This article or section contains information from Lori and Corey Cole’s (Transolar Games) extended Hero Universe (Hero-U Canon and/or Apocrypha).
Details may include information from Hero-U and Summer Daze, other published sources (pre-QFG & later) including books, comics, documentation and DnD supplements. It may also contain information from unreleased novels (and games), notes, concept materials, and developmental ideas from Quest for Glory outside of the original series canon.
The force wave (aka energy wave) is a concept created for How To Be A Hero series by the Coles which was later mentioned to fans via interviews and private chats. It was an concept backstory included in the How To Be A Hero bible, to explain the creation of the world of Glorianna (and/or other parallel worlds such as Corianne, or the food-themed "Gloriana" from their live DND adventures).
This article discusses what is known about the concept, but is considered here as unpublished concept material, and it is not to be referenced in general articles as 'lore' or 'background story' related to Quest For Glory (but is acceptable in relation to How To Be A Hero and derived works including Hero-U). Elements of it may have been embellished and appear in other fan fiction over the years. The force wave is only a smaller part of a larger Multiversal concept and Magical rifts concept (of parallel connected worlds), and is the background history for the world as seen in Convergent storyline of the four heroes (in How To Be A Hero books).
Background[]
The Force wave concept states that world is a parallel earth that divided at 1 b.c. and evolved at different rates than on Earth. But shared some similar events in earth history. Both our present earth and Gloriana coexisting in separate places.
The Force Wave was created as backstory for Mishell Baker's How To Be A Hero novels and didn't appear previously to that. Though there is something called the Change which related to animals becoming sentient and humanoid (something Force Wave event is supposed to also explain).
While elements of it may have existed before it was codified into the series 'bible', according to Lori Cole:
- Several years back, a fan [Mishell Baker] approached me about co-creating a book series about the Quest for Glory series. To do this, we had to codify a lot of things that Corey and I pretty much figured out along the way when designing the game. The information about the arcane force wave was written in the bible for the book series. So it has become part of the QfG mythos..[1]
Within the defunct School for Heroes project, the interaction between co-existing world of Glorianna/Gloriana exists by the very nature of the Gloriana inhabitants contacting and interacting with the enrollees from Earth.
User: Moff Rebus, see Talk:Gloriana was one of the first to hear about the concept. It was originally a concept he was told by the Coles in an ICQ chat. Though he or others had tried to include it on Wikipedia article[2] over the years (and pages generated from the original Wikipedia article), and other fan sites. The main gist of this concept was confirmed in an interview with Lori Cole for Strange Horizons in 2008, which also specifically ties it to the concept information created for How To Be A Hero's bible.
It's possible, other indirect references to it by the Coles may have appeared in other QFG fan chatrooms and in the School For Heroes website and blogs.
- It is said that a force wave hit Earth during 1 BC which split the world in two parallel realities. While our part evolved as we know from history, the time on our parallel Earth did not advance in a stable time pace, which explains the anachronisms found in the games.
- There was a diversity of progress of the civilisations in Glorianna and some remained in ancient times (Marete), Middle Ages (Spielburg), while others evolved into Victorian times (Mordavia); all civilisations co-existed together, with flavours of modern anachronisms. The Force wave also influenced some animals that started to evolve rapidly into sentient species, like the Katta and the Liontaurs.
- The world of Glorianna is, essentially, a mirror of our own world. Many of the kingdoms and locations mentioned in the game series are representative of real-world locations.[3]
As Moff Rebus explained further (where he assumed the idea was created as backstory to Quest For Glory rather than as part of How To Be A Hero materials):
- Her idea behind Glorianna. According to her concept, some "energy wave" or something, hit Earth in 1 BC and divided reality into two. In the reality of Glorianna, time did not progress in the same pace in all locations, and hence we have the Victorian Mordavia on the same planet as medieval Spielburg (and other more humorous anachronisms). Also in that reality, animals started to evolve rapidly.[4]
The Force wave concept isn’t neccesseily mutually exclusive with some of the other cosmological concepts for the universe, and Lori may have used both explanations in order to explain the existence of creatures and races in the world. For example;
- Jackalmen are not Doggies. They are another weird product of the magical storm that altered the world and its creatures. Jackalmen are more like humans with the mind of the jackal. More intelligent than the average jackal, more brutal than the average jackal. Doggies are canines with human intelligence and form. -Lori Cole
While it’s not clear if the “magical storm” is another description of force wave/energy wave or the “magical rifts” it may at least be a similar or related phenomena. However not all creatures were changed by exposure to a wave/storm or by world/chaos gates, but according to Lori some like Cheetaurs came to Gloriana from other worlds.
It should be at least pointed out that in-game lore/injokes/easter eggs in Quest For Glory 1 VGA, suggests that the game takes place at 8 Zillion BC (of course zillion is not really a number, a fictional number, but more of an 'idea' of an extremely large but unspecified number). QFG5 may suggest that the games take place in a time closer to when Gondwanaland existed.
