Marine Doge
said
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Agreed, I've always been partial to the dark/corrupted icyene concept. Parallels the IRL fallen angel concept.
Thought:
Maybe Saradomin was trying to help the Icyene survive on the plane without having to migrate.
I mean, let's face it, a floating city isn't the most elegant solution to this problem and requires regular upkeep in the form of power to move it.
So Saradomin tries out a blessing (he is capable of this as seen with the Imcando dwarves) that backfires and turns the Icyene into something nasty and, more importantly, the process is contagious. This exacerbates the migration issues, driving him to create New Domina and eradicate the altered Icyene.
Alternatively, there was a separate sapient species on the plane that had more difficulties migrating than the Icyene, Saradomin was attempting to help them. The change makes them aggressive against Icyene/anything associated with Saradomin and affects the whole species.
Well, it seems most likely that this other race couldn't be reasoned with for some reason. Maybe it's bad blood between them and the Icyene, maybe it's because of something that started off this cycle of tragedy that Saradomin mentions to us which made them irrevocably cause destruction regardless. It might be something else too. But I imagine that Saradomin would have gone with Garlandia to attempt diplomacy if reason was possible in such a situation. It's likely a historical thing that happened before Garlandia's time; she herself never mentions the destruction of this other race, only what happened to her when she suggested it. It might also shed light on Zilyana's backstory; she could have been from an older generation that had suffered a particularly gruesome fate to the other race and/or cold and starvation. New Domina may have stopped the Icyene's necessity to migrate and abandon any of the sick or infirm to survive, which could have been a normality.
The Book of Saradomin mentions farmers who struggled to survive due to needing to migrate on top of raids from rivals (not sure if they're Icyene who grew resentful of Saradomin or this other race), and the situation isn't something we have full details of, so I'm not jumping on the train yet.
Prepare for hell on RuneScape in
Naval Cataclysm!
The change makes them aggressive against Icyene/anything associated with Saradomin and affects the whole species.
Sorta like a wyrd, which would be another nice parallel
Mods pls notice me
Ancient Drew
said
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It's likely a historical thing that happened before Garlandia's time; she herself never mentions the destruction of this other race, only what happened to her when she suggested it.
I don't think so. They aren't ever directly stated to be the same, but Saradomin mentions that he requested Garlandia fight in a war against an aggressor native to Dominaria and later alludes to the other native race that no longer exists on the plane.
Granted he could have been requesting Garlandia fight against the rebels that arose while Saradomin was fighting the God Wars on Gielinor, but then his rationale falls apart for why they couldn't be reasoned with.
As for why Garlandia hasn't mentioned the destruction of the other race, there's the obvious length of time between when both dialogues were written (the idea of the other race may not have existed at the time Garlandia's was written). However, it's also worth considering that Garlandia was exiled from Icyene society. She had to survive the winter all by herself and later came to Gielinor (I believe there's a Jmod quote saying she snuck through a portal after pretending to join the military under a false identity). I can't blame her for not being all caught up on current events (though that would appear to place the other race's extinction as pretty recent).
