Kreegan extinction

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Kreegan extinction

Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 19 Jul 2014, 11:20

Well its possible or even likely there isn't an answer, but here we go.

In Heroes IV it mentions in some demon characters bios that the Kreegans are facing extinction, and that they have made huge losses. Now, we know they lost badly on Enroth, etc but aren't they supposed to be a huge interstellar race, invading multiple worlds with multiple hives. Surely the losses on a single planet cant cause their downfall.

Perhaps this planet was a focal point in the war, or perhaps there was stuff going on other areas of the universe that led to this. Or maybe the Kreegans here don't know about the other Kreegans, and like the other peoples of the ancients worlds have been cut off from the rest of their species (although that is at odds with Malustar's bio). This is all speculation though.

Do we know anything concrete?

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Unread postby XEL II » 21 Jul 2014, 15:27

It's near-extinction on Enroth and Axeoth. On Enroth Kreegans were nearly totally wiped out in MM 6-7 and HoMM3: AB, and on Axeoth there is a minor population of the Kreegan who travelled there from that infested planet (some of whom are survivors from Eeofol, having fled to that planet during the Reckoning) and settled in Nekros.
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Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 21 Jul 2014, 22:19

Thanks for the reply Xell II!

I get that the ones on Enroth and Axeoth are near extinction, but what about the ones elsewhere in the cosmos in other Hives?

The way some of the character profiles are written I am not sure whether they mean cosmos wide extinction or just planet wide.


Ok here we go:
Some profiles mention the Kreegan Empire which suggests something bigger than the force seen on Enroth but I could be wrong.

Fiona's profile mentioned the Kreegan Empire crumbled after the reckoning (unless that is a creator error) and not before suggesting it's not referring to just the Enroth part.

And Malustar, someone who has been around for a long time was trying to save his kind from extinction and came from another realm. Given he has been round for so long he would surely have knowledge about the rest of his kind on other planets, if he is not from one of those other planets originally. If he has knowledge of knowledge of that there are Kreegans elsewhere, why would he care about the extinction on one world (given how many Kreegans it is implied there are)?

But this is all speculation, do we know anything concrete?

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Unread postby Karmakeld » 25 Jul 2014, 15:01

perhaps you need to ask Marzhin..?
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Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 02 Aug 2014, 14:49

Aye! I think I shall try Marzhin. This was way before he was part of the M&M team but he does have an extensive knowledge. Now to perform the Marzhin summoning dance...

How does it go?

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Unread postby Kalah » 02 Aug 2014, 16:29

Hang on, let me see if this telepathy thing I used to do still works ...

Marzhin, get in here
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Unread postby Marzhin » 02 Aug 2014, 17:58

*poof!*
Someone summoned me? :D

The truth is, we don't know for sure. The Heroes Chronicles / Heroes IV writer, Terry Ray, had his personal interpretation of the lore which is sometimes hard to reconcile with what we know from the previous games (i.e. the Ancestors from Chronicles feel a bit out of place in the Ancients' mythos, not without some serious post-rationalization).

What I always assumed is that the Ancients beat the Kreegans in the end. And not only beat them, but crushed them. All that's left are vagrant Hive ships drifting through the Void, and we know the Ancients have a pretty harsh policy of not letting Kreegans build another power base, even if it means destroying their own worlds. I'd expect them to actively hunt and destroy the remaining Hive ships as well.

So I assume only a few Hive ships remain by the time the Kreegans arrive on Enroth, and they are really on the verge of extinction compared to their numbers before the great war. This explains why Malustar goes out of his way to come on Axeoth and save the Kreegans who survived the Reckoning. Things have become that bad for them as a species, they just can't afford more losses.

I believe the use of "Kreegan Empire" is specifically referring the the Enroth Kreegans, a byproduct of the writer change. I read Fiona's bio as "the Kreegans remained united through the Reckoning, but once they had arrived on Axeoth, there was just no "Kreegan nation" anymore."

But again, this is just what I think not the Word of God. I suspect even NWC themselves were not paying that much attention to small details like this. Fans are usually the only who do :p

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Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 04 Aug 2014, 19:59

Yay, Thanks Marzhin!

That is very similar to my guess though I thought the events on Enroth would have had a significant detrimental effect, or perhaps been a turning point in the war.

Yeah I think that is quite true, fans can be suckers for details when often the creators are focused on gameplay and telling a cool overall story. That said it may be that they always had the answer and wanted to reveal it later as part of a future plot, never managed to fit it into the game for story structure reasons, it was deemed background information the players didn't need to know, or wanted to leave it to the players imagination.

So they didn't tell us before? Damn! Ok I am going to try the improbable and get hold of Terry Ray... without being an annoying git!

In the unlikely event I succeed does anyone else have some burning questions about Heroes 4 or Chronicles? Personally I also want to know what happened to the Fortress faction from Heroes 3 and if there was a 'canonical' ending for Winds of War.

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Unread postby Marzhin » 05 Aug 2014, 08:03

If I had one question for Terry it would be: were Gauldoth, Lysander and Waerjak long-lost brothers? I've always felt there were intriguing similarities in their backstories (and their chins) :D

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 05 Aug 2014, 13:12

Wizard of Soz wrote:That is very similar to my guess though I thought the events on Enroth would have had a significant detrimental effect, or perhaps been a turning point in the war.
I highly doubt that. Enroth is just one planet. And it was even to be destroyed by Escaton, so clearly it's quite expendable. The turning point would have been achieved somewhere on the Ancient-Kreegan front, not one of the forgotten colonies...

