The Railway Hypothesis
The Lost Gospel sets out the arena for the battle between the two Necessities. As we have seen, there was supposed to be no battle. An oversight on the part of UL resulted in there being large time gap between the Accident and the Choice. The Necessities have taken advantage of this delay, attempting to sway the outcome of the Choice in their own favour. In this vein, they have influenced the history of this world deeply and one cannot consider the past without looking to the twin Purposes and their machinations. It is to this effect that I have compiled this section of the Histories - in the hope that we can see where and when the Necessities have tampered with the course of events.Initially, I shall set out the general case, illustrating it with examples from actual history. Then I shall address particular cases and place them within the grand game of fates.
It will help to bring in an analogy with trains and railway tracks - an ancient invention in my world that many of you will be familiar with.
Consider the ACCIDENT as a starting point, and the CHOICE as the ending point. Now consider them as train stations: a departure point, and an arrival one. The gap in between these two stations is not one of space, but of time. When the accident occurs, a "train" starts off from the Accident Central, heading down the one line to Choice Terminus. It can be said that the tracks "length" is as long as it takes for the light from the Accident to reach the place of Choice. There are no other options, no other alternative tracks for the train to go down. This is how UL and the Universe planned things to happen. The "train" represents "the present", but also "the present viewpoint of our chosen observer". For example, if we choose to follow the life of one man, he becomes the "train". The tracks represent a route through time and space - a story, if you will; or a sequence of events. As we move along a track, we move forward in time. If we cross perpendicular to a track, we move in space and not in time.
Now consider the Prophecy of Light (PoL) and Prophecy of Dark (PoD). These are two beings of immense knowledge, intelligence and patience. So matched are they in these characters that they are inseparable. The PoL and PoD each wish to survive the Choice. They know that if they influence the Choice in their favour, they will survive. However, they cannot directly influence the Chooser - for this would forfeit the Choice as the condition is that it be made in Free Will. Instead, they clandestinely place their power on the world of the Choice (hereafter Eriondia) - tools that will be used by their agents later. The agents will make use of the Orb and Sardion out of Free Will. Thus the Necessities have made their power accessible for their use, in a way that absolves them of any accusation of tampering. Such is the cunning and foresight of the Necessities.
It is with this foresight and matched ability that the Necessities create, in the gap between the Accident and the Choice, a vast, almost infinite set of parallel railways tracks. That is, they prepare thousands and thousands of sequences of events to cover every possible eventuality. Their goal: to make only their train reach the Choice, and to derail the other. It is with this is mind that they plan for every measure and countermeasure the other might take, preparing plans and backup plans, and backup plans to the nth degree. Some have likened this to a game of chess - perhaps, but it is a game of chess that has been played before it has even begun. That is not to say that all that remains is to set the trains in motion and watch them reach the Choice. No, no, no. For each Necessity is blind to the tracks of the other Necessity - only to a certain extent can they indirectly make educated guesses as to what the other is up to. The best that can be done is to plan for any attempts by the opponent to derail a train by setting up more lengths of track that can "catch" a derailed train. The Necessities also set up traps in an effort to derail the opponents train. So matched are the Necessities, that both trains reach the Choice, even after millennia of trying to knock each other out of the competition.
Where the Necessities differ is in strategy. The Prophecy of Light prefers tasks to be spread out over many pawns, creating a Light Brigade. This is the Train of Light. The Train of Dark is more concentrated, in some cases the Child of Dark is the sole instrument in the Prophecy of Dark's plan.
