> Emperors Yelmgatha and Takenegi jointly ruled the empire for a while.
> When Yelmgatha passed upward to become the sun, Takenegi was sole emperor,
I'm kinda disputing sole emperor because the fortunate succession hints at a far more interesting picture.
The established pattern in imperial names is that each dynasty has a couple of common elements. Thus the Emperors of the Denesiod Dynasty had -siod and -exdros in the names and so forth.
Looking at Yelmgatha, his predecessor is Spengatha and the first of the Outlaw Emperors is Vinyargatha. The common element in the names becomes stronger when Vinyargatha's successors (ignoring Desderius) are Vinyardavu and Elmexdavu.
So it seems to me that once Yelmgatha died, the Dara Happans then acclaimed Vinyargatha as their rightful Emperor (face it, a twenty year reign looks like gross Lunar incompetence if the official record is to be believed). The two emperors got along poorly and eventually TakenEgi had Vinyargatha murdered under the guise of an execution for treachery. This prompted the great rebellion under Vinyardavu. Once he committed suicide, Elmexdavu became emperor but without a single Dara Happan city, he was little more than a pretender and when he died, so too did any independant Dara Happan claim to the Imperial Throne. When the Lunars published their history, they took the simple expedient of defaming Yelmgatha's heirs as pretenders and usurpers (as the Persians are thought to have done with Smerdis).
My opinion only FWIW.
--Peter Metcalfe
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