Fallen Cities (A Great Many Spoilers)

Fallen London
461

I’ve tried searching through this long thread, so forgive me if this is obvious, spoken of already, etc. I’m going to lay out my (or likely already established) theory with incomplete bits of evidence.

The former Master, now Mr Eaten, either was or took up the role of the god Aten.

  • What remains of a name (Eaten as a corruption of Aten).[/li][li]The Masters hated him and the second city for something.[/li][li]The Masters aren’t gods, but the God-Eaters ate a god.[/li][li]Like with Mr Eaten, IRL Atenism was nearly wiped from the historical record.[/li][li]The bit (in quote) about Akhetaten meaning Horizon of Aten, could easily be corrupted to Avid Horizon.[/li][li]Mr Eaten likely was the original dealer in Dreams, which may have led to it wanting to raise its station. Dreams likely include desires, that which humans are &quotavid of&quot. Perhaps overwhelmed by this, he sought to rise above his place in the Great Chain. What greater place than as a Sun God (Judgement).
462

That is 100% your theory. While it’s interesting (and personally I’m going to steal bits of it for another theory). I think you’re missing a few details that explain/dismiss a few (not all!) of your points.

463

To celebrate my finally managing to create an account on these forums, I wanted to set out a couple theories/questions/ideas I had regarding the Cities. I’m obsessed with the Cities, and I find them absolutely fascinating.

First, there is a definite link between the Fall of the Cities and the Masters leveraging some sort of influence on the ‘owners’ of the cities. We see this explicitly during the Empress’ Shadow (when Mr. Wines tells the Shadow that she cannot speak for Berlin) and Lost in Reflections (when Mr. Wines or Mouverde is trying to get the French Emperor to sell Paris to the Bazaar in return for saving his daughter’s life).

We know more or less the situations that led to the Fall of most of the Cities. London had Empress Victoria do so to save the Consort, Prince Albert. In the Fourth City (I have not finished playing through the Silver Tree), I imagine it had something to do with the Princess and probably William the Sculptor. In the Second City, I figured it was something to do with the Duchess and the Cantigaster, and finally, with the First City, it was about the Manager and the Hundreds.

But everything we know about the Third City seems to say that the situation was very different there. It’s not clear, of course, but it seems like the three priest-kings who dealt with the Masters regarding the Third City were Cat, Red Bird and Snake, the creatures from ‘The Fidgeting Writer’ story. Other clues from various sources (Kingeaters’ Castle from the Seven-Day Reign, that little side story about the zailors stranded on an island with three people who played games) seem to paint those three as humans who became something more/less by being the ones who sacrificed Mr. Eaten and became creatures who subsist on souls.

No love story here, that we know of. Three priest-kings who longed for godhood, and a group of alien creatures who sold one of their own to them to that end, in return for their City. In any case, a very different situation from those previous and those after. Intriguing, IMO.

What interests me is whether or not the Second City survived someway or other until the acquisition of the Third City, or if there was simply a huge gap between their times because of some intra-Master conflict. There is a nearly 2,000 year gaps between them, if Amarna being the Second City is right (and it certainly seems so).

Second, the world of Fallen London is obviously an alt!history. We know this by the presence of a French Emperor (among other things) in the early 20th century.

In a sense, it’s also a secret history since it posits an entirely different metaphysical conception of reality from what we regard as scientific fact today.

What I’m curious about is the degree of deviation and the points at which it occurs. I come back to the Third City again. The timeframe (approx. 1,000 yeas before the Fall of London) puts its Fall square during the Classic Maya Collapse. Now that fits the secret history stance - we know the Mayan civilization went through a great collapse but we are not entirely sure how, and in Fallen London-verse, it’s because the Bazaar stole a key city. We know that Falls do disturb Surface- control, since we know that the British Empire has been severely hampered, if not completely disintegrated, due to London’s Fall. Here, secret history seems to become alt!history since the changes are no longer lost in the mists of time, but apparent to anyone with knowledge of history.

I’m totally rambling here, but I have been dying to talk about the lore for months now, so I kind of spewed it all out at once. In any case, this is one of the most beautifully and intriguingly built worlds I have encountered and I love it. Here’s to more, more, more.

464

The masters, and the bazaar, seem to have been trapped by the second city. You can find text like “the messengers of the night have been bound” which seems to come right after the fall of the second city, and in bag a legend, the vake screams that it was trapped and bound for centuries, without room to spread its wings.
I think that eaten was not trapped like everyone else. He has fond memories of the second city, and enjoyed the hospitality of the royal family. Plus, he was brought along because “even the runt has its uses”. If it was a trap designed for higher members of the great chain, Eaten may have been immune. (Though that is just one way to read it)
Based on that, I think what happened was that Veils managed to escape somehow, found Mr Eaten running around having a good time and not letting any of the others masters out, and immediately sold him to the most convenient city (itwas still the center of an empire interestingly), bringing the third city down on top of the second, and destroying whatever was trapping the masters/bazaar.

