(urth) 17 megatherians

[b sharp]

thalassocrat expresses:

>I've never understood why people assume this. "Megatherians" = "Big 
>animals". Why think of Abaia, Erebus et al as "animals"?

>On the other hand, I suppose you could think of the "Group of 17" as 
>composed of 17 individuals each under the control of a different 
>"megatherian". But to me it's a red herring.

I use the megatherian term as a convention only, is there an alternate term? 
So Thalassocrat is of the school who feel "they" (is it even 17?) are human? 
  I profess no strong stance at this juncture.  However, Abaia is refered to 
as "great beast" is he not?

And Wikipedia chimes in with-  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therian)

>Therian in the English language has two distinct definitions:

>-In taxonomy, the term refers to a member of Theria, a subclass of advanced 
>mammals. -In anthropology and in certain psychological/spiritual 
>subcultures, therian refers to a variety of >otherkin who identify with 
>animals or shapeshifters; a person who believes in, possesses some 
> >characteristics of, or subscribes to the spiritual or shamanic (not the 
>folkloric) definition of >therianthropy or who belongs to the therianthropy 
>subculture.

ooh I like the idea of Wolfe using of a bit of both of those definitions but 
that second one..whew!  It happens over and over.  Is he a genius or what?  
But I think we are getting somewhere....piece by piece....

-bsharp