originally posted by Hunter
Hellcat,
If you use the Search facility and search for "Age of Dragons" (quotes important) you'll get to the page with this snippet posted by Janny:
"Very little has been revealed about the Age of Dragons (the epoch prior to First Age One, when Paravians arrived as Ath's gift to Athera). "
Reading this and other bits trying to find the answer to this question had lead me to believe that Athera is the only world of the universe to have Dragons and Paravians. If, in the rest of the universe Calum Kincaid's great weapon has destroyed worlds and all of humanity, does that mean that the only humanity extant in the universe is that on Athera and those exiled voluntarily or involuntarily through the Worldsend Gates to the Splinter worlds?
If so, only on Athera do you have dragons, Paravians and humanity with the Compact speaking for the last group. The previous Ages have all been marked by the arrivals of various groups. Given the prologue, its entirely possible the subsequent Ages are marked by the exit/departure of such key groups.
The prologue in Curse starts thus "The Wars of Light and Shadow were fought during the Third Age of Athera, the most trouble and strife-filled era recorded in all history". So I'm not sure we'll get into the Fourth Age in the narrative - although how to get another 450 years of history in the subsequent Arcs will be interesting.
The prologue also talks about trying to determine the truth about Arithon, Lysaer and the Religion of Light. Given Lysaer, the Kralovir and the shadowy cabal from Erdane (amongst others) are aligned with the decimation of the Paravians, Ath's Adepts, Arithon, the clans, the Compact and basically anything that disallows humanity free access to Athera, the resolution of the Lysaer/Arithon conflict has to, in my mind, resolve all of the extraneous issues with Paravians, Drakes, etc.