On Hom: Prior to Unification (1112 AD)

[Admin]

Discuss Pre-Grail Hom and Celestial...

Mythology
Culture
History

... here. This thread is for information up to Unification in 1112 AD.

[Admin]

Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:21 am

AreaneCreator wrote:

So... I'm kinda interested in pre-unification Hom. Seriously. There are tons of amazing stories and their culture is so rich... an entire universe could just be set there. Here are some things I have about it:

Mythology:

There are many myths across Hom. Some have to do with the mother/son moons, the glowing Grail, the deep seas and what they hold, the origin of the first Great Archive tree, the voices heard from the icy mountains of Gwandiis... and, of course, the Deth'karr. Bei’Selans believe that life on Hom began in the jungles.

The Gwandii absolutely believe that the snowy mountains (as opposed to the forested mountains on Hom) are living entities. Gwandii myths tend to be cold and haunting in nature. They often caution against travel outside the "embrace of the Iisalps." Gwandii consider the forested mountains underachievers, stunned mountains. The Iisalps (the name of the snowy range) each have a name and a "voice." Gwandii believe that each one is symbolic of a different element of life and often go and trek on a specific mountain when looking for insight into the associated element. These treks are called x'iideth by the Gwandii, a journey into the unknown and cold.

Hom *after* Unification (for comparison)

After Unification, borders disappeared. Celestials co-mingled across provinces and cultures began to mix. A stronger focus on the arts and family sprang up. National festivals became common. Celestials would come from all around to celebrate various natural events (like harvest) and fairs (hermit crab racing). Skimmers and skyships would be commonplace. A lot of sharing information back and forth between each other -- like stories and reports from relatives on the frontlines on Earth. Lots of organizations to help replace the loss of province, the need to create "family" and tribe are formed. Organizations that study bugs. Organizations that come together in great labs to genetically engineer new animals, new marbles, new flora. Everything under the sun.
Storytellers and brilliant musicians using gorgeous instruments begin to become more important to society.


What do you guys think? I mean... I know I'm not asking a particular question... perhaps help with how you envision the various provinces working? (each as seperate countries), mythology, society, etc...

[Admin]

[Launa]

Summer,

I really love this idea about Visionaries. When you talk about different positions for Missionaries based on skill, do you mean like Celestials with Vanish might be used as spies or Missionaries where stealth is important or Celestials with Presence might be warriors or sent on more dangerous missions?

Also, if Celestials with Key might have this Visionary ability (I take it not all Key Celestials are Visionaries?) What other abilities might be associated with the other skills? It makes me think of the Provinces and how each Province has a Skill that is most predominant. A majority of Celestials with Lead in Bei'Sel, for example, make sense since Bei'Sel is famous for counselors, lawgivers, psychologists, etc. But why, for example, might the predominant skill in Irivale (which is famous as an artistic Province) be Presence? Are there artistic abilities inherent in Celestials with Presence? Or Quet'qu (a more high-tech province with great inventors) is inhabited mostly by Celestials with Grace. Why would Celestials with Grace lean toward inventing?

[Cris]

Mar 24, 2010 18:51:48 GMT -8 Alyson said:

Cris, I know that in "Together Alone" the two Celestials travel all over the place. But what if, over time, Celestials on other worlds lose their ability to do Celestial stuff -- like sense and see the fourth dimension, morph, summon (or whatever it's called), and the like.

Like Earth is super rare in that it seems okay to them -- except that it reduces them to three dimensions, stops them from moving as freely and truly, limits their prime strength to daylight hours, and, you know, messes up their babies. But other worlds dramatically effect Celestial so much so that they could never live there for longer than about a year (like in "Together Alone").

How often does the Grail drop on Hom now? I think I'd need to know that before I can suggest how much leeway an attempted harness would earn.

Aly

Alyson,

This is a really interesting idea. Not a whole lot is known (established) thus far about Celestial history pre-Grail. The length of time Missionaries spend on each world hasn't been established to an exact amount, but I'd guess it's far shorter than a year since they're visiting worlds in the throes of cataclysmic change.

My understanding of Elaina and Lynor is that they're fleeing the trader from whom they got the Portal tech, so they've got about a year before they feel the need to move on.

