Time And Chaos from nickh_at_compans.com on 1997-07-30 (Glorantha Digest Vol 05)

From: nickh_at_compans.com
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 17:41:02 +0100

The birth of Time

cpearce (GDv5#78):

> after Yelm recognised Orlanth, everyone present had to willingly
> enter the Compromise [then] Arachne Solara wove a great net.
> Wakboth showed up and everyone trapped him. Arachne Solara
> consumed Wakboth and then surreptitiously births a child, which
> she conceals from everyone. I guess this child is Time, but why
> did she have to conceal it? Because it was vulnerable or because
> some of the other gods would want to take it or something? Maybe
> she didn't want the other gods to look at it too closely because
> time is really chaos.

Why Arachne Solara hid time from the sight of the Gods:

The secrets of time are hidden from the gods. They have never learned to operate in time or to make use of its powers of change. This had to be the case or the Gods would change and the compromise would never have held. The statement about hiding the baby is one way of expressing that the new power was not given to the gods.
The Gods are very conservative. They may have agreed to the Compromise but they could not understand time, fixed as they were in the immortal moment. She may have believed that the Gods would destroy the new power out of fear.
Since the Gods natures are un-timely it is possible that it is impossible for them to comprehend time in any real way. If this is true Arachne Solara did not exactly hide time from the Gods, she just gave birth to something they were unable to see.
Time is not Chaos. Time is made of elements of its parents: Order and Chaos. However an orderly set of gods looking at Time may have decided that it contained a streak of Chaos.

The promise of Time

Mortals could view Time as the proof that Wakboth is really gone for ever - after all its his very being that Arachne Solara turned into Time. 'The destroyer will never return and you can see the proof as season follows season and your children grow into adults'.

If there is a cult of Arachne Solara this should be part of their litany.

That makes the Sunstop, with its apparent breakdown of timely progression and the visible straining of the web, even more frightening than its mundane manifestations would suggest.

Order, Chaos, Disorder, Time

I believed that Time was neither Order nor Chaos but an amalgam which I assumed was Disorder.

Following a revelation I am now confidently certain (cf. IMHO) that Time is a fourth thing linked to Order, Disorder and Chaos.

"Time is the progression of Order and Chaos to Disorder" -

I am supported fully here by hard evidence which I was forced to make up and which I will post in a follow on mailing.

Actually, if this is true, it implies that Arachne Solara is still consuming Wakboth (Chaos) and the net (Order) creating Time.