(urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?

[James Wynn]

>> The other options  are that megatherians refers to a line of human rulers that
>> have ruled under  Abaia's authority or a line of human rulers that have
>> fashioned themselves as  being like Abaia or all the undersea powers.
> Is there an objection to those options?

Yeah, but I get that its aesthetic. It's just that it still leaves open 
the question "Why 17?" "Who did they rule?" We at least know something 
of monstrous undersea rulers. A reference to a some unknown rulers who 
are vaguely related to one of the giant beasts or all of them strikes me 
as random. Some people prefer that. I don't. Like the carefully laid 
structures in this novel that have been identified or are glimpsed.

>> And I think we have  enough information to put the pieces together:
>>
>> There are 17 recognized  "Great Beasts" who are ruling or have ruled Urth.
> Part of Urth?  And what makes you say they're ruling?

Their various territories. They rule as the Storm King rules in 'An Evil 
Guest'. And Abaia has an army.

>> Why would people NOT write a  history of the alien powers that have controlled
>> and influenced life on Urth for  millenia?
> Because they have no material?  It seems quite possible that people know very
> little of those undersea powers' lives.

I think that's unlikely. The Ascians don't *have* to follow Abaia. They 
choose to (or originally chose to) for rational reasons.

>> And if you write a history of the activities of a sentient life, then  that is
>> a biography ("The Life of").
> Usually a biography called "The Life of" is written when the person's whole life
> is known, from beginning to end.  An example is Suetonius' /Lives of the Twelve
> Caesars/, the title that may have inspired /Lives of the Seventeen
> Megatherians/.  (By the way, that comparison favors your suggestion that the
> megatherians could have been a "line" of rulers over my suggestion that they
> were a "group" of contemporary rulers and yours that they were contemporaneous
> monsters--but I don't think it's conclusive.)

"Biography" means literally "written life". Many people produce multiple 
such volumes before they die.
Of course, some of the great beasts might be dead already. I certainly 
think one is at least.