Relative ages of superiors.

[naraht]

I'm struck sometimes by the effects of the Relative Ages of the superiors in In
Nomine.


I believe according to Canon that the earliest of the Superiors were created
when the Earth was created, 4.5 Billion years ago and yet the Rebellion took
place 26,000 years ago.


(The GMG may have specifics here, but I'm going on some rules of thumb here.)


The rebellion should still be very raw for any of the oldest Superiors in Heaven
(Michael, Gabriel, Eli) and most of the older ones as well.


For the oldest, If you equate their existance to 45 *years* of working for a
company, and a third of the employees violently formed an enemy company 25
*minutes* ago and raised up a new department head (Nybbas) 6 *seconds* ago.
note, this means that Eli stepped out about 2 seconds ago (and somehow managed
to put his entire desk in everyone else's in tray without being noticed, that's
what *really* amazes Dominic).


There are a couple of other things that jump out to me.


Given the relative ages of Michael (4.5 Billion) and Nybbas (Sup for only a
century, not sure when he was created), which one is Baal closer to in age? If he's
closer to Michael, then the jumping up of the newer superiors probably annoys
him, if Nybbas, convincing himself that he's in Michael's League is a nice bit
of Balseraphing..


Michael and Yves have been dealing with each other for Billions of years, how
inscrutable must Yves have been during all this time for Michael's trust to
falter to the level that it has.


In terms of being "Kid", Michael has projects on his desk that have been there
longer than Lawrence has been CEO, but it's what the only stockholder wants, so
Michael goes with it.




Just some thoughts...


Randy

[Andygal]

Baal was the Angel of Valour before the Rebellion, IIRC.

[BillionSix]

Interesting thought, but you might want to consider something.

I had this weird idea that celestials' time perception is sort of the opposite of humans.
For humans, time slows down to a crawl if nothing is happening, but moves in a flash when things are fun and interesting. This is a function of boredom, really.
Angels don't really get bored. So it might be the opposite for them. For billions of years they were basically watching rocks form, and it probably went by very quickly.
When something happened to catch their attention, they paid attention to it, and they stopped letting centuries fly by while they took care of things. A very natural transition, much how the flow of time naturally shifts for humans when they stop being bored and get interested in something.

So the early years of the Symphony probably blazed by, with not much changing. But the last few millennia, things have started to happen. The angels (and now demons) have started to pay close attention to goings-on. Alliances have formed and shifted.

The angels aren't stupid or slow-witted. The Rebellion may have taken place in very recent history by astronomical standards, but it still happened 26,000 years ago. The previous 4.5 billion years was nothing more than "God's in His Heaven and all is right with the world."
I imagine the early stuff of the universe forming from raw energy and matter flew by. Then their perception showed down considerably when life started on earth. They watched species evolve, adapt and improve. Humans came along, and they started to get involved in their individual lives, at least the angels who were interested in that sort of thing.
Then the Rebellion happened. The angels didn't have the luxury of letting the eons fly by, because **** just got real, and there was always something going on that needed attention.

Like I said, astronomically, it's very recent. But in actual practice it's been 26,000 years of close attention to detail. Very possible that Michael might only have become aware of Yves' inscrutability, or at least become more wary of it.
Granted, people like Lawrence and Nybbas really are kids, and considered to be such, but they have grown up in very interesting times, and that matures you. Or at least it matured Lawrence.

[William]

The GMG does indeed have a timeline giving the approximation creation times of most of the Superiors.

I also produced a partly-canon, occasionally-conjectural family tree for the Superiors, which is a different interpretation of relative ages.

[JCD]

A few things to point out:

Nybaas may have invented the t.v. a hundred years ago, but he was probably a demon a lot longer then that. Still, it seems like he was just the Mailroom boy a bit ago. See Hudsucker Proxy.

Michael and Yves fell out back around 600-1000 A.D. So to use your 45 year analogy, Michael just heard about that knife job that Dom took to Gabby and saw Yves just stand and let it happen about a 20 minutes ago.

[Acolyte]

In my head, things are just divided into pre-human time rate (astronomical time scale) and post-human time rate (much, much, much faster). Humans changed everything--the Marches, souls in Heaven, Lucifer's opinion on God, etc, etc. Whatever angels were doing or thinking before humans showed up, whatever plans they had, all of that got thrown up in the air. If angels had a calendar, it wouldn't be A.D., it would be A.H. (or perhaps A.E. for Eden).

I think another important thing to consider (although that reverse-human time perception bit is a very nice bit of thinking) is the Word possessed by each Superior, and how that colors his or her perception of time. To look at the obvious extremes:

David (Stone): Stone moves very slowly. But all the while it is not moving, forces are building up, and when it does move, it moves HARD. David might see this current era of extreme activity as the natural outcome of issues that were building for a long time (*coughcough* Lucifer *cough*), and prepared accordingly (or at least is willing to act more quickly that might be expected).

Janus (Wind): Wind never stops moving. But it's also unpredictable, totally caught up in the moment, easily deflected to a new course by suddenly-appearing obstacles. The moments of Creation had no more AND no less zany raw chaos about them than a modern high school lunchroom. (Talk about an alien perspective!) To Janus, the current era of extreme activity isn't that at all--maybe the stakes are higher with human souls, so change carries more weight, but the amount of change has always been a constant.


(idly: return post! I missed you guys, and I'm going to be back on the forums now!)

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Acolyte

(idly: return post! I missed you guys, and I'm going to be back on the forums now!)

Welcome back! It's good to have you in the ol' saloon again.

[Andygal]

Interesting thoughts, I think you're probably right. Also, Seraphim probably have had a lot harder of a time adjusting to the rapid changes in modern life then most other Choirs, they are attuned to the underlying Truth of the universe which for eons was simple and unchanging and now humans have shown up and made things a lot more complicated and ambiguous, more so in modern times. Seraphim hate ambiguity and complications.

(Welcome back)