From the sneak peak/interview with the author she mentions it hasn't been very long since Skalla was destroyed and this seems to be set present day or close to present day, since it looks like we are Ixalan after the Sun was taken, so post conflux seems right.
Wouldn't this imply that Skalla was destroyed post-Mending? Where would Bolas draw the power to destroy an entire plane after the Mending? He needed to rush as his power was diminishing to defeat the Amonkhet God's and create his new society. This tells me he doesn't have planes-destroying power anymore.
The Skalla timeline is a bit messy to me.
Which is why I brought up the Alara Maelstrom 5 posts ago
Bringing it up doesn't explain anything. Alara would only have been destroyed if Bolas succeeded with the Maelstrom. In the absence of that success, Alara would not have been (and wasn't) destroyed. Which means there's more evidence to say he doesn't have planes-destroying power post-Mending than there is that says he does. He had to spend time and effort to bring the shards closer to each other to even create the situation where he could have a shot at absorbing the Maelstrom. Ajani stopped him, and he didn't absorb it.
From the sneak peak/interview with the author she mentions it hasn't been very long since Skalla was destroyed and this seems to be set present day or close to present day, since it looks like we are Ixalan after the Sun was taken, so post conflux seems right.
Wouldn't this imply that Skalla was destroyed post-Mending? Where would Bolas draw the power to destroy an entire plane after the Mending? He needed to rush as his power was diminishing to defeat the Amonkhet God's and create his new society. This tells me he doesn't have planes-destroying power anymore.
Story wise, better than last week, because there's more description on Skallan culture as well as Vivien's history. Her fear of feeling inaction, for one, is a good note, and the comparison between Vivien's "preservation" compare to vampires' is also ringing.
However, it's hard to like a character who popped out of no where, suddenly acting out the protagonist role, with so little information. Normally you should give some background (the intriguing parts) of a new character so readers would be enticed to know more. In other words, the character should be at least intriguing even people outside of MtG community would fall for without knowing terms like PW, Vivien and Skalla are just too vague at this point. If you can't like a character, you'd also be indifferent towards her origin and action. For someone who bears the entire legacy of Skalla, Vivien was too willing to dive into overwhelming challenge, and how could her deem this as a "good death" when her failure erases Skalla forever?
And shouldn't Vivien attempt to planeswalk in these two chapters at least once? We're uncertain if this is before or after Immortal Sun, but she didn't even bother teleporting once, it would've at least shift her out of her bondage, no?
I like Cassandra's style, it paints vivid picture in my head with her accurate description, comparison, and physical stimuli. As Trinite0 said, I'd vote Cassandra to write for Phyrexia related stories as well. Once again, I think the agenda WotC bestowed on writers might not have been entirely fair, asking them to create a certain "ending" without enough time to flush out the character. The vampires were great, since they are minor and had earned their due, Vivien being major character deserve more layout.
I agree with most of this. I'd also say that this story could have benefitted greatly from flashbacks. While undergoing torture, instead of the repetitive Skalla refrain, we could have been shown a scene of her life there, something to really drive home the loss. It's easy to write gore and violence; it's harder to write something that really strums emotional strings.
And indeed, it seems kind of out of character (based on the little character development we've had) for Vivien to risk the last bit of Skalla to teach a lesson. In Man of Steel, it took the risk of losing the entire planet Earth for Superman to sacrifice the future of Krypton. Vivien's actions present a strange disregard for the 'future' of Skalla.
I enjoy the high-brow language in these stories, though it does seem a bit incongruous for Vivien's personal voice. I dunno, maybe in Skalla even the shamans read Nabokov.:)
Whoa, don't take a shot at Nabokov! And it's important to make a distinction between high-brow language, and language masquerading as high-brow. The writing style is reminiscent of a high school graduate trying to impress their first literature professor. To the student, the words seem profound and intellectual because they are new words to them and correspond to their own new maturity, and they're making the effort to show off their ability. To the professor, it's obvious what the student is doing, the red pen is lifted, and at least 1/3 of the words are crossed out and much nose-bride-pinching commences. Wordiness and flowery language do not rise to the level of high-brow. If we make that concession, high-brow writing will lose its meaning!
