In my previous article, I dealt with the original Sages.  Now, we deal with the second group- the Ocarina of Time sages.  Here we have 7 people representing all of the races of Hyrule, at least 5 of which had to be "awakened."  (In my previous article I mentioned that Rauru was possibly an original sage, I am now almost convinced of this, thanks to The Legends of Zelda and a little more thinking, and we have no proof that Zelda was awakened.)  Here are a few questions to ponder.  What does this awakening mean?  How were the sages chosen?  What was their role?  And what did they do after OoT?  These will be answered one by one.

I believe I explained what the awakening was in Part 1, but I will reiterate.  The original sages cast a spell to awaken some people when their seal was broken.  They probably thought that the seal would be broken for a good cause, due to all the protections they had on the barrier, especially the Master Sword.  But they also left very little info on the Triforce, and most of it was written in one book.  Thus, the bearer of the Triforce might need help to understand the Triforce, thus the sages.  They would recieve in the awakening all of the knowledge of the original sages.  We have precedence of a spell like this: the mark of the Triforce in AoL and AoL Link's ability to read the scroll.  Thus it is not a large assumption to think that these sages could create an awakening call through time.  The question, of course, is why was there a delay?  Apparently, under evil influence, one cannot hear the awakening call.  Thus, when Ganondorf grabbed the Triforce instead of Link, evil influence abounded, except in the Chamber of Sages (protected by Rauru).  Although there is a delay there, so it is possible the awakening call was triggered by the Triforce and not the seal around the Realm.  Thus, Link had to defeat the evil and allow Rauru to bring the sages into the Sacred Realm, where they would be awakened.  This is only a tentative conclusion.  If anybody knows a better reason, let me know.
 
How were the sages chosen?  Obviously, the Sages could not know who would be around at that time, so there must have been some qualifications.  So let's look at the sages (besides Rauru- I'm going to have to write a separate article on him.)

Zelda - princess of Hyrule, probably Queen since there is a good chance the king died.
Saria - Nice, sweet girl in Kokiri woods.  Apparantly can influence Mido a lot.
Darunia - Big Brother of the Gorons.  Not too bright, but honorable and noble.
Ruto - Snobbish princess of the Zoras.  Although she sounds snobbish, she can be decent.  She just doesn't know any better.
Impa - the last of the Sheikah.  Apparantly in charge of Kakariko.
Nabooru - second in command of the Gerudo.  An honarable theif.

And there you have it.  There seems to be two qualifications: in a position of authority and a certain amount of decency or "goodness," to be imprecise.  And these two make sense.  By having a member of authority of each race as a Sage, it could be enough to unite the races under a single cause.  And for the second criteria, well, having Ganondorf as a Sage is probably not a good idea.  You get the point.

Now for the role.  As far as we know, all they do is sit in the Realm, build bridges, and stuff the Hero's pockets with medals.  However, I mentioned before that they recieved the knowledge of the original sages.  This makes sense, and the sages' speeches after being awakened seem to support this if looked at in the correct way.  They also recieved some amount of magical power, including the ability to reseal the Realm.  Their primary role should have been to advise the bearer of the Triforce.  Since there is a good chance the bearer of the Triforce would know almost nothing about the Triforce, he would have needed advisors.  Yet they also had some amount of wizardry.  This is presumably to protect against what happened in OoT, an evil heart recieving the Triforce.

Now, what happened to them afterwards?  They returned to Hyrule, first of all.  The ending of OoT reveals that.  Besides, they certainly weren't going to trap themselves in the Realm with Ganon.  Their story was revealed to the world and they became heroes (which is why there are towns named after them).  Presumably, they went back to their respective lands and, for those in power, resumed their leadership.  Yet they also went to the role prescribed by the original sages: to advise.  This probably would have been focused on Link, seeing as Zelda could advise herself.  The title of sage became an honorary title in Hyrule.  They presumably passed their information and power to a successor before they died, but that subject is reserved for Part 3. 

     I hope I cleared up a few things.  This information is based on what happened in OoT, but is slightly different then the history in LttP.  Don't worry, I will write an article about that, too.  But for now, so long.