I really like the idea that any kind of extended stay on another world would dramatically alter their abilities. All that's been established so far is that eventually Celestial children born on Earth cannot experience the fourth dimension and so cannot return to Hom.

Cris

[Cris]

Luz and Summer

All of this seems perfectly logical and the addition of the Visionaries makes sense--how else would Celestials know when or where to travel?

I can get the list of Celestial words together for the various positions once we establish what their English counterparts would be.

At this point, it seems we need:

1. What is the structure of the Academies on Hom?

I would think that we'd have some sort of President (like you'd find at University) who supervises a set number of Deans (Department Heads). The Department Heads would supervise Instructors/Teachers who, in turn, prepare students for various Missions.

2. What are the areas of training in an Academy? (I've done this kind of a like a list of courses offered)

Basic Survival Skills
Portal Technology
Warp Technology
How to Use Your Wretton
UPloading to the Great Archive
Cataloging Your Finds
Advanced Morph Acquisition
Advanced Summoning
Basic Biology
Advanced Biology
Various Mathematics, Physics and other courses.

When the Academies shift to a military focus, the President would become a General; the Deans would become Colonels or Majors; the Instructors Captains and/or Lieutenants and the students would be the "enlisted" ranks which range from Private (lowest) to Sergeant Major ( highest). I'm taking this from the US Army Ranking. Most of the US forces use a similar system, though the names differ somewhat.

Additionally, there are Warrant Officers, who would most likely be Celestials with certain technical expertise, like Bgahon, as Warrant Officers are generally technical leaders and specialists. Warrent Officers might also end up being team leaders.

We should probably also consider some kind of Military Police force as well.

Some of the "courses" would remain, but the focus would probably shift somewhat.

Summer, one final note about Skills. Not all Skills appear in all Provinces and so Lead won't appear in one of the Provinces. Presence, however, will substitute. Someone with Presence is so dynamic you'd want to follow him or her and I think the two could be used interchangably, especially if you wanted to incorporate some of the characters who are already carded but haven't yet appeared in any fiction.

Cris

[Launa]

Cris, do you think that Alchemy (like the building of floral cubes, marbles, etc) would be Academy skills? Or would they be taught in more of a technical school setting?

[Cris]

Launa,

That's a good question. Are floral clubes and marbles used for other purposes other than battle? For example, had you imagined that these would be tools Missionaries take with them or are they developed in response to the Grail?

Cris

[Launa]

I do see them being used by missionaries pre-grail, yes. Particularly flora. Bursts of speed or energy could be critical on a mission. In one story I wrote, a Celestial used a floral cube to stick to a compeer's morph for safety during an attack by the native species of the planet. Also, Marbles can hold other things besides weapons (though a burst of light or illusory fire or something could be very handy) like rope, water basins (since Celestials need fresh water so often and I'm sure sometimes they have to purify the water on the world they're visiting.)

Also, like tree frogs, Celestials are very affected by their environments (they both absorb moisture from the air). Say a missionary is sent to a world that is extremely polluted or toxic. Floral cubes could be crucial to keep themselves healthy. (Though I assume a missionary's armor would also be crucial in this instance. I imagined the armor would filter or keep the toxins out while the floral cubes could be used like vitamin supplements or inhalers to keep the missionary's body healthy while so cut off from the environment.)

At least this is what I imagine.

Apr 9, 2010 17:37:07 GMT -8 Cris said:

Launa,

That's a good question. Are floral clubes and marbles used for other purposes other than battle? For example, had you imagined that these would be tools Missionaries take with them or are they developed in response to the Grail?

Cris

[Cris]

Good points, all, Launa.

Had you thought about how these were developed or by whom?

Cris

[Teresa]

Over on the Portal thread there is a lot of talk about what energy source Hom will use. I love the idea of the solar and wind starwisp relay they are discussing. But I was thinking to myself about the Hom RPG Module and how there would be three eras to Hom:

Before Unification
After Unification but Before Prime Time
Prime Time and Beyond

I think there would be very large shifts on Hom in every way during these three eras. I think the cornerstones that we are talking about as we try to build a realistic future Earth would shift over these eras on Hom.