Unexplained objects[]
The 1 b.c. date wouldn't explain certain plot holes such as the existence of creatures that should be long dead by the time of 1 b.c. history (about the time of one year before the alleged birth of Christ). It would hardly explain other major anachronisms such as dinosaurs still alive, or even ancient cavemen living in the Lost City short of the theory of retrocausality in quantum physics (changes in the present affecting the past), or that the dinosaurs originated out of one of the 'magical rifts' (see magical rifts concept).
By the time of the games, dinosaurs living in practically every land, when they should have gone extinct millions of years before. The cavemen, should have already been gone hundreds of thousands of years before, etc. Lori suggests that Sauruses originated from another world in and came through the magical rifts.
In QFG there is a reference to 8 Zillion BC (technically a fake number that means 'unspecified long time ago') or Gondwanaland which could imply the games actually taking place millions of years in the past rather than after 1 b.c.
Of course its possible that the time wave crash caused time to also 'go backwards' in places, or creatures to 'devolve' rather than evolve into newer species. Similar to the Star Trek Voyager episode where characters reach all points in time and space simultaneously and start to 'devolve' back into one of Earth's ancestral missing links. The exact processes of the "Force wave' are not exactly clear. This might even tie into the explanations for Jackalman (Hero-U) which Lori explained as having been transformed by a magical storm from humans into a creature with brain of a jackal more or less.
Whatever the case this concept has had influence on some of the fan fiction.
Due to the post-QFG nature of this concept, and the fact that it is not touched on or referenced (at least directly and/or including confirmed indirect references) within the games, it is not directly referenced in this wiki in most articles. Since the concept of cosmology is rarely even brought up, most of these ideas are not discussed in this wiki outside of a few topics related to How To Be A Hero and Hero-U.
Relationship to Quest For Glory (and it's 'four' seperate Hero 'dimensions')[]
As this backstory was created (or at least codified) for How To Be A Hero bible (used for the unpublished novels, School For Heroes, and Hero-U). It has no practical significance, and really only applies to the Alternate Canon derived materials, and co-exists or is related/supplementary to the Convergence concept. It can only 'retro-actively' be applied to the games (or related officially published lore). As How To Be A Hero is a 'convergent' world (see Glorianna) the four heroes coexisted as siblings in the Force wave's concept of history of the world (where as in original Quest For Glory universe there were at least four seperate universes representing each class, plus any hybrids, or alternative events/choices). Suileman as a historical figure actually predated 1 BC, having lived between 990 BC and 931 BC.
As the concept was made many years after Quest For glory as backstory for How to Be a Hero it does not appear in any previous games or any of the lore, and there are no direct or indirect references to 'parallel earths or co-existing earths' within the games (with possible exception to the dimension references in QFG2). Dr. Brain 2 does bring up concepts of parallel worlds (in relation to Cerebral Hemisphere but Corey Cole had no part in that game)
Some fans have wondered if the concept of the Change in QFG3 relates to the concept of the Force Wave, however that doesn't necessarily define a split in universes, just a point and time, an event, in which animals were changed somehow and became sentient. It could have happened even back in ancient times before 1 BC. It also retroactively relates to general ideas of Anachronisms seen throughout the games.
Despite this backstory related to the 'four heroes' version of the universe, sometimes the Coles focus only one hero in their references (most often Hawk the Warrior since he became King of Silmaria).
The Hero-U timeline followes this four-heroes centric version of the universe.
There are a number of differences between the world of Hero-U (and related materials) and the world of Quest For Glory. For example in the Hero-U universe, as mentioned before the four heroes were all related, in fact the offspring of royalty of a southern kingdom.[5] They would also go onto rescue both Erana and Katrina from the underworld. Geographically the worlds are somewhat different than those appearing in the standard QFG series. For example, Marete looks similar to 'Crete' but different than the original Canon QFG's Marete.
Supplementary concepts by the Coles[]
The Force Wave concept was codified around the same time that idea of four heroes existing as siblings was created. Lori Cole explained the existence of four siblings further in a Facebook post (which may relate to explaining anachronisms (and shifts in time) though she may be also referencing places such as Earth (Hero-U) and Corianne which were also directly created by the Force Wave;[6]
It may be part of a much larger idea of interconnected Parallel Universes (see Multiversal concept and Magical rifts concept)
- In the grand scheme of the universe of QfG, we are talking about a series of Parallel Universes that occasionally have rifts between them. And some worlds are more advanced technologically. There have been some crossovers from the Technology based worlds and the magic ones. Some of the Science on Gloriana comes from another world.
- Gloriana is a magic rich world, and magic affects time more than science does.
In explaining the four heroes in the world Hero-U takes place she implies that it is a 'convergent world' (see Convergence concept) made up of the parallel universes of the different character classes and hybrids.
- The convergent one, of course!
Certain aspects are still unclear such as if lands themselves may be seen as 'parallel universes' that have crossed over, or allow crossing over between other parallel world nations, and if magic physically effects how time functions in each of those pocket universes (much like in Narnia where time moves faster than the outside world, or Katrina's magic controls prevents time from flowing in her retreat, or the influence of elven magic on humans in fantasy; time dilation).
