even if you had a grudge against Nahiri and sealed her, you did seal the Eldrazi for partially selfish reasons and considering Sorin should at least know how fast the Eldrazi destroy planes, it's not really a matter of 1000 years in relative to Sorin's age, but rather 1000 years relative to the possibility of Eldrazi freeing themselves entirely in that timeframe. Sorin's probably the most "innocent" of the trio by now due to actions, but it would still be a stretch for me to consider him actually "responsible".
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I must say that I entertained a similar thought recently, because what Emrakul shows she is capable of really dwarfs everything the other two could. Ulamog was a simple mindless hungry beast, and Kozilek, though more interesting and formidable mind-warper, was just a mere trickster compared to her.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)