Wait, how do we know Tessa didn't turn on Nico?

Agreed, I also think if there are so many of them, what is so special about them?  However here is another way to look at it, many babies are born every day with genius level I.Q.s, but very few for fill that promise or potential, and even fewer still are really remembered... As in there are many mathematicians and physicists with genius level intelligence, but very few of genius,as in Einstein,Newton, or Hawking..  Maybe it works the same way for star born?

Pretty much. I think being born at a certain time is one component, but it's only one. I think there are others as well. Perhaps they have to be exposed to certain magics by a certain age. It's been speculated before that maybe they have to be exposed to outsider energy. That would reduce to the potentials significantly.

Number I dug up was 250 babies/hour. And this would have been in 1975, with a lower population- 4 billion vs. 7.8. So the rate was lower then.

I go around on what Elaine really is. Could a starborn have been put on ice since the last cycle? Tinfoil hats want to know!

Hmm, I'm not sure. This site
says there were right around 120 million born in 1975. That seems to be around 14k per hour. So four hours, maybe more if at night during a hours with lower averages, should cover the 40-60k.

That Harry pulled the trigger on a global-scale spell that could be prophesized as an event in the Outsider Book of Revelation, causing a vision of what was to come.

I got the impression that it was more like a window of time where there's a naturally occurring confluence of energy that bathes across the earth, and every newborn is exposed to it. If they end up having magical power, then they might have an ability to have their magic on equal terms between outsiders and insiders.

It's doesn't necessarily give them extra control over Outsiders; it just puts the mortal on the same footing as if they were performing magic on insiders.

Vadderung is an elemental being according to Gard and might have known Uriel from the beginning. He gave up power to stay involved.

In Norse mythology, Odin is the son of Bor, who is the son of Buri, who was the creator of all the (Norse) gods. Buri just existed but was freed from his entombment/encasement/gestation/whatever by a cosmic cow that licked enough salt. The cow, Aušumbla, may have been a primordial entity, and coexisted with a primordial jotunn named Ymir, the first of his kind.

My dresdenverse take would be that Ymir and Aušumbla would either be the first generation elemental avatars, or they predate creation. Either way, Buri would be the first or second generation EA, which would make Odin the third or fourth EA.

And then he took demotions to stay on the payroll rather than retire.

That certainly fits Seracks theory. It's slightly harder to work out whether the Light predates all the others as we don't have enough info. There's also a logic problem to some degree (probably beyond human comprehension) in that if all of those beings (Outsiders, Titans, Angels, TWG etc) all existed before time...there is no way to measure what/who was "first" (which becomes a meaningless concept to some degree).

One theory is that there were a bunch of Beings in a place without time and form, and one of them decided to make something in that space without consulting the others. The Creator made Reality, and Light, and a Wall to keep out the Others, whom became Outsiders.

Maybe some of the angels in Abrahamic religions predated that Creation, and maybe they were created after or in the process. For the dresdenverse, "in the process" seems likely, as they could be avatars of that which they're named.

But was Time created before Light, so that Light could travel? Or were they simultaneous? I doubt we'll ever get that granular, but there are ways for angels to pre-exist, or at least be twinsies with, time.

Agreed. I can't see Balor needing more energy...but then again maybe it's all about how much you can take with you. If you want access to you're full energy you have to break reality a bit, which seems like that might attract all kinds of attention.

Don't forget that Zeus and the Mothers are ranked around the same level as the Archangels, which suggests they too likely don't have those limits. Then again, it's hard to say because we haven't seen any of them in the mortal world (as far as we know).

I have wondered about whether wizards are the decedents of gods and demigods etc. On the one hand, Jim says all mortals have the potential to wield magic and we know mortals have incredible psychic power but expressed in a totally unique way (the ability to create and shape reality with Free Will). On the other hand they seem to not be able to just dominate, and wizards seem to be apart from their less exciting kin. Maybe wizards were an attempt to combine that mortal free will and immortal power. Something in the Paranet Papers suggests the most powerful wizards basically were worshipped as gods (and I think one still was...Manco Capac or something).

I think there was WoJ that the Mothers aren't on par with the archangels on a cosmic scale, but they're on par with them on an earthly scale, because both can destroy Earth with equal results. To humans directly under them, it doesn't matter if a massive boulder or an asteroid is heavier.

But I get your point. In this scenario, Balor might be an asteroid that was whittled down to a boulder on entry into the atmosphere (i e. Earthly existence). Maybe that original power isn't within his grasp anymore, but with a bit of human shaping (i.e. worship), part of his boulder can be mined and shaped into something a bit more manageable, like iron into a sword, or a geode into a crystal that shoots death star blasts.

And now Harry is in possession of said item. How reassuring. 

That...makes a lot of sense. I really like it. I have no idea if Jim will do that but I like it.

Only snag is that magic seems totally negated on Lord Raith, whereas the Before and Behind are still a little vulnerable to magic. I am not sure why Beside's central host body (Lord Raith in your theory) would be more protected than the others.

I can speculate that more effort went into Raith's protection than normal host bodies, simply because of the importance of having that anchor in reality. If another Before, Beside, or Behind demon is banished, it's no big deal, because Raith can summon them back. He's the King to protect at all costs, so they put a little extra juice into it.

As for Harry's power failing against him in Blood Rites, it could be that the protection lies beyond the mortal dimension, and Harry's power never hit the moving parts; it just hit the void that shunts the magic off to wherever it won't harm Raith.

But it could also be due to the inconsistency of Harry's starborn power. He killed Behind as a teenager without knowing he couldn't; he couldn't shake off Before's whammy in Blood Rites on his own, but he could after he was told he could and with Lash's help; he hit Before with fire in Mac's bar and Before deflected most of arguably the most powerful shot we've seen Harry throw at that point; Harry hits Sith with power that just sends him flying; then he one-shots Before with a gun and power to the head, destroying the host body and sending Before running while screaming in agony.

Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't.

The only problem with that theory Griff is that Maggie seems a bit naive in that scenario. Surely he would know at least Raith and Ariana, and any such dark beings, would wants to break the system for their own ends. No, I think Maggie got recruited to a group who she thought were going to improve the world by breaking a few eggs. A greater good type thing. Probably Cowl or someone like him was in charge. Cowl does already have a history of recruiting idealists. But when Maggie realized it was never anything more than a power grab/chance to cause chaos - she ran. Maybe also because she knew how horrible the end game was and decided she had to stop it. Who knows.

I don't think she would think they'd do it altruistically. But I think she thought they'd all be on-board with winning that war once and for all. Because nobody would work with Outsiders, that's just crazy.

But then she found out that Raith himself is Mister Outsider Fan Numero Uno, and the rest didn't want to seal them out so much as control them (Raith and DuMorne both summoning Behind seems like a team training exercise). So she bailed on the plot.

(Which I still think the plot was an effort to create a starborn. One that she wanted to use to defeat the Outsiders, and they wanted to use to control the Outsiders)

I still think "Black Council" is too misleading of a term for the bad guys' alliance(s).

I think Maggie was a founding member of a group that included herself, DuMorne, Raith, Arianna, almost Eb, and others. I think she wanted the group to break the rules to accomplish noble goals. I think they wanted to break the rules for selfish goals. When she realized that, she tried to get out.

I think it disbanded after Maggie's death since she was the driving force, but mortal members of that group ended up forming a wizard-only group that became the "Black Council". They kept their contacts with the other factions and worked together when needed for common gain.