The Crazy Theory Center

Oh, I have a pretty 'out there' theory that I otherwise keep doting at 

There were no humans* before because everyone... were elves.

SPOILER: Click to show

*(and potentially other races, save maybe dwarves who have likely diverged earlier)

Actually on this vein whenever I hear something like this...in fiction...I wonder "what are they running from". Especially since the Qunari showed up later mayyyybbbeee running from the same thing. I mean it could just be a natural disaster but i have to wonder if it's not something...juicier. especially since "ancient evil" is such a predominant part of the franchise.

The frustrating thing is that we don't have many hints or evidence pointing to who it could be. The executors are the strongest contenders but I just doubt it. Other contenders are the Qunari and "scaled ones".

We may not get a specific answer to this...but I do hope DA 4 does for the humans and dwarves what it did for the Elves in Inquisition.

Aside form the fact that it's the elves that are suggested by their own myths to come to existence when the Sun (linked to the Fade) and Earth (linked to Titans/Stone) first interacted (making it one of the first, if not THE first race on the surface of the world)... if there's one race 'from the "reality" side of things' it's not humans - it's dwarves. There are a lot of speculations where dwarves come from and what happened to them (because they're not what they were before, apparently) but their story appears to be as ancient or close to as ancient as the elvhen one.

Yet, there are no reliable records of humanity before the Veil, right?

I mean... there's your reason - the post-Veil environment may simply favor human form (that is maybe more robust in not-so-magical-anymore world). The Elvhen were talented shapeshifters and they come from the world where shape and form is very fluid. When the Veil has dropped a lot has changed in this regard, it seems - this is where my theory about different entities being 'locked' into one form and forgetting who they were comes to play. I don't know if this is exactly what has allowed humans to evolve/take over, but it's not an outlandish scenario - that most people cut off from conscious connection to the Fade have gradually lost their old shapes, probably together with their memories of the pre-Veil world, until they were something else in the end. It also fits in nicely with why Solas was adamant that 'the Veil took everything from the elves - even themselves' and could very much explain why he says that the return of his people means the end of modern ones.

I'd also like to point out that any remnant of elvhen magic that still allows some bloodlines to retain their ancient shape doesn't guarantee that ancient elvhen recognize the modern elves as their own kin. For them, modern elves are only closer to what people were before, but ultimately little different than other shemlen.

Andruil herself? No. There's a reference to hunting mortal men and beasts, but aside from that being a translation from ancient elvhen text we don't know the precision of, it seems more like a reference to 'mortal people' (if 'men' was enough a distinction why mention that they're mortal?) rather than humans per se (we do know that word 'mortal' referred to ancient elvhen as well) and we know from other sources (and definitely the first one linked here) that she's hunted basically everything - even elves devoted to her prayed not to become her prey.

I wonder if the elves civilisation stretched beyond Thedas to the other continent/s?

There's the supposed amaranthine continent and whatever land/s the humans and qunari are from, and the unknown 'those from across the sea' place (which is possibly all the same land mass for all we know)

Did the elves visit these places too? Or were they controlled by others? Hell, are there still places controlled by elves somewhere on the planet? Whom were never challenged by an invading species such as the humans?

I don't think I remember Solas saying or doing anything to indicate that he saw humans as devolved elves or experiments. His attitude toward them seemed more along the lines of Javik's in ME3. That humans are a comparatively primitive species that didn't use to be relevant, and kind of still shouldn't be if everything was in its proper place, but here we are.

It's likely we were at least there, living short, meaningless and brutal lives in more inhospitable areas so far beneath notice and so easily defended against that we might as well not have existed at all to the elves and dwarves.

Then the Veil went up, elves lost their chokehold on the surface world, the laws of nature became more reliable and predictable and the Neromanians began colonizing the fertile lands left behind by the elves whose borders were shrinking towards the Dales as their infrastructure crumbled.

Aaaand eventually we grew prosperous and organized enough to start recording our history, which is as far back as anyone actually knows about today after the elves lost access to their records and the dwarves lost a good bit of theirs to the darkspawn.