Though I will agree that a planeswalker who seems so forest/nature-centered really clashes with the voice of these stories.
The body horror descriptions are particularly effective, and I'd nominate Cassandra Khaw to write the stories for New New Phyrexia (or Scars of Scars of Mirrodin, whatever they call it). Highly intellectualized clinical violence seems to be her strong suit.
But on a serious note, sure, she can write violence and gore, but the last thing I need, as someone who needs a return to New Phyrexia like I need oxygen, is this kind of writing on New Phyrexia. "Elesh Norn, her enameled plates white like the last petal of the last white rose of what once was Mirrodin, her red flesh reminiscent of red fish gills from planes she never knew, inclined her head ever so slightly, yet not slightly enough, to regard with her blank marble wall stare the Phyrexian who now approached her in abject supplication. 'I will not tolerate dissent!,' she growled like a hungry dragon, but her voice was sultry and salacious." Blech! Give this author an editor and a mentor, and maybe in while I'd agree. But until then, I cannot!
I found nothing to compliment in today's story. Reads like fan-fiction. Continued overly flowery language that serves no purpose. We still haven't been told much about Skalla at all. Somehow the Baron has met several planeswalkers, but since the planeswalkers we know try not to mention what they are, we're just meant to roll with it, especially on the formerly or soon-to-be planeswalker trap plane, depending when this story takes place (probably post-Ixalan block). The gore continues, just to make us really dislike the Baddies, which is an annoying one-dimensional approach. The dialogue is written as if the writer thinks they're writing something intellectual, a wonderful tete-a-tete, but it's juvenile and simplistic when you read the lines alongside each other and drop the over-descriptions that lie in between. And the story ends suddenly, almost as if I was thunked on the head. What?
Story just feels like a mess. Considering the earlier Core story, this is landing on me like mud. I haven't felt this way about an MtG story article in quite some time.
I was struck by a thought. If these were comics (I'm thinking about them because of how the Gatewatch is much like the Avengers), this type of build-up and conflict would likely precede a reboot of characters/death of characters/start of new characters for a new set of comics. This storyline seems ripe for planeswalkers to die. I feel like this would be a decent vehicle to knock out some walkers we see all the time, and give us a bunch of new walkers to follow. Kind of taking up the mantle of the Gatewatch, in memoriam.
But, Wizards is also really into merchandising and love their main five walkers and Bolas. How likely is it that more than one long-term walker dies by the end of this story?
The over-description of everything, the non-stop similes, the spacing out of a conversation of only a few sentences over several paragraphs . . . the author is in dire need of an editor. I've read books of varying complexity over the decades and I found myself having to reread paragraphs constantly in an effort to plow through needless words to get to the point. Some of the worst writing I've seen for MtG stories in quite some time. I guess I've been spoiled with the better authors they've been using.
That being said, I didn't learn much about Vivien. Before this story, I didn't know much more beyond the existence of her bow and the fact that Bolas destroyed her world. Neither really seemed to be delved into too deeply. Skalla is destroyed, but the context in which it was is unknown to me. The bow fires arrows correlating to summoned animal penumbras or spirits? The how and why isn't really explained with too much detail either.
So the benefit of today's story, to me, is the development of the Legion of Dusk world. At first I was really irritated at the French words. Then I was frustrated with the description of clothes and vampires better suited to Innistrad vamps (though the environment is obviously different). But then, I guess, this is a French-inspired holding of the Legion? Which then leads me to wonder what other European powers may be represented in fictional form in the Legion, and whether they too have diverging clothes/culture as stark as the French island we encountered today.
I agree with someone else that this has to have taken place after the events of Ixalan, unless Vivien actually lived long before the Immortal Sun was made and we're looking back in the past (but that wouldn't make sense when the story mentions the elder dinos).
