Fallen Cities (A Great Many Spoilers)

[thedaveebz]

@Quil

[quote=theodor_gylden][quote=hannah mckay]For what it’s worth, I’ve developed my own pet crackpot conspiracy theory regarding the Manager’s lover. In the Doubt Street interview, he says that his lover is ‘over the water’, but that he sees ‘his face in the streets every day’. Now, in Wilmot’s End, you can meet a Clay Man standing by a statue that could be his double. Putting the two together, I find myself wondering whether the Clay Men are made in the image of someone specific, someone over the water in Polythreme, and it is in them that the Manager sees his lover’s face…

You will find support for your theory across the Sea of Voices, in Polythreme. (Spoilers, naturally.)[/quote]

I am beginning to wonder if the Manager is some version of [color=#ffffff]Pygmalion[/color]. I don’t have the specific texts to hand at the moment, but someone in Polythreme ([color=#ffffff]the Masked Man[/color]?) mentions that the whole city [color=#ffffff]originally began as one statue[/color]. Plus we discover that the Clay Men are [color=#ffffff]‘birthed’ from the walls[/color], and I am beginning to get the impression that they are somehow all [color=#ffffff]aspects or fragments of the King of a Hundred Hearts[/color]… problem is, [color=#ffffff]Pygmalion[/color] is I believe far too late in ‘history’ for the timescales we’re discussing here for the city. Anyone know of any similar personages? Perhaps out of [color=#ffffff]Jewish[/color] legend (thinking of [color=#ffffff]golems[/color] here)?[/quote]

There are possible solutions to the dates on my post on Tyre, which deals with exactly this theory. :) I still don’t think it’s the whole story, but I haven’t yet explored polythreme. I stopped off at the Fen, and have been drifting about in the sea of voices pursuing the Fallen Cities quality instead; so I hope to learn more soon.

[hannahmckay]

Points of note from the second stage of the Polythreme Travelogue story:
(spoiler) [color=#ffffff]They say Polythreme’s been here for ever. I dunno about that, but there used to be a carving in a temple of when the first ship turned up here carrying a Pharaoh’s daughter.[/color] - the Duchess? or one of her sisters?
[color=#ffffff]I’ve heard tell that the Hundreds was bound up in a bargain with them Masters long ago. And that’s how Polythreme came to be. Summat about love and a statue… [/color]
[color=#ffffff]You don’t talk about love to the Hundreds if you know what’s good for you. And he curses the name of someone who still lives in London. [/color]- possibly more support for the idea of the Manager as Pygmalion.

Also, it mentions that visitors from the Presbyterate refer to the Hundreds as [color=#ffffff]‘The Diamond King’[/color] - anyone have any theories of how to interpret that?

[quil]

[quote=Dave ]
There are possible solutions to the dates on my post on Tyre, which deals with exactly this theory. :)[/quote]

Aha! I thought that I’d read something about this before, but the thread is long and I am lazy. Thank you!

I think the Polythreme content is now strongly pointing to the Tyre/Pygmalion theory. I will be very interested to see what you make of it, Dave…

[thedaveebz]

[quote=Quil][quote=Dave ]
There are possible solutions to the dates on my post on Tyre, which deals with exactly this theory. :)[/quote]

Aha! I thought that I’d read something about this before, but the thread is long and I am lazy. Thank you!

I think the Polythreme content is now strongly pointing to the Tyre/Pygmalion theory. I will be very interested to see what you make of it, Dave…[/quote]

What I’ve learned in Polythreme has been mixed, with respect to Tyre/Pygmalion. There are a few definite supporting bits, such as these spoiler lines:

From “A lesson in history and politics”: [color=#ffffff]And that’s how Polythreme came to be. Summant about love and a statue.[/color]

From “Bid Him Good Morning (the masked man)”: [color=#ffffff]Although, they do say the whole place started off as just one statue. Just one![/color]
[color=#ffffff]
[/color]
[color=#ffffff]
[/color]
On the other hand, there are two flaws with this theory that I’ve run into. The biggest one is all the references to the silk road. The silk road didn’t really get going until around 100 BCE, which is way off from most of the timelines proposed here so far. The other flaw is a handful of references to a location near the western edge of the Caspian Sea:

From “Paying your way”:[color=#ffffff] A Clay Man runs the silk length through his thick fingers. His lips crack in a smile and he closes his eyes. He speaks in the voice of a human man. ‘Silk, silk. So long ago. Such a journey westward with the precious cargo. They said the world wasn’t that big, but we came to the shores of the inland sea, where they’d never even seen silk…’[/color]
From “The Wax Wind Comes”:[color=#ffffff]There’s something carved into the stone wall. A map. It’s simply realised, but you recognise Asia and the Middle East. A series of arrows starts in Eastern China and ends in the land between the Caspian and Mediterranean seas.[/color]
[color=#ffffff]
[/color]
Neither flaw is fatal; the silk road existed in some form as far back as 2,500 BCE, and the Caspian Sea may have just been a stop on a journey. However, they certainly don’t support the idea well. One thing that these flaws has lead me to wonder: Perhaps we are going the wrong direction with Pygmalion - Given the “Paying your way” spoiler above, and let’s not forget the fate of the Comtessa, perhaps this is flesh to stone rather than stone to flesh. This would factor in well with the idea of a “hidden cost” in dealings with the bazaar, as mentioned by the Duchess - specifically, I would find it similar in that respect to the fate of the cantigaster.

This is one of the things I enjoy about this game - the more secrets we reveal, the more mystery there seems to be to uncover!
edited by TheDaveEBZ on 3/19/2012

[littlethe]

Hm. I have not yet finished Polythreme, so I cannot comment on many of those spoilers…

However, backpedaling for a moment: Earlier, I suggested that the locations across the Unterzee are all remnants of former cities. Polythreme = the First City, NORTH = the Second, the Carnelian Coast = the Third, and the East = the Fourth. People have theorized that the Western Wall could also be part of London, or it is what London will leave behind. However, there is still the matter of “the Pillars”, which we know virtually nothing about. I was wondering…is it possible that they could be a hint as to the Sixth City? Perhaps they are the “blank slate” that will eventually be populated by the remnant of a city. (Alternatively, if the Western Wall is unrelated to London, the Pillars could just be London’s remnant…)

[patrickreding]

Tyre could be considered to be between the Caspian and Mediterranean, technically, although obviously far closer to the latter. And it would be even more accurate to say it was between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

[meddlesomeduke]

Manager as Pygmalion all but confirmed. The prisoner tells you that Hundreds knows you assosciate with the manager of “that hotel in london” or something. The Manager clearly has a relationship to Polythreme.

[thedaveebz]

@Patrick Reding

Tyre could be considered to be between the Caspian and Mediterranean, technically, although obviously far closer to the latter. And it would be even more accurate to say it was between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

At the time of the first fall, Tyre could be considered to be in the Mediterranean. It’s a peninsula today, but it used to be an island. The Tyrians used their expert sailing skills to drive off all invaders until Alexander the Great - who went around that “expert sailor” problem by building a land bridge right up to the island that with two millennium of silt buildup has made it the peninsula it is today.

[patrickreding]

@Dave

[quote=Patrick Reding]Tyre could be considered to be between the Caspian and Mediterranean, technically, although obviously far closer to the latter. And it would be even more accurate to say it was between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

At the time of the first fall, Tyre could be considered to be in the Mediterranean. It’s a peninsula today, but it used to be an island. The Tyrians used their expert sailing skills to drive off all invaders until Alexander the Great - who went around that “expert sailor” problem by building a land bridge right up to the island that with two millennium of silt buildup has made it the peninsula it is today.[/quote]
Ah, right. How could I have forgotten.

[jackblackstone]

This may be off Topic but does anyone think that “The Bazaar” is Ishtar? She was the Goddess of love and storms.

[morbid]

Just found my first Fallen Cities oppertunity Card and it read They say that the Second City was once a blaze of copper and turquoise, and that the vitrified sheen on its best ceramics glows with the heat of that ancient sun. They say that the First City was made of shining alabaster and bone held together by belief. They say the Masters sometimes choose to dream in pictographs. [color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]A quick google search later and I stumble on this:
[/color]Eye Idols made of alabaster or bone have been found in Tell Hamoukar. Eye Idols have also been found in Tell Brak, the biggest settlement from Syria’s Late Chalcolithic period[i]. Now lhfgljhfvljh
[color=rgb(0, 0, 0)]Now it is not much but the location of Harmoukar is not impossibly far from the Caspian Sea. But of couse the time period seems to be much later than othervise suggested and the masters would have had to elliminate both writing and coins from extitance.

