Can someone explain the Spheres and Where the Monsters Came From?

[Lanaya]

Can someone explain the Spheres and Where the Monsters Came From?

Hi y'all

Im really curious about where do the monsters come from and what are the other spheres? i know one belongs to the hunt, and another before them. However their positioning and rationale, and from which do these monsters originate, are they from different spheres or do they come from a single one.

and the job of witchers is to make sure everything keeps in place right? so even elves from another world also fall into that category right?

 

[StaGiors]

There is no specific information about this.

Imagine the spheres like different universes, different dimensions. At some point in time, there was the "Conjunction". The dimensions, as I imagine were briefly joined, and that is how some monsters appeared in the World of the Witcher, that were not there before.

Also, Elves claim that Humans arrived into the Witcher Universe because of the Conjunction. Naturally, Dwarves and Gnomes who inhabited the land even before the Elves, claim that Elves too arrived due to the Conjunction. We can't say from which Universe the monsters or anyone else arrived. I don't think it matters that much either. I mean, they arrived from somewhere.

Anyway, the witcher's job is to kill monsters that plague humans. Not return the monsters to their original Universe, or stop others from arriving. Monsters existed in the Witcher World before the Conjunction. Witchers kill any monster that is a threat to Humans. That's what they do. For money.

 

[Sephira]

Pretty much what StaGiors said.

Monsters that came out after the Conjuction are called "post-Conjuction", they are usually insentient, those are the kind of creatures Geralt (and supposedly other witchers) hunts.

 

[Blothulfur]

Bit ripped off from Michael Moorcock, who had a multiverse of a million spheres. During the Conjuction of the Million Spheres great change was enacted and usually decided by the Champion Eternal, a host of single mortals making a choice or action that decided the fate of the coming age. Think the idea of Crystal Spheres goes back further however to a previous writer, whom Moorcock ripped off, as i've heard the term before and outside sci-fi/fantasy. Strangely enough i've heard it used by Christians as well, but I know nowt about that.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

You may be thinking of Pythagoras' Harmony of the Spheres, or Keplers Conjunction of the Spheres, but yeah the Eternal Champion was great... always fancied a timeshare in Tanelorn myself

or even this:

 

[GuyNwah]

Nothing to do with Pythagorean spheres or Keplerian conjunctions. Danusia Stok translated it "interpenetration" in her translations, which is (as usual) both highly exact and a bit pedantic. It's close kin to both a fictional and a possibly real event:

Bloth, in his post above, accurately relates it to Moorcock's Conjunction of the Million Spheres, though thankfully with little of his notions of Law and Chaos and nothing of the Eternal Champion.

Hypothetical collisions between universes in contemporary multiverse cosmology. In some of these hypotheses, the Big Bang was the product of such a collision.

In Sapkowski's Conjunction, creatures were momentarily able to migrate between universes, and some ended up stranded where they did not belong. Post-Conjunction monsters such as ghouls and vampires are the clearest example of these. Disputes as to whether humans (according to the elves) or elves (according to the dwarfs and gnomes) entered during the Conjunction may be founded more on racial antipathies than on fact.

 

[BroccoliSouP]

Nothing to do with Pythagorean spheres or Keplerian conjunctions. Danusia Stok translated it "interpenetration" in her translations, which is (as usual) both highly exact and a bit pedantic. It's close kin to both a fictional and a possibly real event:

Bloth, in his post above, accurately relates it to Moorcock's Conjunction of the Million Spheres, though thankfully with little of his notions of Law and Chaos and nothing of the Eternal Champion.

Hypothetical collisions between universes in contemporary multiverse cosmology. In some of these hypotheses, the Big Bang was the product of such a collision.

In Sapkowski's Conjunction, creatures were momentarily able to migrate between universes, and some ended up stranded where they did not belong. Post-Conjunction monsters such as ghouls and vampires are the clearest example of these. Disputes as to whether humans (according to the elves) or elves (according to the dwarfs and gnomes) entered during the Conjunction may be founded more on racial antipathies than on fact.

Well...considering that plane of Elves is full of human bones and Witcher plane is told to be not the place where humans come from, it almost feels that both races swapped their worlds and conjuction of spheres would make sense there.

EDIT: Also from Vran bones we could easily assume that Witcher world isn´t Elven homeworld either and that their approach of colonizing new planes is rather simple-exterminate previous race.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Ramond E. Feist conjured something similar too, with plane travelling raiders & refugee races getting their origin worlds messed up.

