Julian May, through the Milieu trilogy, did provide some insight about what happened to the Tanu during Marc and Elizabeth's time in the duat galaxy. It was also clear that Marc, because of his immortality gene, had become atoning unifex and led the lylmik to establish the galactic milieu.
About three years ago l posted, on a Facebook Julian May fan page, a very brief outline of how Marc had discovered the Lylmik. This information was provided by Julian herself and I provide it her for all her fans:
Dear Michael
The living ships of Brede's galaxy were somewhat different. The first one to reach our Milky Way six million years ago was the one that carried the Exiles. Brede's ship was able to enclose a mundane-ish habitat capsule (or create one from its substance) in which the humanoid Exiles traveled. And of course, it had a spouse ...
Now, when Marc and Elizabeth d-jumped to the Duat galaxy to free the Tanu/Firvulag population from torc dependency and introduce other Duat races to Unity, THERE WERE NO LYLMIK. Implicit in my Saga is the notion that Marc and Elizabeth transmogrified into the Mental Man phase of humanity and reproduced, then evolved into Lylmik form rather rapidly. Mental Men don't need human bodies ... or DO they? At an appropriate time--see below for a likely scenario--they migrated back to the Milky Way, led by Marc. He identifies himself somewhere in the Saga as THE Lylmik!
You will recall that it was a psychological thing that made Marc unable to restore his fertility in a regen tank back on earth. He could easily build a tank in the Duat galaxy and engender a race of proto-Lylmik in humanoid form which evolved into "real" Lylmik. Recall how the decadent Lylmik of the Milieu Era took easily to human bodies. Now we know why Marc/Unifex urged this method of revitalization on his Quincunx buddies.
None of the exotic races of the Galactic Milieu knew just how old the Lylmik were. We might assume they were much less than a million years old when Marc and Elizabeth completed the cure for torc-addiction and started many Duat races on the way to Unity.
Thus Marc's redemption was partly accomplished. Perhaps Elizabeth, before she relinquished her life there in Duat, suggested a NEW work for Marc and the Lylmik race back home in the good old Milky Way, where there were countless exotic races with Unity potential, ready to be shepherded by kindly mentors, who would travel chez nous in their spiffy ships.
It would be a long and frustrating task; our galaxy wasn't "ripe" for change like Duat. The Krondaku might have finally come around by 500,000 BC. But imagine how tired of the Milky Way recalcitrants a majority of the Lylmik were by then! On to decadence and elitist withdrawal!
Now you and your Coterie have sampled the unwritten (and never to be written by me) sequel to MAGNIFICAT. As to your original query about Lylmik ships, they were Marc's variation of an ancient Duat race--alas, not requiring shipspouses. To him such a refinement was quite superfluous.
Fond regards,
Julian
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