Kind Regards
Morbid

P.S.: Sorry about the poor spelling and syntax :)
[/color][/i]

[lawrencegrowe]

Here’s some more food for thought: you get to see a small map on a failure of Polythreme opportunity “The Wax-Wind is Coming”. Could it possibly be depicting the locations of the Fallen Cities?

[rageboxalice]

Played a Fallen cities Opportunity card last night and got this lovely little blurb. I’ll leave it here for others to dissect.

They say the broken, tarnished silver tree at the heart of the Forgotten Quarter was once a living birch, that it was transformed into a fountain at the Fourth City’s Fall. They say the gods of the Third City still walk amongst the citizens of the Neath. They say that the Masters know everything and nothing about this.

edited by RageBox Alice on 3/22/2012

[travellersside]

Hmm
For the first: that complicates things.
For the second, hmm: That might actually explain some things. Especially snuffers.
For the third: Ha!
Interesting fragments.

[patrickreding]

[quote=RageBox Alice]Played a Fallen cities Opportunity card last night and got this lovely little blurb. I’ll leave it here for others to dissect.

They say the broken, tarnished silver tree at the heart of the Forgotten Quarter was once a living birch, that it was transformed into a fountain at the Fourth City’s Fall. They say the gods of the Third City still walk amongst the citizens of the Neath. They say that the Masters know everything and nothing about this.[/quote]

The trick, of course, is that “they” say a lot of things. A lot of those things may be somewhere in the vague vicinity of the truth, but most are just garbage.
edited by Patrick Reding on 3/23/2012

[rageboxalice]

True, “they” say a lot, some of it completely contradictory. And there’s always the chance that there is some misdirection going on.

BTW, has anyone traded Compromising Documents for Stolen Kisses and gotten this blurb?

A damp alley two streets from the Museum of Mistakes. At last, the Muffled Intriguer. ‘…took longer than I’d planned. Sorry. Most of the coins are gone. But look at these. The kisses that built Rome and killed the queen of Carthage. Romance, eh?’

I received 10 Stolen Kisses and four First City coins.

[patrickreding]

But Cyprus is even further from the Caspian…
edited by Patrick Reding on 3/29/2012

[aspeon]

A tidbit from the Grunting Fen: [[color=#ffffff][Your ship] tells you that a terrible bargain was made once in a far dry place, and that all water still remembers it because all water contains something that was once well-water.[/color]]

So does “far dry place” refer to Egypt, or does “well-water” tie this to Mr. Eaten? Or both?

[catherineraymond]

@Urthdigger

It is probably obvious, but the second city is clearly somewhere in Egypt. As far as the third city goes, I believe it to be in mesoamerica, due to the maize-wine as well as the well-attended sporting event, which is likely the mesoamerican ball game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame

Agreed. Some of the information is contradictory. The “beads on a string” method of passing messages evokes Macchu Picchu in Peru (though they actually used knots), but the Skyglass Knife is more Aztec than Inca. The square gods could be Aztec or Mayan, but to my knowledge none of the Mesoamerican civilizations used “cinnabar” beads–their jewels tended to be turquoise or jade.

My best guess as to the Third City is Tenochitlan, the ancient capital of Mexico and the centerpiece of Aztec civilization. I think the cinnabar beads are a red herring, but the Skyglass Knives are a definite part of the game and were used by the Aztecs.

[catherineraymond]

[quote=tofudragon7]Oh boy! There’s been a lot of speculation about this on the nets for the past few years, but never a good centralized place to put it. Here’s a summary of the best of what I’ve been able to find, both by my own searching and that which I found on blogs, etc…
[/quote]

I agree with you about the Fourth City.

I did not know the Maya used cinnabar. If that’s so, it does make a Maya city more likely for the Third City, though I wouldn’t have expected Failbetter to select a city that was that obscure.

As for the Second City, what do you think of Memphis?

I agree with your speculation about the First City. I think the Cedars are an important clue and I know there was a City with a special association with them, but cannot recall the name. The Bible refers to “cedars of Lebanon”, if that helps.