The real world is full of signs of human habitation, some of it seemingly civilized, from way before we have any real idea about what we've been doing. Once you start going back more than ten thousand years, global climate events make it impossible to expect to find much intact evidence, let alone preserved records, from before that time leading to the modern sense that we must have been hunter-gatherers until that point.

Even though it's taken homo sapiens just 12.000 years to go from hunter-gatherers to flying airplanes, and we've been around for a minimum of 300.000.

It's entirely possible that there were periods before the Veil and even before the elves when humanity had some standing, and then the world just gradually started leaning more into the Fade-aspect and shot that shit right down, making way for the elves to come into their own.

Thing is that he has similar attitude towards modern elves. In fact, when he slips after Halamshiral he admits that when he thinks about 'our people' he doesn't default to elves, but mages.

Which, btw. is consistent with his comment in Trespasser when he says that the Veil has blocked "most people's" (and by that he means most of everyone) conscious connection to the Fade and walking through modern Thedas is like walking though a world of Tranquil. Note that he isn't talking about humans or others in a sense that they're invaders or an alien element - but like they're shadows of former selves. Which, again, fits well with his comment that 'the Veil took everything from elves - even themselves' (hint, HINT) or that the restoration of ancient elves means the end of current people (including modern elves). And it's hard to view the return of magic and restoration of conscious connection to the Fade as something not having an immediate impact on how people are now.

So yeah, actually, there are indications all around, even despite Solas's tendency to not give us exhaustive answers.
But how did people living those short, meaningless and brutal lives have somehow managed to build what is widely considered a true wonder in form of pyramids on Par Vollen? We do know that our IRL civilizations had to be quite advanced, quite big and and quite well-organized (thus producing written records) to build theirs. So it couldn't be much different for whoever has inhabited Par Vollen.

Yet, so far, this is the only half-reliable clue of humans existing some time ago - we aren't even exactly sure when, yet it simply doesn't mesh with the notion that humans lived insignificant, primitive lives up until the window for expansion opened on Thedas.
That analogy would make sense... if Thedas was only inhabited by humans. Over here we are the only ones existing on this level of sentience to piece together history from traces that were left behind.

But Thedas simply isn't like this. I mean, aside form the whole magic thing and the Fade being basically a direct repository of memories of the past, Thedas had at least two highly advanced civilizations before humans have arrived and, while their records are incomplete, there are enough of them to have at least some vague snapshots of ancient history. The elf-dwarf/elves-Titans conflict is something we have stitched together pretty much entirely from ancient or forgotten sources or traces left behind in culture. Nobody has directly stated anything explicit about it, including Solas or Mythal.

Yet we still haven't found much suggesting human existence on Thedas, save maybe Brecillian forest, but - again - we aren't exactly sure at what time elves and humans lived there peacefully together before *something* has destroyed them. Was that before or after the Veil? We can't tell at this point in time.
Yet both elves and dwarves have left traces of their forgotten history and humans didn't. I think the hints suggest that out of all existing races humans are either a relatively new race or - alternatively - they were so integrated into the civilization of what were ultimately talented magical shapeshifters that the distinction between humans and elves became relevant after the Veil.

It's true - but whoever built those pyramids, it appears to be from a culture that was at least somewhat different from Thedosian elves, given a distinct lack of pyramids anywhere on the main continent so far... save for modern Nevarra, of course, and those weird little Tevinter pyramids Dorian warns against. Did humans adapt those elements the same way the Vints adapted a lot of Elvhen culture/artifacts/magic or are they propagated somewhat across different human nations because it was part of ancient human culture?

Or were those pyramids from times preceding the great war? Or was this a distinct tribe trying to build its own identity either aside or on peripheries of Elvenhan (also a potential human origin scenario)? The worship of horned figures does suggest the recognition of Evanuris' authority... although we aren't sure whether those were really the Evanuris, given that elves may have worshiped dragons and draconian features long before Evanuris were a thing. Would the elvhen gods even allow for distinct tribes to exist, given that we have hints suggesting they were pretty ruthless conquerors? Perhaps Mythal - I'm not so sure about the others.
But the conversion of kossith to the Qun seemed to have happened relatively recently, while the kossith establishing the colony in Ferelden happened prior to the First Blight. Never mind that both the pyramids and the murals are suggested to be much older than either of the events.

