Quote Originally Posted by ObsidianFire View Post
Why not just use neurolinks in that case? or clones? We've seen plenty of each before.
Allag had a pretty long history - it's more than reasonable to speculate that not all of these technologies existed at the same times. The proto-Garleans may have been engineered before cloning was perfected (or even genetic engineering - it could have simply been breeding for specific traits), for instance. As for neurolinks, have we seen them work on anything but dragons? There could be something about dragons that makes neurolinks viable that does not apply to any other race.

Engineered by the Allag or not, I have to admit that I've long been curious as to whether Garleans qualify as a separate "race", or whether they're a third subset of Hyur.

Quote Originally Posted by SannaR View Post
True, but look at what they did to a leader of a rebellion. Phlegethon was captureed made to be that tall, brainwashed and then forced to guard the labrynth. They also seem to be fine with death of test subjects. Xande went as far as make a pact with the Cloud of Darkness. To me even a advanced culture as they were they should have known playing around with a being like that is tricky at best and deadly at worst.
In the case of Xande and the Cloud, I think it's pretty much implied that Xande (who was a clone of the original at the time he made the pact) was not the most sane of individuals. He was an imperfect copy of the original (not that Amon would ever admit any flaw); he came back wrong, as it were. In short, don't take Xande's poor decisions as an indication of the attitudes of the populace as a whole. Judging by the archives in Azys Lla, it certainly seemed to be the case that Mad Science was the order of the day - but that, too, was likely encouraged by our not-too-sane Xande.