Before Unification no one worked together really. Maybe there were even wars? If not wars than there was a lot of competition.

After they start going to Earth, they are exposed to all these Human ideas -- good ones and bad ones. There culture is no longer pure of Human influence in all the cornerstone areas.

Then, I always imagined that around Prime Time on Earth is when Hom builds the domes and all of that very high-tech stuff. They are still green, much greener than Earth, but they do so many high-tech things to try to save themselves.

Would they have names for these eras?

Teresa

[Cris]

Teresa,

You are very right that there are definitely different eras on Hom. The novel Ganymede will cover some of this, but right now this is where we're at:

Hom before the Grail drops. This is when the Province borders are closed. Yes there were wars and border skirmishes.

Hom in transition: The Grail is dropping. It takes a bit of time for Celestials to realize that this is happening in Provinces outside their own. They transition from scholars/Missionaries to soldiers, Unification occurs, the Great Archive is damaged and the first soldiers are coming to Earth. This period is between 1112 and 1450. 1112 is the first time Celestials come to Earth; 1450 is when Celestials and Terrapyres actually cross paths for the first time. This is the year that Blood Trade occurs.

Hom after 1450.

These are really great ideas, Teresa. To help us focus on the separate time periods, I've broken the general "On Hom" section into several different threads.

Cris

[Cris]

Apr 12, 2010 23:42:57 GMT -8 Sunshine said:

Cris, the titles and positions you mention for Academy (pre-Grail) and Military sound perfect. The only thing that seemed missing was recruiters -- from both settings. Recruiters during Academy days would have been like scouts for foot ball -- highly respected and sought after/wished for. Recruiters for the Military-era would be met with mixed emotion, I suppose. Both of them would be the eyes-and-ears of the Academy/Military and search out and find talented individuals.

Can we established Celestial words for these positions now and include recruiters? Maybe the positions that kind of correspond to each other across the Academy and Military could have similar words? That would be cool.

Summer, great idea. I had completely forgotten about these individuals. Should we just have a Homidin word for "recruiter" that would be used for both?

Also, can we limit the ranks in the Military among the enlisted to correspond them with types of students that would have been at an Academy? You know, like, freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate, post-graduate (or whatever, Cris, you know better than I).

If we could hammer these out, I think I'd finally have what I need for my quad! Thank you all so much.

Summer

Oh, sure! I just wanted to lay out a bunch of options so that we could narrow it down from there. Let me take a look at the whole thing again tomorrow and then I'll post a couple of suggestions and we can go from there.

P.S. I always saw cubes and marbles as tools that Missionaries used pre-Grail, Cris. The only thing I never liked about them was the names "cubes" and "marbles." I didn't think they made sense (Earth words and all). Maybe Jennifer could come up with some kind of cool quantum words? Or maybe just the cubes existed pre-Grail? Now that I think about it, wasn't it Pholus who invented the marbles?

Summer

I agree. Pholous did invent marbles during the time he's posted on Earth and his son has also been born (his 3D son), so if we want to have marbles included in pre-Grail Homidin culture, we will have to come up with an alternative.

Given what I've seen from Launa's work and also what we're hammering out for pre-Grail Hom, we'll need the following:

1. a cube that is made from plant matter
2. a cube that "enhances" a morph--or stores a morph? I don't think we've worked out how one "carries" a morph around yet
3. a cube/marble that is a weapon

Ideas?

Cris

[Launa]

When I imagined pre-Grail "marbles" I imagined weapons or items stored in spherical stones, not marbles. Perhaps if we decide that certain elements are present on all planets these elements could make "marbles?" I imagine they'd be a bit bigger than marbles and probably not as smooth. I also imagine they'd have limitations, perhaps in power or size of what they can hold. These things were perfected by Pholus. This is what I imagined, at least.

Also, I have a quick question. Cris, when you say there were wars and border skirmishes, is this new information or are you referencing the battle between Ornbergh and Gwandiis? I was under the understanding that the Provinces did not fight and had no or extremely limited contact pre-grail. Just curious

[Leigh]

Prior to the Grail on Hom, they starwisp relay that powered the planet could feed towers such as this one in every Province.

Leigh