Uranian historical problems

The early eomasp problem:

An eomasp is a sudden Syoom-wide tingling of awareness that an era is coming to an end and a new era is commencing.

The standard explanation is that eomasps are caused by positive feedback between the aerial micro-organisms - the throom - and public awareness of change.  The throom sense human excitement and when it reaches a certain critical level they begin suddenly and strongly to reflect it, whereupon a change of era is broadcast and is accepted by all.  It is also accompanied by an interruption in the rhythm of day and night, since it is the throom's pulsations of brightness and dimness which form the diurnal cycle, and they are "put off their stride" by the excitement. 

Occasionally however the eomasps have occurred without any obvious prompting from public awareness.  On these problematic occasions the great events which mark the change of era have been secret events - secret, that is, to most or all of the Nenns.

For example, eras 42 to 46 were ushered in without any Nenn having a clue as to why.  It turned out that another type of consciousness was influencing the throom.  This was the time of the awakening of the Ghepions.  And this fact gives historians enough of a clue to be going on with.  We can accept, without understanding the details, that a powerful machine consciousness might cause an eomasp.

But what of the earliest two eomasps - those which ushered in eras 2 and 3?  This is more of a problem. 

The 18-day Helium Era was the period during which the ideas of Syoom and Fyaym were propagated decisively across most of the area covered by human civilization.  And it coincided with the news of the discovery of the Sun-Egg which promised to solve the energy problems of humanity for over two hundred lifetimes to come.  But the exact boundaries of the era were not definable in terms of special peaks of public excitement - it all seems to have been a continuous thing.  Why, then, were there two eomasps, one at the beginning and the other at the end of those 18 days, 18 hours and 36 minutes?

We have no evidence for an answer.  All we can do is speculate.

The most plausible guess runs as follows:

The last of the Liquid Men, progenitors of the Nenns, had minds powerful enough to influence the throom by themselves.  And they had means to identify decisive points in what to us seems to be a continuous process.  They knew when the order went out to send the message of change across the land; and they knew when the point was reached at which success in that mission was assured.  It was what they knew, not what most Nenns knew, that caused the eomasps at the beginning and end of the Helium Era.