Lori confirms that time does flow differently when exposed to magic than it does scientifically, and also flows dramatically different in fairy lands of Corianne (in the older QFG lore Mordavia seems to be implied to be one such fairy lands: the Eastern Woods).
- But Erana was lost to the Fae for more than 30 years, mostly because time moves differently in the Faerie lands.-Lori Cole
Behind the scenes[]
While Dr. Brain 2 was not created by the Coles, the concept of parallel worlds appears in the game (at least in the sense that the Cerebral Hemisphere, the home of Dr. Brain's later labs is implied to be in a parallel world from Earth in the manual), and Dr. Brain is connected into the Quest For Glory universe (either intentionally or as an easter egg taken seriously see QFG4 Hintbook) in QFG4.
The Cerebral Hemisphere does not take place in the same 'world' of QFG, or even in the same world as Castle of Dr. Brain, but instead a new parallel world created by Dr. Brain's own technology.
However, by the time of Dr. Brain series itself (assumed to be several generations after the time of QFG, see Dr. Cranium), Gloriana and Earth have more or less merged back into 20th century present times (with its parody of the classic Sierra game developer mentioned in the lore surrounding the first Dr. Brain game). However, Dr. Brain series itself is not necessarily a good indication or source of specific Quest For Glory lore (though QFG4 and to lesser extent 5 pull elements of it into the QFG universe, and Dr. Brain 1 also makes references to QFG within its own easter eggs). As mentioned Dr. Brain 2 had little input by the Coles, and later games had no input at all.
Alternative Earth History[]
It appears that "Earth" 'our world' wasn't initially considered to be seperate part of the Quest for Glory universe, but the idea is something that was adopted for the How To Be A Hero School, School For Heroes, and Hero-U materials. Corey Cole has stated that originally when QFG was being designed, the universe was seen more of a fantasy reimagining of earth, an alternate past history (rather than parallel world).[7]
- Quest for Glory games are a fantasy reimagining of Earth rather than a parallel world. Gloriana is the name we used for this alternate Earth in our tabletop role-playing games and in some auxiliary materials for Quest for Glory. We also had a parallel world (accessible through spells and magical portals) named "Corianne" after our names. That one actually saw more tabletop gaming and is definitely *not* an Earth-cognate world.
Other spinoff material such as Adventures of a "Wanna-Be" Hero and partially associated The Castle of Dr. Brain (via QFG4) also used the conceit that Hero's Quest and Quest For Glory were more or less set in 'our world' (albeit one that was a bit more whimsical and silly).
But starting in How To Be A Hero and continued into School For Heroes, the Head Master (Famous Adventurer) took on students from 'our earth'. In the backstory the Coles acted like mediators and adjunct professors who passed on classwork between the worlds, and mediating between the professors back in Gloriana. Some of this is nodded to in Hero-U itself when examining some of the "Backer Paintings" and other decorations in the university.
See also[]
- Cosmology of Quest for Glory
- Change concept
- Magical storm concept
- Convergence concept
- Space and time
- Dimension
References[]
- ↑ http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/games-to-life-an-interview-with-lori-corey-and-michael-cole-of-transolar-games/
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20060913000000/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorianna Glorianna Wikipedia article capture on the Wayback Machine
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20080106023825/http://en.allexperts.com/e/g/gl/glorianna.htm Defunct All Experts article generated from the defunct Wikipedia article
- ↑ I had the unexpected privilege and honor to chat with Lori over ICQ and she told me her idea behind Glorianna. According to her concept, some "energy wave" or something, hit Earth in 1 BC and divided reality into two. In the reality of Glorianna, time did not progress in the same pace in all locations, and hence we have the Victorian Mordavia on the same planet as medieval Spielburg (and other more humorous anachronisms). Also in that reality, animals started to evolve rapidly.
- The "bad" news is that the above can't be verified by anyone else. It's just my word that I chatted with Lori over ICQ. The other "bad" news is that it's only a concept. She didn't seem to elaborate on it, and there is no trace of any cosmology in the games; so it doesn't have any practical significance. So there :) MoffRebusMy Talk 00:39, March 9, 2010 (UTC)
- ↑ Correspondence with Corey Cole
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/groups/559200810845453/permalink/1409192619179597/
- ↑ Corey ColeApril 8, 2018 at 1:34 PM "Loosely based on" Earth is fairly accurate. Country locations match Earth countries - for example, "East Fricana" is East Africa, roughly Kenya, and we drew from languages and cultures in each area. Beyond that, the games are fantasy - made-up Kingdoms and tribes, Heroes having disproportionate influence over events, magic, and monsters. Time periods are also ambiguous. So I'd say Quest for Glory games are a fantasy reimagining of Earth rather than a parallel world. Gloriana is the name we used for this alternate Earth in our tabletop role-playing games and in some auxiliary materials for Quest for Glory. We also had a parallel world (accessible through spells and magical portals) named "Corianne" after our names. That one actually saw more tabletop gaming and is definitely *not* an Earth-cognate world. http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2018/04/game-285-quest-for-glory-iii-wages-of.html