This is mostly just wild speculation , but what if the Golden City was some sort of super lyrium battery of sorts , which was the source of the Elves immortality somehow , and the cause of them losing there immortality wasn't being in contact with humans but lack of contact with the lyrium. It would also be where the taint was first created .When the Tevinters first went to the golden city , they were overloaded with lyrium and began to hear its call , similar to Bartrand.

Sorry its not very in depth , i just thaught of it this minute and wanted it put down before i forgot it , I'll likely expand on it tomorrow.

Didn't the Tevinter destroy Arlathan before the first blight?--Serrah (talk) 05:09, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

I really don't think that the DA team is going to explore the Maker/Golden City. It's just background lore that introduces a bit of mystery as to where the Darkspawn came from, who (if anyone) was responsible for their creation, etc. They're not going to make the analogue of God/Allah into some sort of super-villain. Whether the Maker even exists is a matter of personal belief, as the companion dialogue in DA:O shows. Whocares65 (talk) 07:09, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

hello to everyone,this will be my first edit-theory so if i'm a little new or it seems stupid to you senior members sorry,still learning :) here goes i consider that the golden city isn' the former seat of the maker ,super lyrium storage unit or a natural ocuring thing in the fade,i consider it a creation of the old gods,a only immutable place in the fade so that the dciples of the old gods or if you prefer the escape option,the minds of the old gods after imprisonment still continued to roam the fade where thay made contact with the dreamers and tought them magic,that procces of learning took time,the magisters didn't learn over night,so how could the old gods find ther deciples teach them and be certin that in the ever changing fade thay will at all times be able to find them but still a place were thay could seem omnipotent and godly to thair pupils,the answer was to create it,i belive that the old gods used the naturaly ocuring lyrium in the fade to make them a splendid palace which could be seen from evry point in the fade so thair deciples would always be able to find them,as the magisters became more powerful the old gods urged them to come to the fade and be as gods themselves,the magisters did as thay were told and enterd the fade physicly i belive but the lyrium that was used to create the golden city in the begining,and it wass used massively and embeded into the city so that it would be immutalble and allpresent,had an corrupting affect,we know this becouse the magisters in the lyrium codex were depicted as creatures hardly describable as human(similar to darkspawn if you ask me),so when the old gods tried to hich a ride to the real world in the magisters bodies via possesion catastrofie struck corrupcion spread an the golden city blackened from it,the minds of the old gods now resided in the bodies of the magisters,thay were free but corrupted and compeld only to one thing find thair souls,that's why the darkspawn are soulless and driven to find the old gods,when thay do find an old god the darkspawn well we know the rest,again sorry if you think it's bull it's just an opinion Voius

My theory: If everyone's dream is represented as an island in the Fade, then the Golden City is the dream of a creature that is always sleeping. Is that creature the maker? Who knows, but what ever it is it must be ancient. At some point the dream must have become a nightmare, turning the Golden City black. Were the Tevinter Magisters involved? Who knows, the only ones that would know for sure are dead.--Serrah (talk) 01:12, July 2, 2011 (UTC)