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Are all Immortals foundlings?

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    It wasn't the midwife who offered Duncan. "When the midwife looked into your eyes, for it was you the peasant brought in, she cringed back in fear... and said you were a changeling... left by the forest demons... and we should cast you out for the dogs!"
    Last edited by dubiousbystander; 10-06-2018, 05:58 AM. Reason: had to remove a link that was automatically left in.

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  • TheWolfEmperor
    replied
    I had been watching Outlander and in one episode, a woman abandons her infant in the forest thinking it's a changeling. The idea being that the changelings would return the stolen infant before the changeling dies. And of course the baby dies of exposure and Jamie explains to Claire. The mother will be fine because she'll take comfort in the idea that the changelings are taking care of her "real" son. And in Highlander, Duncan's father flat out tells him that he believes Duncan to be a devil spawn, or a changeling and that it was the midwife that offered an infant Duncan in the place of the infant who had died in birth.

    I realize Highlander and Outlander have different mythologies but they both are at some level grounded in the idea of an otherworldly presence guiding events. Highlander even eventually encounters a demon like creature that Duncan has to defeat. So it's not out of the realm of possibility to think that The Game is engineered by unseen entities and that Immortals are the product of these entities. It's possible that quite a few pre-immortal infants still do die of exposure from not being found and that the ones who do have simply survived the first stage of the Game. Even more of them don't get activated and die of old age without ever knowing they are different.

    The entities who engineer the Game could be sending in new immortals for any number of reasons not necessarily known or explainable by our standards.

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  • dubiousbystander
    commented on 's reply
    Unless it was something in Season 6...

  • dubiousbystander
    commented on 's reply
    That was Bad Day in Building A, and I don't remember anything in that about faeries abandoning human children. Was that a cut bit, or just something they didn't use in the end?
    DM - Well, they were like regular people, except they lived for... a very long time, and... they never grew old.

    Belinda - Like Peter Pan!

    DM - Yeah... sort of. Well, the fairies were handsome... and wise... and very, very clever. The problem was, as time went on, there were more and more people, and soon the fairy people had to leave their home in the fairy city. They moved into the mountains, and into the old forests, and in the caves and in the cliffs. But the other people always found these places, so the fairy people had to move on.

    Belinda - That's sad. Where do they live now?

    DM - [whispering] Oh, Belinda... they're all around us. And you know what their job is? [Belinda shakes her head.] It's to protect children. And sometimes tell them stories.

  • Methos
    replied
    I don't buy into the alien theory. There's too much that's magical about them for that to be the case. Both the movies and the series has given us a number of other magical elements, whether it's Nakano's power of illusion, Cassandra's prophesying and mind control, the Methuselah Stone, or Ahriman. Not to mention, why would aliens single out holy ground as inviolable ground for Immortal combat? And if we assume The Final Dimension is still valid to some degree, the creators of the Game seemingly monitor holy ground, as they were ready to lay down the law on that fight between Kane and MacLeod (And the series suggests that the destruction of Pompeii was a result of two Immortals fighting on holy ground).

    I wish I could remember what episode it was in, but there was an episode where MacLeod tells someone a fable he made up on the spot about faeries abandoning their children in the mortal world. I'm thinking that MacLeod's fable is far closer to the actual truth than any other theory out there. There are other beings out there, and they're not space aliens on a far-off planet, but beings far closer to Earth. And, I suspect, they may be very similar in nature to Ahriman.

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    I ran into one fanfic where Immortals were designed by a distant alien race on a dying world, as a possible escape hatch, and the final Quickening would be powerful enough to create a portal between the worlds for them to escape and rule Earth. The reason Immortals all appear as foundlings is because they can't send anything bigger. They had a subplot where Methos was the first sent as an adult, and the experience did him such damage that he turned completely against them. Duncan was very specifically engineered to be the person who would bring them through, believing them to be his loving family and parents or something like that.

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  • Methos
    replied
    Wherever baby immortals come from, I think their origins have to be tied into whoever created the Game and set up the rules. Immortals clearly aren't a natural occurrence. They exist with a specific purpose in mind. So somewhere, baby Immortals are either being birthed or manufactured by some other kind of being that we haven't been introduced to. But whoever they are, they seem to be actively monitoring the rules of the Game, given what happened when Kane tried to take Connor's head on holy ground in Highlander 3. The options, I think, are as follows.

    1) They're Transformed: Using the Methuselah Stone, which works as advertised, the beings creating baby Immortals kidnap human infants and use the stone on them to make them Immortal before leaving them out in the world as Foundlings. In this case, the stone we saw is one which they lost along the way somehow, but not the only one in their possession.

