[Child of the 7th Age]

First, regarding Kali.....It is hard to keep everything straight. I went back and checked the earlier story. Kali was the last of his kin to survive. His mother and grandmother and all the others died out. They were all living somewhere in the Bay of Belfalas when the tale began.

When Ulmo created the first hobbrim, there were two groups. One was kept on the coastline of Numenor; the other was given the time travel device and told to swim towards the east and wait for a ship that would bear the flag of the lonely star. The group sent east was about 35 in number. They established a community, had children, and their descenents waited there till the early Fourth Age when only Kali was left. Then we came. If Kali had died before the Star appeared, Ulmo would have entrusted the device to the hobbrim in Numenor and told them to swim east and wait for the ship. (This is in our story line itself.)

This does raise an interesting headache. Time travel is so hard to keep straight. In theory, Meneltarma should be in the Fourth Age, shouldn't it? Otherwise, you still have that splinter group loose in the Bay. I don't know if we want to deal with this, or just assume it's part of the whole mystery of the isle. Maybe Meneltarma is just a hidden, timeless place like Lorien which seems to run by a different clock.

Of course, we could always change something in the fanfiction if people preferred.
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As far as the Choosing, I thought we were definitely going ahead, and I was going to reserve a lot of spaces for Helen plus some for me to respond. I thouught the hold up was Mithadan because he's so deeply involved in the Chasm. I was waiting for him to do the beginning post. Wouldn't Ulmo need to arrive to begin the choosing?

Should we just reserve a space for him, since he can post under any name and he can fill in later? Or, Pat, do you want to go ahead and do Ulmo? (Please not me. I don't have the voice!)

Then we would do the responses by the different hobbits. I know Helen has to do the following: Gamba, Azraph, Phura. I don't know if there are others. I assumed you would do Daisy. I had originally thought to do a general description of the hobbits' response to Ulmo--probably the first post after Ulmo, and tag on the choice by Cami and Rose in the same post. I don't have it written, but I'd be glad to sit down and slap it out anytime today.

Our real problem is that we have two missing, both of whom were supposed to do a lot in the Choosing.

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Regarding the isle and Levanto. No problem. I was half-teasing. He's a welcome visitor anytime.

This is more out of curiosity than anything. Do you think that the isle was protected from the eyes of Men with some sort of veil, or not? Could Elves, mermen, etc. visit it then? Could Men, if they chanced upon it?

If Elves and mermen could visit, it would be a little less lonely than sticking the hobbrim off somewhere with no hope of visitors of any kind. I think I said somewhere in the description that "no one" could come or go, so I might need to modify that slightly. Just let me know.

sharon

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]