Prophecy
Now we come to the question of the Children of Necessity. As the Necessities cannot directly influence the world, they must tell their Children what sequence of events must occur in order for that Necessity to win. Of course, the Necessity cannot outline the entire, almost-infinite set of tracks to a single person or group of people. In any case, this is not necessary as many of the tracks are backup plans, and become irrelevant once a key moment has been passed. Some only become relevant once a key moment has passed. They communicate their plans via the Prophecies - the Mrin, the Ashabine, the Darine, and many others. This communication at first seems pointless, as the texts are all garbled and nonsensical. However, this must be the case because, as pointed out above, certain sequences of events become irrelevant, and others suddenly relevant. In order to reflect this, key passages in the Prophecies also had to be able to become irrelevant, or suddenly relevant. This was achieved by the use of Keys (I have named them as such for they unlock passages in the various Codices). A Key is any unique fragment of text which occurs in two or more passages in the combined Prophecies. They usually take the form of euphemisms or "nick-names". For example "The Man with Two Lives" is a key. Before the resurrection of Goodman Durnik at Cthol Mishrak, all the passages containing the Key "The Man with Two Lives" were nonsensical. Afterwards, however, his name could be substituted at every occurrence of that particular Key. Had the events at Cthol Mishrak never happened, all passages referring to "The Man with Two Lives" would have remained nonsensical to the Sorcerors studying the Prophecies. Thus, a Key can activate a locked passage - they serve not only as a Key, but as a flag to tell the Sorcerors what sequence of events (or what section of track) they are on. Obviously, as the future is in a constant state of flux it cannot give them much information beyond a certain point - new Keys enter the picture and the train may change tracks. Keys can be used in a variety of ways, and in combination with other Keys. Another sort of Key is one that was observed by Belgarion and Belgarath, this Key took the form of a blot of text that only became clear when viewed by light of the Orb. In this way, Keys can also be used to keep things secret from those who are not supposed to understand them.
In effect, the Prophecies function as rail timetables, illustrating which station the train must call at and at what time. Just like with real timetables, the further forward you try and project the journey, the more uncertain you are about when you will arrive. Except that in the case of the Prophecies, it is not only the "when" that gains uncertainty, but the "where", the "who", the "what", and the "how". The Eternal Critic pointed out that the total amount of prophecy must be truly vast to contain all possible events. However, this shows a lack of understanding of the finer points of this hypothesis. There does exist a vast volume of prophecy: the Mrin, Darine, and Ashabine alone are huge texts which took the prophets themselves years to dictate - no two of which say the same thing. Now, in this huge volume of text there exist passages which outline only those events which are relevant to the Light Brigade/Dark, and which they need to be aware of. This is because the purpose of the prophecies is to guide the "trains" down the right paths, to ensure that Belgarath leads the company the right way, to ensure that Torak does the right things. They are not intended as historical (or predictive) documents cataloguing every event that occurs. Those events which Belgarath never needs to hear about are not in any of the Codices.
events, Events, and EVENTS
Now I shall introduce a new set of semantics:
EVENT: An EVENT occurs when the two plans of the Necessities
come together in the same place at the same time. This is a rare
occurrence and only happens when explicitly planned for by both
Necessities.
EVENTS are a dangerous time for the Necessities
because they represent a meeting of two tracks, resulting in only one
train carrying on. If the outcome turns out not to be favourable, a
Necessity could lose its entire train.
This loss could result
in the Necessity being out of the game forever, or temporarily set back
(temporary in this sense can mean a loss of up to thousand years and
more - whatever amount of time it takes for the losing Necessity to
regain its former position). However, the Necessities always have
back-up plans. Take for example Cthol Mishrak: the PoD lost this EVENT,
losing its Child of Dark - a big price considering its strategy to put
all its eggs in one basket. Fortunately it had already planned for
this, and Zandramas had already been in "training" for about twenty
five years and was ready to take up the fallen mantle. Had the
Necessity been overconfident and not prepared Zandramas in advance, it
would've been another twenty five years before it would have a Child of
Dark. What's more, EVENTS are most probably designed to strike fatal
blows to the opponent Necessity, hoping to completely knock out the
other train. This explains why EVENTS happen so rarely; neither
Necessity is willing to risk that much. As an interesting note, there
is no way for one Necessity to know whether the other one has been
knocked out of the competition after an EVENT. There was no way for the
Prophecy of Light to know that Zandramas would emerge as a new Child of
Dark and that the PoD was still playing the game until Geran was
kidnapped. Of course, there were plans in place in case there was
another CoD, and these were activated at the appropriate time.
EVENTS mostly take the form of direct confrontations between the agents of Dark and Light.