The Tarkir time stuff is interesting. In the Tarkir thread, we got into debates about how the change in the past could impact other planes if any planeswalker visited Tarkir in both timelines. If Bob goes to dragonless Tarkir and then goes to another plane, his life will be different than if Bob went to dragon overload Tarkir and then went to another plane. As long as Tarkir was self-contained, this wouldn't be an issue. The time change would only impact Tarkir.
Here, though, it gets messy. The Crux of Fate was Ugin's fall. In original timeline, he died. If Bolas came back 20 years later to check on Ugin, Yasova wouldn't be there with the twins, he wouldn't be spooked by the Immortal Sun, and Ugin's skeleton and the end of dragonstorms would reassure Bolas that Ugin was, indeed, dead.
In new timeline, we have the Core set story. There's Yasova, the twins, the hedron shell, the fear that Ugin may still be around, etc. You can't say that Bolas would behave the same way after Tarkir A as he would in Tarkir B. In Tarkir A timeline, he'd be operating mostly unafraid of Ugin returning. That's for hundreds of thousands of years, on who knows how many planes. But on Tarkir B timeline, he'd likely still be spooked by Ugin and looking over his shoulder. That could, and frankly should, be a huge impact on the history of other planes and actions.
My personal feeling is that introducing Bolas on Tarkir wasn't really necessary, and caused more narrative problems than solutions.
There is still causal torture? I should note Oldwalkers Pre Mending could also take others with them so Bolas could have dragged them off Plane and interrogated them leisurely.
Eh, that's a matter of him preferring to get outta dodge asap in order to avoid the potential noose closing around him over taking the risk of wasting another moment before leaving.
A fair point, but that works only if we set the timeline as: Yasova finishes stating her bluff, and then Bolas has to think about what to do. It does not work if the timeline is: during the several seconds and sentences of conversation during the bluff, Bolas is also reading their minds simultaneously.
I think it's likelier that Bolas would always be keeping a finger in your brain pie. If you're speaking, you could be lying. Instead of wasting time, he could just keep tabs on your thoughts while you spoke. It's less likely, to me, that Bolas, now very powerful for millennia, would choose to *not* do that, seeing how he does it all the time anyway.
And that is what made that part so unbelievable to me. In the mind magic we've seen, time is often very different within the mind of another person. So what to us would be 0.5 seconds could be more than enough for Bolas to get the sense that someone was lying, *while* they were lying.
Ultimately, I get it. The story wouldn't work well unless Bolas was made to leave. But that doesn't make it a smooth storytelling moment.
Bolas seemed surprisingly 'dumb' in these last two chapters. As Yasova was talking and bluffing, it would have taken less than a second for Bolas to see if she was lying by swiping through her mind. Whatevs.
I just read through a lot of pages on this thread, since I was gone for a bit, but as to the leviathan that Bolas fought on Dominaria, what are the odds the thing was related to Marit Lage? Both are huge leviathan-y things that could traverse planes but weren't planeswalkers. And if there were two of them, why not more?
I wish we had gotten a look at that leviathan fight.
EDIT: Also, I was wrong a couple of weeks ago when I put forth the counter-argument that Ugin's first plane was not the Meditation Plane. Last week's story showed me my error.
And lastly, ah, did no one else find it notable that Ugin's first planeswalk was to the Meditation Plane? Like, did Bolas somehow steal the Meditation Plane from Ugin? Do Bolas and Ugin both naturally have a version of the Meditation Plane because they are twins? But we've decided Bolas isn't a natural-born walker anyway. Or, is the Meditation Plane not actually belong to Bolas and has some implications towards the cosmological nature of the multiverse? Or could Ugin and Bolas be in some sort of cahoots!? (I mean probably no, but given that Bolas likes to deceive people and wear disguises ... I don't know where I'm going with this. I just don't trust Ugin. That aloof lizard seems a bit too concerned with the cosmological importance of things and not really concerned with the well-being of individual lesser creatures)
I don't think that was the Meditation Plane. I thought it was as well at first but I think it was just Ugin's understanding of the Blind Eternities. And it wasn't his first walk. Tarkir was definitely his first walk.