Th Eternal Balance with its struggling extremes was a sound basis for a cosmology that allowed intriguing, imaginative, and original tales to be churned out fairly regularly when there was bugger all else to enjoy, and with the Dancers at the End of Time it took on a metafictional aspect that means the entire saga deserves, like all things, to be considered appropriate to its era.

 

[dragonbird]

Was there more than one conjunction? There were a couple of things that made me think it was a recurrent event, but I'm not sure if it ever says there was more than one, or if it's just something I concluded.

- The elves seem to have arrived earlier than the humans.
- The "invention" of the Witchers was to counter a threat from monsters who had come through during the Conjunction, which implies that humans were already there and dominant when these monsters arrived.

 

[StaGiors]

Was there more than one conjunction? There were a couple of things that made me think it was a recurrent event, but I'm not sure if it ever says there was more than one, or if it's just something I concluded.

- The elves seem to have arrived earlier than the humans.
- The "invention" of the Witchers was to counter a threat from monsters who had come through during the Conjunction, which implies that humans were already there and dominant when these monsters arrived.

No I think that there was only one.

Both Elves and Humans arrived to the "known lands" of the Witcher Universe, from the sea. Much like in the Lord of the Rings. That does not mean that they were originally from another "dimension". But it also does not mean that they were not. It is unclear.

Possibly they were on different parts of the Witcher Globe, and both of them happened to migrate to the same place, in different times, possibly because of technological advances, magic or just pure luck. Where they originally come from is a total mystery.

The invention of the Witchers is somewhat explained in the books. See, Humans do not live long, relatively to other races. But they multiply a lot. Slowly but surely Humans multiplied, and pretty much took over the world. This naturally got them in contact with more monsters. Monsters that actually lived far away from Humans, find themselves practically living among them, due to the Human's expansion. When Humans realized that the monsters hinder their expansion, or if you will "survival", they created the Witchers.

The Conjunction of the Spheres, I believe, happened about 2000 years before the events in the novels. Humans arrived on the Continent 400 years before the events in the novels. Elves arrived before that. If I remember correctly, there has been a disagreement about the time that the Elves arrived. The Elves claim that they arrived about 1000 years before the humans did. The Dwarves and Gnomes claim that they arrived about 200 years before the humans.

I gotta say I trust the Dwarves' and Gnomes' words more.

 

[Lanaya]

Thank you for the information it was really helpful.

However, I see this word being thrown around a lot! what do you mean by "arrived"?
how does a group of people simply arrive to another dimension?
they all were dimension walkers??
did they knowing came here or was it accidentally?

 

[sfinx]

Not sure what was already mentioned, so maybe I will repeat something..

some facts

Spoiler

- conjunction was disaster, "beast" or creatures which stayed here (in witcher world) were 'castaways' - called by Emiel Regis
- conjunction take place about 1500 years ago

- conjuction closed some "gate", how Yen mentioned, this is the game, which appeared in Ciri's dreams, 'magic' itself is probably behind that game

- Avallac'h mentioned people were running away from their former world
- he also mentioned they could travel through Gate before, but after conjunction the gate was closed

- Vysogota mentioned Ciri has power (because of her genes) to control all spheres

- Vilgefortz said there were created many words (times, places) after conjunction (Auberon also said that)

• However, I see this word being thrown around a lot! what do you mean by "arrived"?
  • not sure who you were talking about, but people were running from their world to another, I am not sure how they did it, because it was mentioned they started to use magic AFTER conjunction, but this was mentioned
  • elves could probably travel wherever they wanted (before conjunction)
• how does a group of people simply arrive to another dimension?
  • throught 'gate of the worlds' (not sure if it is the right english name), but one of my ideas is conjunction was just another word for some great opening of this gate(s) and free traveling to another places - not sure if through portals (tor zirael,..) or just by some magic trick, BEFORE that, I think, there was a chance to travel just with some special ability, DURING conjunction, there was a chance - no matter how - to travel for all creatures, humans, beasts,.. and AFTER conjunction the gate was closed and just very few beings can travel through it (unicorns, Ciri)
• they all were dimension walkers??
  • I am not sure who do you mean, so I maybe give you wrong answer, but if you meant elves (aen elle, for example) they really could travel to another worlds (wherever they wanted), now (after conjunction) some of them can just travel to specific places (Avalac'h) or blindly on short distances or on Spirale (wild hunt)

I think only unicorns and later maybe Ciri (when she will learn it) would tell us how it works and unicorns would tell us what happened in conjunction. They are probably the cleverest (at least in case of this problem) creatures. They can control many things - they knew about Ciri, made a decision about her, they probably showed to aen elle how that gate works and they can travel just like Ciri.