As for the questions... I guess the biggest one for me would be "what exactly is the Fiery Realm".

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Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 06 Aug 2014, 18:57

GreatEmerald - My guess on the events on Enroth having significance was more based on the tendency of the main characters to be major players in their own universe, no matter how insignificant they seem on the grand scheme of things. Reluctant Hobbit beats Sauron, farmboy defeats Empire, etc.

In retrospect though I think M&M is more about stories of legendary heroes and nations in conflict than about gods and the universe (which more just act as a background). If the Kreegans are not a huge threat to Enroth or Axeoth anymore but are still floating in the universe, then meh, that's just a problem for the rest of the universe, not this planet. Next Storyline.
Again though, this is another guess as I have no idea how the creators thought.


Right people, any more questions before I post this off to Mr Ray?

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 07 Aug 2014, 08:53

Wizard of Soz wrote:GreatEmerald - My guess on the events on Enroth having significance was more based on the tendency of the main characters to be major players in their own universe, no matter how insignificant they seem on the grand scheme of things. Reluctant Hobbit beats Sauron, farmboy defeats Empire, etc.

In retrospect though I think M&M is more about stories of legendary heroes and nations in conflict than about gods and the universe (which more just act as a background). If the Kreegans are not a huge threat to Enroth or Axeoth anymore but are still floating in the universe, then meh, that's just a problem for the rest of the universe, not this planet. Next Storyline.
Again though, this is another guess as I have no idea how the creators thought.
Well, Might and Magic is about civilisations that regressed since losing contact with the Ancients. It's not that the universe is a background, but rather it's so hard to get to the larger context that we don't get to hear about it too often (and when we do, we see how insignificant the local action really is). For instance, in World of Xeen your party becomes very powerful and famous, but in the end you see that the real main character of the story has always been Corak, and the party was just helping him. Or in The Mandate of Heaven, the party gets approval of the Council and all the lords on the continent, but in the end the Oracle is something far greater than the party could ever hope to achieve, and even then only a glimpse of what the Ancients have achieved.

So same thing with the Kreegan. On the local level, eliminating them was a huge achievement. On the galactic scale, that probably didn't amount to much at all, but then we don't exactly have access to anyone who could tell for sure. Well, maybe Escaton could have, but the party never actually asked him about that.

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Unread postby Avonu » 09 Aug 2014, 12:40

Marzhin wrote:What I always assumed is that the Ancients beat the Kreegans in the end. And not only beat them, but crushed them. All that's left are vagrant Hive ships drifting through the Void, and we know the Ancients have a pretty harsh policy of not letting Kreegans build another power base, even if it means destroying their own worlds. I'd expect them to actively hunt and destroy the remaining Hive ships as well.

So I assume only a few Hive ships remain by the time the Kreegans arrive on Enroth, and they are really on the verge of extinction compared to their numbers before the great war. This explains why Malustar goes out of his way to come on Axeoth and save the Kreegans who survived the Reckoning. Things have become that bad for them as a species, they just can't afford more losses.
From Melian and Escaton words in MM6 and MM8 the picture seems to be quite different.

First, the Kreegan, after arriving on planet, conquer everything and use all planet resources the increase their numbers, until they can't live there evermore (overpopullation + lack of resources). Then, they build "hive" ships and launch their numbers to other planets. So when the Kreegan conquer a planet, instead one hive we have multiply hives and ships.
That's the Kreegan life cycle - they land, they conquer and then they breed until planet is basically a wasteland. Then they search for new planets.

Second, Escaton said that the Ancients used all their resources in war with the Kreegan and still didn't win (war is still going).

Third, I don't think the Ancients would sent Escaton to destroy words if they would be winning. You use such methods when you are desparate or need to achive victory no matter the cost... or when you are loosing.

Fourth, from Warriors we know that the Ancient were far superior to the Kreegan, but their numbers were low. The Kreegan numbers were far greater and that's why war betwen these two races was in stalemate... at least until some third force would intervene (such as adventures of futher MM games maybe? ;) ).

Marzhin wrote:I believe the use of "Kreegan Empire" is specifically referring the the Enroth Kreegans, a byproduct of the writer change. I read Fiona's bio as "the Kreegans remained united through the Reckoning, but once they had arrived on Axeoth, there was just no "Kreegan nation" anymore."
I think it is save to assume, that all information from H4 is reffering mainly to Kreegan from Enroth.

IMO H4 and Heroes Chronicles show us the Kreegan as people of Enroth and Axeoth see them - as demons and devils. These texts lack any information about true nature of the Kreegan - as alien invaders far superior to natives of these planets.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 10 Aug 2014, 08:15

Avonu wrote:Third, I don't think the Ancients would sent Escaton to destroy words if they would be winning. You use such methods when you are desparate or need to achive victory no matter the cost... or when you are loosing.
Well, we don't know when Escaton was sent. Maybe it was at the beginning of the events in Mandate of Heaven, or maybe it was earlier and Escaton was simply looking for planets that had any number of Kreegans on them. After all, they could have ended the Silence easily if Enroth was so easy to reach. Thus by the time of HoMM4 there's no way to tell if the Ancients are losing or winning.

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Unread postby Kalah » 10 Aug 2014, 11:23

We should get hold of some of the writers and have them tell us what they were picturing ... :)
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Unread postby Wizard of Soz » 10 Aug 2014, 20:39

I am trying to seek out Terry Ray (T-Ray for the street amoung us) by first seeking out MMXAlamar as they seemed to have had contact with them already and the world has too many people called Terry Ray to find otherwise.


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