Besides wasn't it some group of people who met there in spirit that Bolas took it from?
Uhh yes it was my first thought and reply on this thread.
Here is the passage from Story 4 : "
A scouring wind whirled down from inside and outside the heavens and dragged me into a terrifying storm of darkness where I could not even draw breath and felt my lungs being crushed by a weight of dread. A force twisted my body as if trying to turn me inside out. For an instant, my mind went blank, unseeing, unfeeling, and then with a wrench, I came back to myself.
To my astonishment, I found myself floating above a featureless sea, so flat and still I could see my own reflection in the water: my horns, my scales, my eyes like twin sparks burning bright. I drifted in bewilderment, rended by the grief of losing the brother I had trusted and stupefied by the sheer jarring astonishment of being torn from the only place I had never known and flung into the space between the planes.
For I understood then that Te Ju Ki had taught me the truth, that she had seen this place in a vision. She was physically frail, tied to the soil of her home, but her mind could range where her body and magic could not go.
She thought no one could cross between worlds, but now I was there, walking between the planes she had told me about.
With that thought like an anchor, I fell as a shooting star falls: helplessly, burning up, obliterated by its passage.
When I woke again in my body, I stood here, awake, afresh, alive, on Tarkir. And I felt the land welcome me, as if I had finally come home."
And from Story 6 : "The landscape is a silvery sheet of water as flat and reflective as a mirror extending to the horizon on all sides. Here and there rocky islands like spires rise from the endless sea, each creating a perfect resting place on which to meditate.
No wind stirs the air, yet glimmering, translucent globes float like bubbles caught in a breeze that touches nothing else.
One of these globes drifts close, and closer yet to the dreaming shadow of the girl asleep atop the waters. When its frail surface touches the edge of her misty form, it pops. The thin sphere of liquid spills memory into the shadow of her mind.
A dragon hovers over the still waters, staring into its reflection, a mirror which looks back on itself. The reflection is so complete in every detail that it might be the original dragon looking into a mirroring sea, and the dragon floating aloft might be its reflection, complete in every detail.
"What is this place?" the dragon says and, hearing his own voice, lashes his tail in surprise. But the lashing tail stirs no wind. The waters do not ripple. Only the reflection moves as the dragon answers itself.
"This must be one of the planes of which Te Ju Ki speaks. I have walked between worlds . . ."
The realization sparks a billow of shimmering, lightless flame that seems to enfold the dragon, and just like that it vanishes.
The water waits motionless, calm, and yet expectant, almost aware. Another globe spins up to the shadow of the sleeping girl, and pops.
The dragon falls in confusion, opening its wings at the last moment to settle atop a jagged peak. But this is not its smooth-sloped birth mountain presiding over a magnificent, rich landscape. This is a wild, stormy, rugged world only half born, called Tarkir"
Definately first walk to Meditation plane, THEN to Tarkir
To be fair, the story 4 excerpt above only describes a still sea and nothing else. Could be the Meditation plane, but also, could not be. The story 6 excerpt seems clear, to me, to be within the mind of Ugin, and the girl is experiencing Ugin's memories within Ugin's mind. His mind shares characteristics with the meditation plane, with the rocky outcroppings and such. But when the memory of the still sea is shared, it doesn't say anything about it being the same sea as the one the girl is resting near. Then it again describes Tarkir with another memory within Ugin's mind.
So I wouldn't say the still sea plane is definitely the meditation plane. It could be. But it's not definite. Nothing said 'that same, mirror-like surface.' The three things are separate in the narrative.
Truth be told, though, I don't know much about the meditation plane apart from art I've seen over the years and visits there in stories. I always thought Bolas created it. It doesn't seem a natural plane and he seems to have a degree of control over it. If that's the case, both could have created their own plane, or Ugin could have that 'realm' within his mind to help him meditate, Bolas saw it, and decided to make it real.