    2) They're Manufactured: Whoever the beings behind the Game are, they simply create Immortals, so in essence they have no parents. They're created from whole cloth the way, I suppose, God created His angels. Manufactured beings, rather than beings which evolved into their current state and reproduce.

    3) They're Birthed: Immortals do have a mother and father, but not human parents, or Immortal parents. Rather, they're the biological children of these other beings who, rather than raise them, decide to exile them and force them into the Game. For that to be the case, though, it'd have to suggest that the Immortals are different from their biological parents and don't possess the same abilities.

    IMO, there can't be any explanation of where baby Immortals come from until the purpose of the existence of Immortals and the Game is first explained.

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  • n107
    replied
    Originally posted by Perfect Warrior View Post
    Oh. Ley lines. Witch ties into the whole celtic/ highlander thing, as far as it meshing with legends as they anciently stand. Nice fit.
    Yes, indeed. The goal was to have it make sense using concepts seen in the show and in the real world rather than make up something completely different and try to force it into the lore.

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  • Perfect Warrior
    replied
    Oh. Ley lines. Witch ties into the whole celtic/ highlander thing, as far as it meshing with legends as they anciently stand. Nice fit.

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  • n107
    replied
    Originally posted by Nicholas Ward View Post
    That is a very interesting theory. Does it suggest that in areas where a lot of people died (clan wars etc.) occurrence of immortality would be higher?
    The odds of a foundling being created wouldn't be dependent on the number of dead in an area but rather where the Quickening energy in the earth had come together.

    I imagine Quickening to operate like a magnetic or gravitational force. It is always attracted to itself and pulling towards itself. As more and more of the energy combines, it is able to pull more of it closer which eventually lead to these pools or "sources" of Quickening that can spawn new Immortals. That is also why Immortals can sense each other because the magnetic-like force of the Quickening inside each Immortal starts to pull towards each other, causing that sensation. Also, that would be why the Gathering happens when only a few Immortals remain because they each have a significant portion of the entire Quickening inside each of their bodies. The Quickening would be constantly pulling towards the other pieces, drawing each of them closer and closer to whatever the midpoint of all the remaining Immortals would be. In the original Highlander film, for example, that would have been New York City. It would be like a siren's call that urges them onward to reuniting the Quickening into a whole.

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  • Nicholas Ward
    replied
    That is a very interesting theory. Does it suggest that in areas where a lot of people died (clan wars etc.) occurrence of immortality would be higher?

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Originally posted by n107 View Post
    Here's my take on it, which is part of a still unfinished story I've been planning/working on for a while:

    The short and sweet of it is that the foundlings are a creation of the Quickening itself. The Quickening is the power of life, which is why it fuels immortality, and is also why it can create new life. I imagine that the Quickening energy, which is spread across the globe, had gradually pooled together in certain areas. These areas are what we think of as holy ground; the energy of the Quickening is the reason why ancients felt that they were in a sacred place and built their places of worship on top of it.

    The concentrated pools of Quickening permeating the holy ground occasionally spawn a child when it interacts with DNA of human bodies buried in the soil. This would explain why so many "abandoned" babies seem to be left at churches, convents and so on. Sure, some of them are actually abandoned by their parents but the immortal foundlings were actually materialized there. Not all foundlings start at one of these places but that's because not every single "source" of energy has a structure built on it, hence those found in the wild. Because these foundlings are derived from the DNA of people in the area accounts for why they would (typically) have the same racial/ethnic features of people from that region.

    There are a lot more details of what is going on and why but that's not what this thread's topic is about.
    I like that. And no one has to die for an Immortal to come into existence. Almost as though it could be magic, and things such as the Methuselah Stone exist.

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  • n107
    replied
    Here's my take on it, which is part of a still unfinished story I've been planning/working on for a while:

    The short and sweet of it is that the foundlings are a creation of the Quickening itself. The Quickening is the power of life, which is why it fuels immortality, and is also why it can create new life. I imagine that the Quickening energy, which is spread across the globe, had gradually pooled together in certain areas. These areas are what we think of as holy ground; the energy of the Quickening is the reason why ancients felt that they were in a sacred place and built their places of worship on top of it.