465

That is fascinating. I don’t think I’ve come across much of the text alluding to this possibility (my Ambition is Nemesis). It would certainly explain a lot.

I wonder why the Duchess was left unharmed by any vengeance if this is true…

466

I’m pretty sure that the Bazaar and Masters were trapped in the Neath either 1. by some wording in the contract, or 2. by some sort of agreement between the Pharoah’s Daughters and the Fingerkings (based on a vague recollection of something or other). Either way, I think that Mr Eaten was trapped alongside the rest of the Masters. They turned on him not because he was exempt, but because he didn’t blame the Daughters for their plot and was sympathetic. (Also because he was the Runt.)

467

That would imply that the Pharaoh’s Daughters were alive for those 2,000 years (or a good portion of it) and that the Second City continued to exist as a power in the Neath, would it not?

Are these tidbits part of some Fate-locked story or Seeking Mr. Eaten’s Name? I can sort of adduce the Fingerkings’ involvement from the Attendants and the Season of Ruins.

Did the Duchess betray her sisters?

468

is this where presbyterate came from? and here i thought the descritpion of feducci’s face when he removes his bandages in the MoF as ramses-lookalike was just for poetry, but now that you mention that…-

469

The Duchess is still alive to this day, and iirc the Abbess in Bag a Legend! is one of the sisters as well. The Bazaar certainly continued as a power in the Neath, but it’s hard to say about the Second City itself, as Amarna was specifically sold because it was ultimately unimportant.

The Presbyterate has been around for far longer than the Second City.

470

Oh sweet Jesus, that is brilliant. It HAS to be Jerusalem.

471

Which of the masters do you think bought the fourth city?

472

Silver tree says wines, I believe.

473

[quote=Greg Machlin]Oh sweet Jesus, that is brilliant. It HAS to be Jerusalem.

It is not Jerusalem. If Jerusalem were the First City, then what city did Christ die in, Hadrian destroy, Khalid capture, Godfrey liberate, Saladin retake? The game plainly states that the Fourth City was bought ca. 1300, the Third about 500 years before that, and we can date the purchase of the Second within a few decades, a little before 1300 B.C. Now, I admit that Jerusalem had been around at least a thousand years at that point, but all of its more interesting history was in the future, and in any case we can be quite certain that, unlike the other Cities (which were all &quotlost cities&quot when incorporated into Fallen London), Jerusalem is quite clearly still with us today.

Secondly, it is clearly stated that the First City coins aren’t actually from the First City. They are &quotno more than 30 years old,&quot and thus products of the Fifth City.

All of this is really immaterial, however. We know with great precision what the First City was, and where it was located. Its seller is still kicking around London, possibly manic, but definitely still here.

So why the obvious Judas reference in First City coins? As a historical reference, it’s meaningless (see above). As a thematic reference, however, it hits deep. &quotBetrayal by sale&quot is a message that can be applied to… well, just about everything in this game.

474

Keep in mind that we can’t rely on real-world history exactly in this process - those cities may be fallen, but, unlike in the Neathy timeline, we still have their ruins on the surface.

475

There is one matter here where I think I can shed some light. It’s not vital now, since the identity of the First City has long been locked on other evidence, but it may clear up some confusion. (I do not think this has been mentioned before, but it’s a long and ancient thread, and I may have missed something in it over my reading.)

One of the continual puzzles of the Neath is the sidebar phrase that &quotEven the First City was young when Babylon fell.&quot The discussion has centered around the date of Babylon’s fall (was it Cyrus’s conquest? some other conquest?) with a healthy smattering of reminders that what &quotthey say&quot is rarely trustworthy–grains of truth in oceans of rumor, to borrow a phrase.

This snippet, however, I believe to be trustworthy. Our problem has been that we’ve been looking at the wrong Babylon.

Let me explain. Babylon is more than just a famous city; it is a symbol. Its symbolic roots reach into Judaism; the Jews were understandably upset by the destruction of Jerusalem and their forced resettlement. (Very few peoples survived as ethnic identities after Babylon was through with them.) You can get a good feel for their reaction in Psalm 137.

By the time Christianity appeared (and let us remember that the first leaders of the Church were all Jews), Babylon had become a symbol for temporal wealth, power, and temptation. As such, it could be applied to other cities. Peter mentions in his first letter the church in Babylon, but the &quotBabylon&quot in question was imperial Rome. In Revelation (and there are some excellent pokings at a relevant passage very early in this thread) &quotBabylon&quot stands for the city of the Antichrist. Later Christian writers picked up the symbolism, so that the name Babylon could be applied to any place of great wealth and great corruption. In short, the Babylon that fell in the First City’s youth is not necessarily the city of Hammurabi.