But yeah. There are similarities between the still sea plane and the meditation plane, but I'm not sold on them being the same. The still sea plane describes only the sea. The mind of Ugin specifically points out rocks to rest on. Maybe Ugin based his mind palace/mediation plane on that first plane.
I think it would be interesting if Bolas sabotages Ugin somehow in his cocoon, with magic or whatever, and then pretends he has no idea Ugin lives. That way he'd catch literally everyone, except for the audience, off guard. Probably won't happen, though.
It feels strange to me that the Elder Dragons seem to have started off as regular ol' dragons who then grew up. I mean, it makes sense. But my notion of Elder Dragon since the 90s left no room for vulnerable, young Elder Dragons. Is this Wizards way of saying that all dragons could feasibly grow up to be elder-level after enough time? They did make the Tarkir dragon leaders Elders.
I don't know how Ugin would know about this story unless he lifted it directly from Bolas' mind. Then again, I don't know how/why Bolas would think to interfere in the goings-on of Tarkir when he believes Ugin to be dead for 18 years. I'm curious to see who is responsible for Tae Jin's visions.
I had a suspicion for a few moments that Tar Jin might be Chromium, who would know all of this. But then I thought that is unlikely. But then I thought about it again. It just doesn't make sense for Ugin to define Bolas that way, let alone know all about this history and what happened (Bolas is the sole 'survivor' of the canyon/rocks/army scene before Vaevictis brother appeared; who else would know it but Bolas?). But if Bolas sent the visions, then he would know Ugin wasn't full dead. So I dunno.
Chromium and I guess Ugin leaned toward surgical strikes, you could call them. But it still would run the risk of the humans spreading out with some knowledge and strategy to kill dragons. You can't pick and choose the innocents. You can't unsee, or unlearn something. Chromium and Ugin would leave the door open for more dragon killers in the future. As long as the legend of dragon killing = power persisted in the thoughts of the humans, they would eventually try it again.
Bolas' solution is arguably better. Keep in mind that he didn't slaughter all the innocents. He made the strongest of the humans fight and kill each other. Then, he took power over them. The minds behind the magic and 'science' were gone. Now, instead of dead dragon = power, it has become dragon = power. Which means future generations will be raised without the previous connection. Bolas' plan is arguably safer for the Elder Dragons than Chromium's.
Was Bolas cruel? Yes. He sees the Bones of his kind being used in this way, his kind's blood used this way. Who wouldn't want vengeance? But he didn't kill all the humans. He simply took over them.
So from a dragon perspective, Bolas' plan was better, but the execution was a bit more ruthless than necessary. If I were an Elder Dragon, I'd probably annihilate them all, so that no memory of them remains. It would be the only absolutely sure way to stop the spread of the dangerous information.
But as a human, with human morality, I leab toward Chromium's plan.
Bringing it up doesn't explain anything. Alara would only have been destroyed if Bolas succeeded with the Maelstrom. In the absence of that success, Alara would not have been (and wasn't) destroyed. Which means there's more evidence to say he doesn't have planes-destroying power post-Mending than there is that says he does. He had to spend time and effort to bring the shards closer to each other to even create the situation where he could have a shot at absorbing the Maelstrom. Ajani stopped him, and he didn't absorb it.
So Skalla remains messy.
Wouldn't this imply that Skalla was destroyed post-Mending? Where would Bolas draw the power to destroy an entire plane after the Mending? He needed to rush as his power was diminishing to defeat the Amonkhet God's and create his new society. This tells me he doesn't have planes-destroying power anymore.
The Skalla timeline is a bit messy to me.
I agree with most of this. I'd also say that this story could have benefitted greatly from flashbacks. While undergoing torture, instead of the repetitive Skalla refrain, we could have been shown a scene of her life there, something to really drive home the loss. It's easy to write gore and violence; it's harder to write something that really strums emotional strings.
And indeed, it seems kind of out of character (based on the little character development we've had) for Vivien to risk the last bit of Skalla to teach a lesson. In Man of Steel, it took the risk of losing the entire planet Earth for Superman to sacrifice the future of Krypton. Vivien's actions present a strange disregard for the 'future' of Skalla.