    The concentrated pools of Quickening permeating the holy ground occasionally spawn a child when it interacts with DNA of human bodies buried in the soil. This would explain why so many "abandoned" babies seem to be left at churches, convents and so on. Sure, some of them are actually abandoned by their parents but the immortal foundlings were actually materialized there. Not all foundlings start at one of these places but that's because not every single "source" of energy has a structure built on it, hence those found in the wild. Because these foundlings are derived from the DNA of people in the area accounts for why they would (typically) have the same racial/ethnic features of people from that region.

    There are a lot more details of what is going on and why but that's not what this thread's topic is about.

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Oh yeah! Twins, identical or fraternal. That could be possible. Or they might die, not having enough power from only two parents. Or one would absorb the other and THAT could be an interesting complication. Or not.

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  • Nicholas Ward
    replied
    Nice theory, Maybe the newborn immortal absorbs their parents essence?

    Also that would leave the (im)possibility of immortal twins...

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Perhaps the parents of a gestating pre-immortal always run away together, and both are disintegrated with the birth of the baby. I like that better. Thus the baby is born far away from those who knew its parents, and there aren't any parents to be found. This happens very rarely, because for two people who carry the necessary genes to come together wouldn't happen often. And, after all, the full compliment of genes is not coming back into the mortal population.

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  • watcher nido
    replied
    A friend of mine told me once an immortal origin, the author was Coyote hush ( I dont know who is) a preimmortal when is born... its quickening desintegrates the mother...that's why immortals are foundlings... I dont know how true is that theory...but I like it

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Originally posted by Saber Dog View Post
    Duncan killing too many "breeders" is hilarious.

    Given Duncan's attitude toward women immortals, they would be the most dangerous for him. The most dangerous would be Grace. She drugs him, ties him up, calmly apologizes explaining he's killing too many "breeders", opens her bag and gets out her bone saw... Duncan: "Grace... What are you doing Grace? What are you doing with that saw?" Grace: "Hold still. I'll be quick." Duncan: "GRACE??!!" Grace gets out a marker and puts a dotted line around Duncan's neck.
     Hahahah. Again, it wasn't the women who were bothered by Methos killing breeders. Turned out particularly to be an older male Immortal who was trying to breed his own army. It came to Methos' attention that rather quite a few of the younger Immortals he was running across were this guy's.

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  • Saber Dog
    replied
    It is only the foundling part that i don't see as crucial. Not having immortals raising baby immortals is crucial. Not having immortals as a as a breeding population is crucial. I don't have a problem with random babies being immortal.

    Duncan killing too many "breeders" is hilarious.

    Given Duncan's attitude toward women immortals, they would be the most dangerous for him. The most dangerous would be Grace. She drugs him, ties him up, calmly apologizes explaining he's killing too many "breeders", opens her bag and gets out her bone saw... Duncan: "Grace... What are you doing Grace? What are you doing with that saw?" Grace: "Hold still. I'll be quick." Duncan: "GRACE??!!" Grace gets out a marker and puts a dotted line around Duncan's neck.

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Eh... operationally, the Foundling thing is crucial. As in, someone found a baby and said "Looks good. I'll raise this one as my own."

    Yeah, there was another variant where, again, only very old Immortals (1,000 years or so) are fertile. The numbers are dwindling and someone has decided that Duncan MacLeod must be eliminated, because he keeps killing breeders. There was an almost funny interaction between Methos and Ceirdwyn where she yells at him that he's killed her children and he counters that they had to be somebody's. Suffice to say, it wasn't the women who were after Duncan.

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  • Saber Dog
    replied
    I don't think the mothers need to die or lose their memories in order for pre immortal babies to be relocated.

    I also don't think the foundling thing is crucial either. Most of them end up as part of a family anyway.

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  • Perfect Warrior
    replied
    Our modern sensibilities would be happier with abandonment causing immortality, yes. (Instead of the reverse.)

    I understand that in ancient Rome there was a way, culturally, to deal with an unwanted/unsupportable newborn- there was a specific spot in the marketplace to leave them. The first flickers of modern 'safe place' drop-off spots. (& back then, when debt slaves were common, there were dirtbag futures speculators who would take the girls and pay to have them nursed, then sell them as prostitutes.)

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  • Nicholas Ward
    replied
    If the Source is mainly electrical I could imagine that maybe some children get struck by lightning, so maybe they start off as normal foundlings but because of unique circumstances become pre-immortal. Maybe abandoning kids was a ritualised happening which could explain why there seem to be more in the past than in the modern day.

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  • dubiousbystander
    replied
    Neat! Though again it gets awfully complicated if these pre-Immortal mothers don't somehow lose any memory of having been pregnant, and everyone around them similarly doesn't know they're pregnant.