 

[StaGiors]

Thank you for the information it was really helpful.

However, I see this word being thrown around a lot! what do you mean by "arrived"?
how does a group of people simply arrive to another dimension?
they all were dimension walkers??
did they knowing came here or was it accidentally?

This is how I imagine it to be.

Conjunction means "to come together".

Imagine something like the Solar Eclipse. The Moon, Earth and Sun are all aligned in a perfect line, so as people from Earth, can not see the Sun, because the Moon is in the way. Now think of this relatively, only instead of the Moon Earth and Sun, we now have entire Universes. That's what I think the Conjunction was. Different Universes unknown number) somehow aligned. They "fell on top of each other", that way creatures from one Universe ended up stranded in another Universe. Creatures that could not travel between these Universes.

The Aen Elle, claim that they could travel in space and time, before the Conjunction as @sfinx121 said. So could the Unicorns. But somehow the Elves lost that ability after the Conjunction. No other creature can travel in space and time, as far as we know.

 

[volsung]

And if we wanted to somewhat relate these stories to more believable, "real-world" events (since mythology may be an idealized fusion or transformation of fiction and reality) we could imagine the conjunction being an event that drastically changed the weather of a region of a planet, or maybe its geography, allow travelers to go beyond the borders imposed by nature or technology. And maybe this change was temporary and these passages were later unusable and those travelers were left stranded in foreign lands.

This would assume the post-conjunction monsters already existed in different parts of the world (i.e. dimensions).

Relating it to other schools of thought, I see the spheres as the realms of Norse mythology, hanging from the cosmic tree Yggdrassil which is the best illustration of an axis mundi. Through Yggdrassil creatures can travel between realms but it's not something mere mortals are capable of. I would imagine due to a cataclysm these passages may be more accessible than usual, leaving, for instance, creatures from chaotic realms like Muspelheim, or Alfheim or Svartalfheim stranded in Midgard. Maybe the edges of these worlds lie far at sea and so creatures arrive on boats.

In this configuration, a conjunction of spheres could be like the branches of the axis mundi coming so close to each other that one can simply cross over.

Just saying. I don't really know that much about the world of the witcher.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Well "Conjunction" literally means "union" and obviously requires multiple elements, It also carries with it a sense of a transitory state, only temporary, even though union seems more permanent, doesn't it? Maybe its because its primary usage these days would be in Astronomy, but originally its from the Latin "conjunctus", and anyone who studied that language remembers the interminable conjugating of tenses & verbs to make words, so there is something almost opportunistic about it.

In the Irish myths the Other - living - world was said to be separated by a "veil", of varying thickness, thinner and potentially traversable at dusk & dawn, particularly at Samhain & Beltaine, and weaker in some location than others. The Norse vision is the most iconic though, no doubt.

 

[Daeron87]

The concept of worlds inside/between worlds is indeed very old. From the ancient underworlds, to the estates of gods, to the hollow earth and the multiverse itself or Tolkien's Valinor. There always were some who could travel through them, whether by mystical knowledge or supernatural ability. Comics ( especially the two giants, you know to whom I'm referring ) have overworked the concept of multiple worlds/dimensions, often using it to present unspeakable threats ( ooooooh! ) or bringing back ( again ) a character that died ( again ), or simply to reboot everything when it passes a certain point of no return. Heck, the majority of D&D is based on that concept. With the multiverses you can virtually do anything and everything, it's so vague sometimes that most people dismiss any illogicalities as "Oh well, because Multiverse!"

But when used correctly, it's a great storytelling trope. Somehow it incorporates our fear and excitement of the unknown. And it would be extremely boring if none of us, or none of "them" could somehow visit the other side. In the Witcherverse specificaly, it's the reason behind certain monsters' weaknesses, the need for silver weapons, and the existence of witchers. Add to that all the Elves/Ciri branches, and suddenly it becomes a very important and solid backround basis for what happens in the story. That's a huge thing for such a vague concept.