Whoa, don't take a shot at Nabokov! And it's important to make a distinction between high-brow language, and language masquerading as high-brow. The writing style is reminiscent of a high school graduate trying to impress their first literature professor. To the student, the words seem profound and intellectual because they are new words to them and correspond to their own new maturity, and they're making the effort to show off their ability. To the professor, it's obvious what the student is doing, the red pen is lifted, and at least 1/3 of the words are crossed out and much nose-bride-pinching commences. Wordiness and flowery language do not rise to the level of high-brow. If we make that concession, high-brow writing will lose its meaning!
Though I will agree that a planeswalker who seems so forest/nature-centered really clashes with the voice of these stories.
https://i.imgur.com/cjwQn6v.gif
But on a serious note, sure, she can write violence and gore, but the last thing I need, as someone who needs a return to New Phyrexia like I need oxygen, is this kind of writing on New Phyrexia. "Elesh Norn, her enameled plates white like the last petal of the last white rose of what once was Mirrodin, her red flesh reminiscent of red fish gills from planes she never knew, inclined her head ever so slightly, yet not slightly enough, to regard with her blank marble wall stare the Phyrexian who now approached her in abject supplication. 'I will not tolerate dissent!,' she growled like a hungry dragon, but her voice was sultry and salacious." Blech! Give this author an editor and a mentor, and maybe in while I'd agree. But until then, I cannot!
Story just feels like a mess. Considering the earlier Core story, this is landing on me like mud. I haven't felt this way about an MtG story article in quite some time.
But, Wizards is also really into merchandising and love their main five walkers and Bolas. How likely is it that more than one long-term walker dies by the end of this story?
That being said, I didn't learn much about Vivien. Before this story, I didn't know much more beyond the existence of her bow and the fact that Bolas destroyed her world. Neither really seemed to be delved into too deeply. Skalla is destroyed, but the context in which it was is unknown to me. The bow fires arrows correlating to summoned animal penumbras or spirits? The how and why isn't really explained with too much detail either.
So the benefit of today's story, to me, is the development of the Legion of Dusk world. At first I was really irritated at the French words. Then I was frustrated with the description of clothes and vampires better suited to Innistrad vamps (though the environment is obviously different). But then, I guess, this is a French-inspired holding of the Legion? Which then leads me to wonder what other European powers may be represented in fictional form in the Legion, and whether they too have diverging clothes/culture as stark as the French island we encountered today.
I agree with someone else that this has to have taken place after the events of Ixalan, unless Vivien actually lived long before the Immortal Sun was made and we're looking back in the past (but that wouldn't make sense when the story mentions the elder dinos).
Here, though, it gets messy. The Crux of Fate was Ugin's fall. In original timeline, he died. If Bolas came back 20 years later to check on Ugin, Yasova wouldn't be there with the twins, he wouldn't be spooked by the Immortal Sun, and Ugin's skeleton and the end of dragonstorms would reassure Bolas that Ugin was, indeed, dead.
In new timeline, we have the Core set story. There's Yasova, the twins, the hedron shell, the fear that Ugin may still be around, etc. You can't say that Bolas would behave the same way after Tarkir A as he would in Tarkir B. In Tarkir A timeline, he'd be operating mostly unafraid of Ugin returning. That's for hundreds of thousands of years, on who knows how many planes. But on Tarkir B timeline, he'd likely still be spooked by Ugin and looking over his shoulder. That could, and frankly should, be a huge impact on the history of other planes and actions.
My personal feeling is that introducing Bolas on Tarkir wasn't really necessary, and caused more narrative problems than solutions.
A fair point, but that works only if we set the timeline as: Yasova finishes stating her bluff, and then Bolas has to think about what to do. It does not work if the timeline is: during the several seconds and sentences of conversation during the bluff, Bolas is also reading their minds simultaneously.
