Food for thought..Order Hierophant

[GeniusLoci]

Uh, did it ever occur to anyone that the whole thing about the wall of lights making
someone as powerful as a god was a LIE? The Avatar went into the void and didn't
come back with the power of a God (that was later).
Personally, I don't think you can trust anything the Guardian told Batlin, since he
was obviously just trying to release the Banes to make things worse (and kill Batlin
at the same time).
As for the Guardian; the "original" explanation of him beind the seventh Zealan
deity is the only one I've ever seen that made sense.

[Thomas_Decker]

As far as I know, the souls of the Order people dwell with the Order Serpent in the ethereal void.

[Soule]

Does that mean the followers are now part of the Order Serpent?

The Guardian is YOU! So if you were a female in U7 and Serpent Isle, how come your evil twin becomes a female?

I am sure during the period of U5 to U6, the Guardian tries to amass his power. If this is Legend of Kyrandia, we could have a Ultima 5 Part 2 Guardian's Revenge

[Stephan]

Even if I did enjoy U9 as a game - not as an Ultima - I do not accept its plot and story as part of the Ultima history. It is quite obvious that the Guardian was never meant to be what he turned out to be in U9, and that it was a fairly hurried plot decision.

[XxVenomxX]

Soule, +2 cool points for mentioning Legend of Kyrandia. I *love* those games

[artaxerxes]

So what's the story? THe guardian is the dark avatar? Like Yin/Yang?

Artaxerxes-I've-never-played-u9.

[Thomas_Decker]

I love Kyrandia too. To bad i could not make them run on my Windows computer.

Wáit a minute...

[Glorious Death Dragon]

1 Earth Year = 10 Brittannian Years

Shamino is from Sosaria originally

[suraimu]

He can't be from Sosaria originally, or else he would have died
many many many many years ago. In addition, didn't someone
mention in one of the games that he "came from the same world
as Lord British"?

[Neutronium Dragon]

He might have been from Sosaria originally, and preserved through the years by dint of the fact that the Serpent Isle (his home) and Britannia had effectively become separate worlds - thus granting him the cross-world benefit.

Neutronium Dragon

[Stephan]

Oh, Shamino was from Sosaria originally. Remember how he was the first one Lord British met when he came from Earth? Also, it's safe to say being from another world isn't the only way to increase your longevity in Britannia. Just check out the various mages.

[Egwene Sedai]

Just going into the wall of lights was not how Batlin was going to become a god. Once in the void, he was going to remove the power the banes had and put it into himself, giving him the power of the chaos serpent.

As for Shamino, mages live a long time, but not as long as Shamino has been around. Mages seem to be able to live around 300 to 400 years. But what about Chuckles? He has been around for a long time also.

[Mimu]

He's simply too annoying to die. :p
Or maybe, since the Stranger from Another World (later the Avatar) killed him in every game (I did!) then maybe all those resurrections infused him artificially with a highly extended total life span.

[ToasterThief]

"Just going into the wall of lights was not how Batlin was going to become
a god. Once in the void, he was going to remove the power the banes had and put it into himself, giving him the power of the chaos serpent."

That's a pretty good interpretation. Is it supported anywhere in the game?

As for Shamino, he's got some sort of link to Lord British (Beyond looking alike. RG hinted of this a long time ago.) That may explain why he never dies...

[Thomas Decker]

Shamino is LBs evil twin
Now, seriously, the Batlin hypothesis is most likely correct. What would you do with three Banes of Chaos after you passed the Wall of Lights?
But that would mean that Batlin meant to restore Balance - somewhat. He meant to do precisely the same thing that Dupre was to do - merge with the Chaos serpent. Batlin wasn't that evil, after all!

*sniff* My hero...

[Soule]

Since Batlin could perform the merging ceremony in the Grand Order Temple, why can't the Avatar do the same? The avatar had to travel all the way to the wretched Chaos Temple and do it there!

[Thomas Decker]

Ahem, Batlin obviously couldn't, see...

[Egwene Sedai]

Well, Batlin was "exactly" going to restore the balence. I believe what Batlin was going to do was drain the power from the Banes, giving him the powers of the chaos serpent. Dupre actualy merged with the chaos serpent, were as Batlin would just have had it's powers. Batlin would then have gone and tried to destroy the guardian, while the universe was still falling apart because of imbalence.

[artaxerxes]

So noone is going to answer my question?

Is the guardian some sort of dark-side avatar? The mirror version (where everything is inversed?)

Artaxerxes-I've-still-not-played-U9

[Stephan]

Okay then. According to the weak U9 story, when the Stranger became the Avatar, all that was 'evil' was ripped away from him and formed into a being of great power - the Guardian. Naturally, this story is so lame and laughable that most Ultima fans simply won't accept it.

[Dominus]

not with the serial cleptomany in U7 and the way the Avatar behaved on Pagan

[artaxerxes]

additionally, that would mean the guardian was created during U4 (when the Stranger became the Avatar).

Isn't that impossible because of timing issues with SI, Exodus etc..?

Artaxerxes

[Kurt]

Pagan was fun... lying to everybody, stealing equipment, training skills on the executioner woman that would never die (bashing her was fun) murdering peasants, endless hours trying to figure out a way to make the sorcerer guy die without using cheats of any kind (and finally succeeding), stealing powers from the Titans... what fun.

The method I used to kill the sorcerer was to meet him in the sorcerer's enclave, summoning as many daemons as possible and getting them all to attack him, meanwhile hitting him repeatedly and luring him to the edge of a lava lake, then jumping out the way and watching him fall in.
This had a tendency to make the game crash though, but it was hilarious to see him fall into the lava.

[suraimu]

Actually, the stealing that the Avatar did would not necessarily exclude
the Guardian from being his evil side. A being cannot survive without
both its Yin and Yang, and so would likely start developing a new one.
This would also explain why the Guardian didn't just murder everyone
in every world outright - he had a small shrivel of good in him just like
the Avatar had a small shrivel of bad.

[Stephan]

Bah. Don't try to come up with an explanation for U9's horrible plot inconsistencies.

[suraimu]

BUT IT'S FUN!!!

[Soule]

Was the bad in Avatar only a "small shrivel"? I've heard of some avatars do "things" that are more than that small shrivel...

U8 failed because it didn't make much reference to the background story while in U7.2, you have to know the Ophidians stuff well else you'll get lost in the plot

[Max aka Moscow Dragon]

The executioner girl in U8 is mortal, not-combat-dressed and can be killed rather easily, so, Avatar uses Devon (who saved him) to practice skills. He is invincible.

[Kurt]

yes, I just remembered that I tried to train on her and killed her, and I used to train on Tarna instead, who IS immortal. I know because I used to keep all my stuff in his house, since it appeared empty, and I woke up one day and he was there, so I had to hit him. He wouldn't die, but I was gaining stats nicely.

I never had the heart to hit Devon, poor, simple chap. I mean fancy having amazing superpowers and not realising it, and then upon being told you have magic powers all of a sudden you're the most powerful being in Tenebrae and know how to use all your powers without any kind of training.