    I did encounter one tale that involved Methos falling in love with a woman, only to have her tell him she's pregnant probably from getting raped while under the influence of some drug, as all she remembers is a flare of light. Only to then find out that she's carrying a pre-Immortal. Let's see... an implication that she feels the need to get away from all who know her, and then at the birth her body is destroyed in another flare of light. Methos has some choice words about whatever it is that impregnates women and leaves them to die.

    That wasn't a bad one, as such. I still have my core outrage that the mothers die. Women pregnant with an Immortal feel compelled to get away from anyone they know, so the baby always shows up far from the last known place of that particular pregnant woman. In the modern world, easily able to be the opposite side of the planet.

    Saber Dog, I was thinking of writing a tale where Duncan (or Methos, or someone) finds Grace on his doorstop with a pair of Immortals who met their first deaths at age 16, and a tale of an evil Immortal who seeks out young Immortals, makes them tell him their pre-Immortal history, goes to where they came from: Tracks down rumors of women who might have been pregnant around about the right time and whose babies are unaccounted for, and then kidnaps anyone young enough to bear in the same family (the rumored women too, if available) and whichever male has a chance of having been the father of the vanished infant.

    So he maintains a village of people he hopes might possibly bear Immortals. He takes every newborn, isolates and leaves them exposed long enough that they should be dead. Any baby that happens to survive, he returns to its parents and monitors. So the theory of the story is that out of hundreds of babies, this has actually given him a minimum of two successes. Though it doesn't take too long in each generation for the villagers to revolt, to a degree that he often has to kill them all and start gathering another batch. These two escaped the island, found Grace (oh why not?) and seek help to put an end to the fiend!

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  • Saber Dog
    replied
    I've never given most of this much thought before, but you've got me thinking about it now. I figure that they are just infertile like some hybrid animals, like mules. In doing some research, the reason for a mule's infertility, except for some circumstances, is do to a different number of chromosomes. If an immortal left blood behind at the scene of a crime or if a body were checked and there was a different number of chromosomes from a normal human the poop would hit the fan. So it might be very different. I would imagine that other than being infertile, they function normally because if they didn't it would attract medical attention. Especially female pre-immortals, unless they function as mortal humans before their first death in which case there could be reproduction.

    Reproducing immortals would be a huge plot problem. If their children are also immortal, then mortal humans would be edged out by evolution. If their children are mortal, how do you deal with the children aging normally while at least one parent doesn't?

    If you hold with my theory of what the quickening is, then there are a finite number of immortals. They may start at various points in history, but each is one of a finite set.

    But let's try this - female pre-immortals are fertile. Their offspring are also pre-immortals. They are stolen by an organization who can identify them, for some reasons we don't fully know, and relocated as a foundling to become part of a mortal family. Perhaps it is to allow fate to take its course either to a normal death or to a violent death triggering immortality. Perhaps it is to protect the mother, should she become immortal, from having to leave her child to hide what she is or be tempted to give her child a violent death. Unless the Watchers have a very different composition and purpose from what we've been told, they would not be able to identify the children of pre-immortals and would not interfere if they could. Perhaps there is a third group, let's call the Shepherds, who are able to identify baby pre-immortals and transplant them. This opens up a number of interesting plot lines. Are the immortals even aware that this is going on? The organization would need to be extremely old and widespread as well as highly secretive.

    Another possibility, which ignores the foundling concept, is that maybe very old immortals can implant a quickening in an infant by giving it one of the ones they had taken. I thought about a fan-fiction which I never wrote in which there is an infant that isn't expected to live. Methos decides to help, goes into the nursery, places his hand on the infant and there is a quickening. As he's leaving, he runs into Kyra who realizes the infant is now a pre-imortal and asks how and why. Methos says that only the oldest immortal can do it. He shrugs off the why question but says "I did the same for you three thousand years ago" and walks away as doctors are astounded that the dying infant is rapidly improving. It is sort of a vampire like thing though which I didn't like.

    But getting back to the question, perhaps the foundling don't become pre-immortal until after they are already foundlings. Perhaps there are a few ancient female immortals that bestow a quickening upon babies that have been left for various reasons by mortal mothers. These female immortals can't take the babies, but in a way they reproduce themselves by giving the baby a quickening and some deep knowledge of themselves. I like the idea that this is done by ancient female immortals. They feel a need to do this with foundlings because they need more and are more accessible without observation than a new baby who has a family. Perhaps it is a secret known only to ancient female immortals who have sufficient quickenings and occasionally need to induct a new member. Should be some plot lines there.

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