So what is it, then? A center of wealth and vice. Something very ancient. Something that fell.

(Do you see where I am going yet?)

In my reading, the Babylon referred to is the Bazaar itself. It hits all the symbolic points. It fell–very literally–a long time ago. If this saying isn’t a red herring, and if it has managed (as sayings often do) to remember truth down through the centuries, then we can date the Bazaar’s arrival to (roughly) the Chalcolithic. That date, incidentally, gives us a keystone for a lot of other dates in Neathy history.

The suggestions from six years ago (!) that tentatively connected the Masters to Revelation 18 could, if proven, also be taken as corroborating evidence. After all, it’s rather the next logical conclusion.

Now, any good theory needs to be disprovable, and the chief data that might disprove it involve the Elder Continent. A straight reading of the passage, identifying Babylon as the Bazaar and relying on current archaeological evidence, gives us a (very) rough estimate of 3,500-4,000 B.C., plus or minus a few centuries. Now, the advent of the Bazaar is intimately connected with the origins of the Mountain, and I seem to remember theories, at least, that push the history of the Elder Continent (which depends upon the Mountain for many of its characteristics) many centuries before that. If that’s proven, then a straight reading of the passage as suggested would be impossible. However, even then we can’t be sure without further evidence whether the identification or the dating is incorrect. It could even be both.

At this point, I’d love to hear from those who have played Flint or otherwise dallied with the Elder Continent. How old is the Presbyterate, as far as we know? Its citizens of course can hit four digits, but I don’t know what information we have about its origins.

476

Certainly, certainly, but the Cities have all been those which have disappeared–or at least fallen–in the real world. The ruins of Karakorum and Amarna might be there, but they weren’t (for the most part) above ground when Fallen London began. As far as I can read, the history of Fallen London was meant to be compatible with our own history–at least until December 1861.

And there is the fact that we have the Church down here. That isn’t likely to happen if there were no Jerusalem.
edited by Siankan on 1/16/2018

477

I wonder: can we surmise which Masters negotiated the purchase of each city? Here’s what I’ve pieced together so far.

The vision you get from the King with a Hundred Hearts in “Ambition: Heart’s Desire” depicts a pair of Masters - one with a clay cup, and one with an unlit candle - negotiating the fall of the First City. The former is obviously Mr. Cups, and the latter was probably Mr. Eaten (or, more precisely, the Master who would eventually become him).

I have no idea who negotiated the fall of the Second City.

Without going into too many spoilers, the Mr. Eaten plotline more or less explicitly states that Mr. Veils negotiated the fall of the Third City.

“The Silver Tree” explicitly states in the ending that Mr. Wines (then the “Khan of Drink”) was the one who negotiated the fall of the Fourth City.

I feel like London might have been negotiated by Mr. Pages, but I’m not sure.

Does anyone know who negotiated the Second City? And can anyone confirm who negotiated for London?

478

Anyone got any idea on which dynasty The Fourth City (Karakorum) fell?
edited by Agent ‘Trilby’ on 1/18/2018

479

Assuming I parsed the sentence correctly (which dynasty ruled the Fourth City at its fall), the Yuan Dynasty that descended from Genghis Khan ruled Karakorum during its entire history. The city was razed by the Ming in 1388, the same year that Uskhal Khan was murdered, though I don’t know whether it was before or after. It was refounded in a minor way a hundred years later by Dayan Khan, but the London chronology strongly points to 1388 or before as the Fall date.

I seem to remember someone saying something about the Fall being in the middle of a siege; if that’s true, then 1388 is the probable year. The only description of the Fourth City’s Fall that I have read (a certain confession from Hallowmas past) says nothing about it. Still, I think 1388 is exceedingly likely for the year of the Fall, and Uskhal Khan or his successor Jorightu Khan the likely first ruler of the Fourth City. Certainly it’s the latest possible date; after the Chinese were through with the city, there was nothing left that would attract a Master.

If the sentence was supposed to be parsed &quotwho ruled the Third City when the Fourth landed on top of it,&quot then I think that question is currently unanswerable. The most probable answer is &quotnobody.&quot

480

The issue is, we’re not quite sure. Sunless Sea has a line about the Presbyterate making a treaty with &quota certain other power&quot before the Bazaar ever came to the Neath. There’s some disagreement on whether that power was Salt or Stone. Neither way fully makes sense - either Salt came to the Neath to spy before the Bazaar was in residence, or Stone somehow got to the Neath independently despite later seemingly being incapable of leaving.

So yeah, the Presbyterate is capital o Old, but aside from that we don’t know.