And, again, I'd like to note thet building those pyramids would not be a small, engineering feat - they wouldn't be called a wonder of Thedas if they were not mighty impressive, so whoever has built those had to have manpower and resources, even if we assume that magic was heavily involved. It seems unlikely something like them was built by a small tribe or a group of exiles, basically. It took 20 years and at least 20-30 thousands of trained workers to build the Great Pyramid of Ghiza alone, and these Thedosian pyramids are clearly based on them, given the whole constellation-matching placement. No way in hell the Vints never noticed anything if they were present enough in the region during their creation.

Of course, we may never know - until the writers reveal more - whether Par Vollen and its pyramids have anything to do with the society holed up on the island of Par Ladi or perhaps wherever the Executors come from...

It's not that kind of crazy theory center, buddy. Carry on indeed.

Given BioWare's recent history a return to greatness, if that's even possible, is very unlikely. 



There is a difference?

With how fast MEA support was dropped, Anthem's poor reception, and the report that the original DA4 was cancelled in order to make it more multiplayer oriented it is unlikely that it will be different.

They could always switch the engine from something so atrocious however.

Speaking of on topic.

I don't find it likely that the Evanuris are a united force of evil. I think at the very least they must be different types of a-holes, and whilst there is probably a consensus on the kicking of Solas' ass, I suspect they otherwise have varying goals and motivations.

Mythal at least seems like she's playing her own game, which may run parallel or completely perpendicular to Solas' plan. It seems likely that the other Evanuris have their own plans for Thedas which may be less, more, or equally destructive as Solas' plan. One or more might even want to preserve the life of modern thedas, potentially helping stop Solas' plan. Perhaps by speaking to people on thedas - through dreams or through an ancient device.

If I were to pick a likely candidate to be against Solas' plan based on what we know of the line up I'd guess:

Sylaise, June, or Ghilan'nain

Sylaise and June - whom are both associated with crafts, not only in Dalish stories but in the Temple of Mythal "Sylaise, whose skill rivals June's craft" 

Ghilan'nain - whom made living things "She used her power to create animals none had ever seen. The skies teemed with her monsters, the land with her beasts"

The 3 of them created things, at least some of which still exist to this day (the Halla for one). So it seems possible that they may want to preserve whats left - or maybe they don't care and look forward to clearing the board and making new things, who knows at this point.


The least likely to me would be Elgar'nan and Falon'din as they have the most destructive reputations.

Elgar'nan - in tending to just go to far, by destroying to much e.g. "they would not call on Elgar'nan to avenge them, for his fury would destroy all it touched", or demanding too much e.g. forcing slaves to make a huge monument to him in a single afternoon

Falon'din apparently started wars to gain more followers out of vanity (if Solas is to be believed). "Falon'Din's appetite for adulation was so great, he began wars to amass more worshippers. The blood of those who wouldn't bow low filled lakes as wide as oceans." So he presently comes off as the most crazy evil one.

Neither paints a picture of overly caring about the lives of the "lesser" folk, so they might not care if modern thedosians are destroyed. Or maybe they'd prefer them to stick around if they're perhaps easier to conquer than whatever Solas would bring.


As for motivations of Dirthamen and Andruil...

Andruil - can be pretty dodgy what with her people praying that she doesn't make them her prey. But that dodgyness is on a smaller scale than say, Falon'din, that is until she goes mad from the Void and brings plague to her lands. If she still desires the power she found there, or has been re corrupted by it since Mythal intervened, she may start her own little apocalyptic event, if not - who knows?

Appropriate that the God of Secrets would be that hardest to guess a possible motivation for. We know little about him other than his priests collect and hold secrets and Falon'din is his "twin soul". He may side with whatever Falon'din does I suppose, given their apparent closeness. Although this codex entry implies their relationship is more complicated/closer than brothers or lovers. Could they have a sheogorath/Jyggalath situation going on? One god - two personalities? Could that be where the Dalish notion of them never separating/bearing to be apart comes from?


It's hard to guess motivations when we know so little about them. The only thing I'm sure about them is that I don't think they're unanimous.