I think it's likelier that Bolas would always be keeping a finger in your brain pie. If you're speaking, you could be lying. Instead of wasting time, he could just keep tabs on your thoughts while you spoke. It's less likely, to me, that Bolas, now very powerful for millennia, would choose to *not* do that, seeing how he does it all the time anyway.
And that is what made that part so unbelievable to me. In the mind magic we've seen, time is often very different within the mind of another person. So what to us would be 0.5 seconds could be more than enough for Bolas to get the sense that someone was lying, *while* they were lying.
Ultimately, I get it. The story wouldn't work well unless Bolas was made to leave. But that doesn't make it a smooth storytelling moment.
I just read through a lot of pages on this thread, since I was gone for a bit, but as to the leviathan that Bolas fought on Dominaria, what are the odds the thing was related to Marit Lage? Both are huge leviathan-y things that could traverse planes but weren't planeswalkers. And if there were two of them, why not more?
I wish we had gotten a look at that leviathan fight.
EDIT: Also, I was wrong a couple of weeks ago when I put forth the counter-argument that Ugin's first plane was not the Meditation Plane. Last week's story showed me my error.
To be fair, the story 4 excerpt above only describes a still sea and nothing else. Could be the Meditation plane, but also, could not be. The story 6 excerpt seems clear, to me, to be within the mind of Ugin, and the girl is experiencing Ugin's memories within Ugin's mind. His mind shares characteristics with the meditation plane, with the rocky outcroppings and such. But when the memory of the still sea is shared, it doesn't say anything about it being the same sea as the one the girl is resting near. Then it again describes Tarkir with another memory within Ugin's mind.
So I wouldn't say the still sea plane is definitely the meditation plane. It could be. But it's not definite. Nothing said 'that same, mirror-like surface.' The three things are separate in the narrative.
Truth be told, though, I don't know much about the meditation plane apart from art I've seen over the years and visits there in stories. I always thought Bolas created it. It doesn't seem a natural plane and he seems to have a degree of control over it. If that's the case, both could have created their own plane, or Ugin could have that 'realm' within his mind to help him meditate, Bolas saw it, and decided to make it real.
But yeah. There are similarities between the still sea plane and the meditation plane, but I'm not sold on them being the same. The still sea plane describes only the sea. The mind of Ugin specifically points out rocks to rest on. Maybe Ugin based his mind palace/mediation plane on that first plane.
I had a suspicion for a few moments that Tar Jin might be Chromium, who would know all of this. But then I thought that is unlikely. But then I thought about it again. It just doesn't make sense for Ugin to define Bolas that way, let alone know all about this history and what happened (Bolas is the sole 'survivor' of the canyon/rocks/army scene before Vaevictis brother appeared; who else would know it but Bolas?). But if Bolas sent the visions, then he would know Ugin wasn't full dead. So I dunno.
Chromium and I guess Ugin leaned toward surgical strikes, you could call them. But it still would run the risk of the humans spreading out with some knowledge and strategy to kill dragons. You can't pick and choose the innocents. You can't unsee, or unlearn something. Chromium and Ugin would leave the door open for more dragon killers in the future. As long as the legend of dragon killing = power persisted in the thoughts of the humans, they would eventually try it again.
Bolas' solution is arguably better. Keep in mind that he didn't slaughter all the innocents. He made the strongest of the humans fight and kill each other. Then, he took power over them. The minds behind the magic and 'science' were gone. Now, instead of dead dragon = power, it has become dragon = power. Which means future generations will be raised without the previous connection. Bolas' plan is arguably safer for the Elder Dragons than Chromium's.
Was Bolas cruel? Yes. He sees the Bones of his kind being used in this way, his kind's blood used this way. Who wouldn't want vengeance? But he didn't kill all the humans. He simply took over them.
So from a dragon perspective, Bolas' plan was better, but the execution was a bit more ruthless than necessary. If I were an Elder Dragon, I'd probably annihilate them all, so that no memory of them remains. It would be the only absolutely sure way to stop the spread of the dangerous information.
But as a human, with human morality, I leab toward Chromium's plan.