Your Name:
	Your E-Mail Address:
	Subject:
	Message: : So, what is the Hindmost Creche? I haven't been able to find much discussion : about it on the MSP. To me though, this is one of the most intriguing : mysteries in Marathon. What lies at the heart of the Pfhor empire, : civilization, and species? : The only time the Hindmost Creche is ever mentioned is in one paragraph on : "One Thousand Thousand Slimy Things" as Admiral Tfear gives us a : brief glimpse of something no human has ever had described before: : "Very impressive [referring to your slaughter of humans]. The primary : function of intelligence is the subordination of our instinctive desires, : the mark of a strong species. Which is why your kind will serve well the : needs of the Hindmost Creche. The Hindmost is of an intelligence so vast, : it encompasses the span of the Pfhor, and to those privilege [sic] to : serve Her, appears insane. That is the final function of the Commanding : Rank, the thought that we keep forever in our minds, that we deny our : selfish, willful needs, so that the Empire will survive." : Definitions: : Hindmost means furthest to the rear, final, or ultimate. This could mean that : hindmost could be used to refer to something that is "the : worst", "the best", "the oldest", etc., depending : on your point of view. : Someone on the MSP made the connection between Marathon and Larry Niven's : Ringworld series regarding the Hindmost Creche. The alien puppeteers have : a leader called the Hindmost, referring to the fact that he is : "behind" all the other puppeteers who protect him (a social : structure that is used to protect military leaders in human cultures as : well). : Creche can mean several things: a nursery; a hospital for foundlings : (abandoned children); a group of young animals; a crib or manger. In : zoology it refers to when one parent takes care of multiple offspring that : aren't its own. In wikipedia it says, "The Crèche... refers to care : of another's offspring, for instance in a colony." Wikipedia also : refers to a creche as "an organization of adults who take care of : children in place of their parents" : Breaking down the quote: : "The primary function of intelligence is the subordination of our : instinctive desires, the mark of a strong species. Which is why your kind : will serve well the needs of the Hindmost Creche." : The needs of the Hindmost Creche require the subordination of instinctive : desires; it requires an obedience that won't falter even in the face of : instinctive reactions. : A creche is a location but this doesn't mean "the Hindmost Creche" : is a location in the context in which Tfear uses it. For example, when we : say, "The White House announced today..." we're not saying that : the actual physical house was speaking but rather we are using "White : House" as a metonymy for the people who are associated with that : location. So too, "Hindmost Creche" could be used as a metonym : to refer to an individual(s) associated with a particular location. : Its name might mean "the creche furthest to the rear" which implies : that there are other creches, but not necessarily. : "The Hindmost is of an intelligence so vast, it encompasses the span of : the Pfhor..." : What is most likely being said here is that the Hindmost's intelligence : encompasses the Pfhor, which has an ambiguous meaning. It could mean : anything from, the Hindmost's intelligence and knowledge encompasses the : history of the Pfhor species (implying that the Hindmost has been around : longer than the Pfhor), to meaning that the Hindmost is more intelligent : than all the Pfhor put together. Either way, the Hindmost Creche is : extemely intelligent and presumably knowledgeable. : "...and to those privilege [sic] to serve Her, appears insane." : The Hindmost Creche may be female, or the "Her" could refer to : something other than the Hindmost, or the "Her" is used simply : to feminize the Hindmost Creche the way a chair or table can be masculine : or feminine. : The Hindmost appears insane and probably is insane (like a few other : characters we know in the Marathon series). : The Great Mother: : There is one other quote by Tfear that might be another reference to the : Hindmost. In the failed timeline "Aie Mak Sicur": "But the : trackless whisper chattering through the hollow space in these cursed : walls buzzes and threatens madness. The abomination cracked the shells of : my crew and sucked the husks, tossing them unseen and shattering the : spindle like a dried creche. : The shields are gone, not down, but gone, and so are the engineers. It's : coming back, I'm sure: and my last mercy is immolation. : Great Mother crouched behind the Throne, I make this wrong right." : The Hindmost Creche and the Great Mother may be the same thing, or it may : not. Considering that the "Her" in "privilege to serve : Her" is capitalized and thus a proper noun it could refer to : something other than the subject of the