Event: An Event is one of those times when there is no direct confrontation between the Child of Dark (CoD) and Child of Light (CoL). Nevertheless, it is a vital event in the plans of the respective Necessity. An Event is one of those times when we hear the distinctive bell tone and the dry voice saying "Done".
In railway terms, it corresponds to one of the Necessities switching a point over to bring its train closer to the winning track (or closer to achieving some set goal). It also represents "stations" - that is to say, distinctive landmark events in a set sequence of events. A character or vital tool can be picked up at a station. For example, the drunkard heckling Ce'Nedra was a station (or Event) on the way to the Event of her army joining Zakath's. In their struggle to reach the Choice, the Necessities also try to sabotage the plans of the other Necessity; these are also Events. Events can also be used to give the pawns of prophecy experiences that will be useful in the time of EVENTS; for at the end of the day it is the Child of Light/Dark that will make the choice at an EVENT and not the Necessity. The Necessities must therefore make sure their Child is trained so that he/she will make the right decision.
The assassination of Gorek and his family was a Dark Event which was an attempt by the PoD to derail the PoL's train. However, the PoL managed to flick some rails over just in time to salvage the situation by bringing Pol into the picture to rescue Geran/Gared. If the PoL hadn't succeeded in this, the Train of Light could either have gone over the "cliff" (in which case the PoL would have lost forever), or it would have to back-up and start again on a different track - losing time, and maybe the game.
Scholars in some corners have voiced concerns over the nature of Free Will and predestination in all this. Many claim that each and every event has been shaped by one or other of the Necessities, taking out all trace of Free Will and thus voiding the entire process of the Choice. This is wrong. Although every eventuality is meticulously planned for, not every event is planned for. Events are still subject to random chance and human caprice. The conscious choice of the beings on Eriondia is not taken away, but instead is planned for. Similarly, unpredictable variables like the weather are planned for (or perhaps against). There is a contingency plan for everything.
Some Examples from History
Vo Mimbre
The erstwhile scholar Magus once pointed out that
Certain (events) [whichever caps you use] are not just 'two trains going through one point', but involves negotiation as well. Point: at Vo Mimbre, Brand was allowed to win(Torak had no choice) but he wasn't allowed to keep Torak's body.This is one example - perhaps the only one in history, where the two Necessities negotiated a decision. Their minds can only be guessed at, but I think we can safely venture that neither Prophecy was confident enough in their respective Children to commit to a confrontation. The Prophecy of Light was not confident that Polgara could resist Torak, and the Prophecy of Dark was not confident that Torak could slay Brand. Neither was sure they were going to win, and neither wanted to lose the time and effort invested in their Child (many thousands of years in the cases of both Polgara and Torak). However, both Necessities had already committed to having an EVENT at Vo Mimbre. A compromise was reached whereby the Prophecy of Light was allowed a small victory and the Prophecy of Dark was allowed a second chance. Both lost out on winning outright - but both also lived to fight another day.
On Prophets
It was reported that one of the prophets had lost all sense of time; this gives us some hint as to the workings of prophecy. In effect, a prophet can see up and down the "track" (forwards and backwards in time) whereas normal people are confined to looking out of the "windows" of the "carriages" (looking sideways) at the scenery of the "present", with only a very limited view of front and back of the train.
The Requirements of Prophecy
The Ashabine Oracles demand that every EVENT have a king and a sacrifice present on either side. It is important not to take this on face value. Instead we must remember what the source of the Prophecy is: namely the Dark Necessity (in this instance). The requirement of a king and sacrifice should not be taken too literally - there is no-one arbitrating over each EVENT with a check-list of things each party must have before they are allowed to go ahead with the EVENT. That is ludicrous. The Eternal Critic must take note. Kings are likely to be strong of mind and character - and so are valuable to have present at an EVENT. Similarly, it is extremely wise to have a sacrifice present in case things should take a turn for the worse. A scenario might arise where a Necessity may need to expend one of its pawns in order to salvage its entire plan. It is only common sense to take along a safety precaution. These requirements are set down as Prophecy to ensure they are met. There is no actual requirement that they be met.