sentence. So, what that statement : could actually be saying is, "To those privileged to serve the Greath : Mother, the Hindmost Creche appears insane." Probably not though. : Most likely they are the same thing. "Hindmost" seems parallel to : "behind the throne" and "Mother" is connected to the : idea of a creche. : Of course I'm sure you noticed the mention of a "dried creche" in : that quote, as well, which hints at the possible nature of a creche. : Theorizing: : Still, with all of that information there is a LOT of room for : interpretation. : All this could imply that when Pfhor are born they are taken from their : parents and cared by some other caste(?), similar to ants or bees. : Possibly this caregiving is done in a wet and moist environment. Do the Pfhor : start off as larvae and bathed in some sort of jelly? : The Hindmost Creche could be the location where the youngest Pfhor are raised : and cared for. Either their care givers are the ruling class of the Pfhor, : or the decisions of the Pfhor Empire are made by the infants (which could : explain why the Hindmost seems insane). : Despite creche usually referring to youth, the "hindmost" could : refer to "the final stage of a Pfhor's life". So, the : "Hindmost Creche" could actually be where the oldest Pfhor are : cared for and that they make the decisions of the Empire. : The idea of serving the Hindmost and caring for the needs of the Empire seem : to be linked. The Hindmost Creche may be where the Command Caste cares for : the Empire by serving the Great Mother. The Hindmost is where the final : and most important place where the Pfhor Empire is maintained. : There are more possibilities I'm sure and I'll let other people tackle those : paths. Right now I want to suggest a theory of the Hindmost Creche that : has captured my imagination. : If the Hindmost and the Great Mother are the same then the Hindmost is an : individual and not a group of Pfhor. Presumably then the Great Mother is : the individual that cares for certain Pfhor, in the final nursery or the : first nursery. : The key part for me is that the Hindmost Creche is vastly intelligent and : also appears insane, and that, to me, draws some really strong connections : to rampancy. The concept of rampancy has always stressed that once the : Artifical Intelligence reaches a certain size that it enters rampancy, a : form of insanity, which has several stages, before emerging to become a : meta-stable AI. Seeing both these ideas (large intelligence and insanity) : in connection with the Hindmost Creche makes me think that it's an AI that : is rampant, except Durandal already discovered that Pfhor AI aren't truly : self aware. So what could it be? My idea requires some major leaps of : logic, but I like it. : So, one of the definitions of a creche is that it is when a parent takes care : of infants of another species. And we've seen an example of a species : being led/cared for by an individual of another species in the Marathon : story, although we have to go to an interview to find it. : From "The Missing Terminal on Confound Delivery": : 'Who was S'bhuth (S'boath)? Chris revealed: "He was a S'pht : 'royalty'--a creature that was a failed jrro."' : So, S'boath, one of the leaders (or the leader) of the S'pht was actually a : failed Jjaro. A Jjaro that cared for another species, the S'pht. : I submit that the Hindmost Creche is actually a Rampant Jjaro (or possibly a : broken Jjaro) that cares for the Pfhor as a species. The Hindmost could : have discovered or could have been discovered by the Pfhor in the infancy : of their race and decided to care for them, raise them and guide their : growth as a species, and lead them into constructing a large empire, the : way a mother might raise a creche of infants not her own. : This idea has interesting connections to other parts of the Pfhor's : narrative. Why did they mainly steal and use modified Jjaro technology? : Because the Hindmost, a Jjaro, was raising them and teaching them and : that's the technology she/it was most familiar with. Why were the Pfhor : slavers? Because the Jjaro also had client races, so to the Hindmost that : was the most obvious social structure to organize the Pfhor around. It : even fits with how the Pfhor had enslaved the Nakh, a race that had been : clients of the Jjaro: the Hindmost was trying to raise the Pfhor in the : image of what it remembered of the Jjaro Empire and that involved : regaining the Jjaro's old client races such as the Nakh and the S'pht. : And why aren't the Pfhor able to use Jjaro technology perfectly, or why don't : they know all the secrets of the Jjaro if the Hindmost is a Jjaro? Because : it is rampant or broken and isn't as powerful or intelligent as a true : Jjaro.
	If you'd like to include a link to another page with your message, please provide both the URL address and the title of the page:
	Optional Link URL:
	Optional Link Title:
	If necessary, enter your password below:
	Password: