Since I lost my hard drive yesterday, I thought that I'd post some of my recent thoughts directly the to the forum, so that I'd have a backup somewhere. I do have a backup, but it doesn't include this.
Oh, right, since it's a Tolkien fic I didn't think I needed this, but: Trigger Warning: Linguistics
So lately, I've been thinking about the The Æsir–Vanir War. Or rather, there's a whole set of similar wars among the gods/powers all throughout history. In Indian mythology, the good devas oppose the evil asuras. In Persian mythology, you oddly get the opposite! There, the evil daevas are fought by the ahura. These terms seem to carry across PIE cultures. Asura, Aesir, and Ahura are all the same word, and relate to an Old English word for god, ōs.
On the other side, you get a lot of references to devas that you may recognize: daeva, div (Middle-Eastern baddie), deus, zeus, dieu, Tiw (Anglo-Thor), Tiwar, Thor, Tyr. Tuesday literally means "God's day", at a stretch. Note that the devils do not quite go in the "div" category, since it comes from ancient Greek diabolos, to slander or throw across, which you might know due to certain practitioners of the diabolo in Kaliedo Star. But the conflict shows up in a lot of different cultures, all descended from Proto Indo-European speakers.
Prehistorically, what probably happened is that PIE speakers were among the first (but probably not the actual first) steppe culture to tame horses, and used horses to attain something akin to a vast empire. Basically, what Genghis Khan did the in the middle ages, but against populations completely unprepared against horse warfare. Likely, it wasn't a real empire, but a series of conquests from groups/families/bands of this same culture expanding into new areas, and replacing the local elites. And from there, largely replacing the languages.
And more importantly to this discussion, cultural replacement. So when you look at stories like the Aesir-Vanir war, it can be an echo of the gods of the new culture subjugating the old gods. Just like the Olympians defeated the giants in Greece, and the other conflicts. Notably, the Norse war ended in compromise, and they functionally serve as one pantheon. Of course, "Vanir" is close to "ven*", friend, which is possibly connected to the Veneti of Venice, various other groups of Veneti in the ancient world (near Vannes in France, Gwynnedd in Wales, the Baltic Sea), and Venus. I did a deep dive on that word when trying to figure out what Saber would think of Venetians in my other fic, but it's just extra here. I think, perhaps the Vanir are just a little bit different than the devas.
But now it's time to leave (pre)history behind, and ask what I can actually do with this. And instead, the war between the devas and asura is actually a cross-cultural memory of an ancient conflict. And that conflict is the one that brings the end of the Fourth Age.
So my first order of business is to determine the good guys and the bad guys by name. Asura seem to come from PIE *h₂ń̥suros, meaning lords, and Devas come from PIE *deywós, meaning gods. Okey dokey. Can I just say that "Seiraa Muun" sounds a bit like asura? "Sera" to "sura" is not really that far, and matches with my earlier idea that they are effectively elf lords from space. Which means that the antagonists in our story will be devas (which again, sounds a bit like devils). (From my time as a web developer, I should have known they were evil from how much I had to fight <div>s.)
I seem to have come to the ancient Persian view, then. I guess I should loop history back in, and this time, actual written history! The old religion in Iran is Zoroastrianism, founded by its namesake prophet, Zarathustra. He probably lived in historic times, but Pliny the Elder places Zoroaster in 6300 BC, and a second Zoroaster much later. Like Friedrich Nietzsche, I'm thinking, aha, I can use that! 6300 BC is so distant that it's effectively c. 10,000 BC, and I can put Zarathustra in the scene, as an actual character in the story.
So what did Zoroaster teach? Largely that there was a Great Lord, or an Ahura Mazda in his tongue, who created everything and represented goodness on a plane above us. And that there was another great entity, Chaotic Spirit (locally Angra Mainyu), which tries to tear down and destroy the divine order. And here, finally, we find a religious nexus between Tolkien and Sailor Moon. The overall cosmology of Sailor Moon casts Usagi as a messianic figure that a cosmic horror called Chaos sends incarnations and lesser demons to try to destroy. Good and evil are absolutely clear, clear as Crystal.
Tolkien's cosmology is clear, but has some complexities. Obviously, he's a Roman Catholic. But his books are written into an older, pagan world. Intentionally before Christ or messianic thought, though occasionally heroes become just a bit messianic. But the good God, Illuvatar, exists and was the primary force in Creation. Melkor exists on a lower plane, the devil for whom most of his awful power can't reach Earth. While he wouldn't write the story to be directly dualist like a Zoroastrian, we're not that far. Tolkien, along with friends like C.S. Lewis, found the moral and religious values of the pagan world to be much preferable to modernism, from a Christian perspective.
Modernity is something of a hobgoblin to Tolkien and the Inklings. While he wrote, modernism had become the dominant global philosophy. But of course, it ushered in all sort of bad things that we see in his books: industrial waste and extractive industry, seen in Isengard; air pollution, in Isengard and Mordor; dehumanization, seen with orcs; nationalist pride, seen in Numenor and Mordor; a climate of surveillance and fear, as with the Nazgul, and sycophants for authoritarian regimes, like Wormtongue. And an overall turning away from old morals, old faith. The complete collapse of modernism in academic circles by the 1980s came just a bit too late for Tolkien to see, but just in time for Sailor Moon, which is largely postmodern. The romantic past looks forward to a messianic future in Crystal Tokyo.
So it looks like our enemies are probably proto-fascists, rebuilding a great nation that was taken away. As I write this, it occurs to me that their founding myth is probably Numenor, and probably by people who weren't actually descendants of Numenorians. The thing about evil, and this is 100% a real world thing too, is that every evil plan is so dreadfully familiar. There's always false pride which excuses pointless cruelty against outsiders who somehow don't count as people.
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Hitler documentaries on the History Channel (for the kids: it used to have actual history), and wondered how on Earth people bought into that garbage. Being in America right now, I see people buying into the same exact garbage with the most minor of reskins. And, like, I see it and recognize it, and understand how it infects people, and it still makes no God damned sense to me (and I do mean God damned). Like, for fundamentalist Christians, immigrants are literally your fellow immortals, and so many of them think it's okay to imprison them for picking strawberries without a paper. Like, how do you think you'll feel about that when God asks how you treated your neighbors? How do you think you will feel about that a thousand years from now, when you meet the immigrants in heaven? How about when you meet them again, a trillion years later? Oh, they didn't have a paper, lock them up in a Salvedorean prison. For God's sake, really?
But I digress. What we get is the first trip through modernism and industrialization about 12000 years ago. The War of the Ring is able to postpone this push to conquer the world, but only for so long. Melkor's role in the song of creation means that his patterns are always around, and there is always a path to the Dark Kingdom. While peace and prosperity hold on Earth, wars shift more and more towards the skies.
----
The elves and half-elves who remain in Aman proper, those of the crew of Eärendil, take their flying ship, and settle in the safe harbor of the Moon. At this time, it is a living world, one of shallow seas and silvery ferns, and broad pale-leaved acacia trees. All of the worlds of Arda had life in those days, though none had been prepared with beasts and walking creatures, nor fruits nor fields of grain, for only Earth was fully ready for the children of Illuvatar.
Elwing, Eärendil's fair bride, returned to Earth from time to time on his voyages. One trip, she convinced the Entwives to come with her to the Moon, to make the Moon truly bloom, a home for the remaining of the first-awakened people away from the strife of Middle-Earth. It took centuries of hard work, but together, they were able to build gardens and farms on the Moon, and make more than an outpost, and make it in fact a home for their people.
The elves settled down and had families, and grew and multiplied, though not nearly so hastily as the humans on the world below. Children of the Noldor, they continued to make the great ships which could sail the heavens, and ventured to the worlds beyond. And in this way, the Eldar became "Children of the Stars" in an entirely new way. They set foot first on the golden world, then the red world, then the one quick as water. But past the moons of the Great Giant, they began to notice trouble. Fell beasts had come to the outer planets, strange misshapen creatures whose tentacles were vicious, poisonous, evil.
The barrier which sealed Morgoth out of Arda could not seal out all of his minions. And come they did. To some, they offered delusions of power and glory, but those of strong heart chose to stay, and to fight for their homesteads on the inner worlds.
----
In this war against evil aliens (I guess they have tentacles?), the elves win, but at great cost. Eärendil and Elwing are among the slain, and their daughter Serenity takes the throne. But there's a bit of a demographic crisis, as the remaining (half-)elves are young and predominantly female. The society shifts to become more matriarchal, largely by necessity. A major problem was how to get to the sort of feminine vision of a kind of pagan moon goddess from a male-dominated elven culture in the Third Age -- this is my solution.
The next sort of problem is: what about the remaining elves in Aman-the-former-continent (where is that anyway, Europa? Attempt no landing?) and the various Ainur. Especially the Valar. They are like pagan gods in a sense, but pay homage to the Most High (except that one dude, you know who), which is all Tolkien's way of making it a pagan world that leads to Christ. But the bigger part is that I need those roles freed up for mortals to take, as sailor suited warriors of planets.
Here, I'm going to use a little divine help, and simply say that Illuvatar called them away, and that they are needed on other worlds, currently under occupation by Morgoth in his other forms of Chaos. Without realizing it here I borrowed a little bit from C.S. Lewis, though in his reckoning, Earth is the true occupied territory under the Devil's forces and the aliens are probably better off than we. But Sailor Moon canon supports this view of the cosmos, in all sorts of ways. The cosmic horrors are real. Morgoth can't reach inside the solar system unless we follow his offspring and let him into our hearts. But there are other worlds in need of dire help (thanks Galaxia-chan (though she hasn't been born yet)).
And so each of the Valar, as a parting gift, are allowed to bless one of the children of Illuvatar with a bit of their power. Much like Sauron, this power invested actually leaves the Vala, leaving them a bit diminished. And, well, there's one more catch. Each blessed person becomes a guardian tied to the worlds of Aman. Which means that they must forsake both the Gift of the Elves and the Gift of Man, in order to receive this gift of the Valar. Or in more concrete terms: they may never die and pass to the realm of Illuvatar, nor may they live in the blessings of the undying lands. Instead, they are to be reborn, again and again, a guardian until the end of time.
This is actually the part where it's important that they're half-elves. See normally, you just get the gift you were given by God, death or fading off to fairyland. But half-elves may be granted a choice. And so to those chosen, they are granted a third option. This is not an easy choice -- for Venus, it means that romantic love can never follow you to the next life. For Mars, who lost so many of her family in the war, her passion makes it the easiest choice ever. Die painfully a thousand times? Sure, as long as I can stop Morgoth another day. I'm sure I can get some great stories out of this. Tulkas, naturally, doesn't choose a champion right away, but waits until the time is right. Later he chooses Endymion, of course, one of the last princes of the old Gondorian line, and the one that remains truest of heart. This line, of course, goes back to Arwen, so half-elven.
Eventually, people on the Earth make contact with those on the Moon. At one point, the princess of the moon visits Earth, lands in a bamboo field, gets found by a bamboo cutter, and everyone likes her. The king tries to marry her, but she has to go back to the Moon. She's still interested in dating humans, just not any of them. Later on, someone builds a telescope, and eventually after discovery there is something like formal visits to Earth. Maybe radio.
Here I start to remember my earlier technical constraint -- could a civilization exist only 12 kYA that we couldn't detect today? Even those things I just mentioned have consequences -- a radio would probably decay and oxidize away. A telescope might survive, because glass is a rock, but not if it submerged and became sea glass. Which is a key reason to set things at the Younger Dryas, because we can bury a lot of the material culture in a way that's effectively irretrievable. If we're talking 20 meters of sea level rise, well, you all saw Evangelion, right? So many population centers are at low altitude.
Here, the plot proper needs to start. I don't entirely know what happens here, because it depends on characters. But the end is a foregone conclusion: the complete destruction of the Moon Kingdom; the loss of livable environments on all but Earth; rapid heating on Earth leading to sea level rises enough to sink major cities entirely; the end of "civilization" on Earth for the next 5000 years (and radio for 12 kyr). It's really bad! But not out of line for either story, which saw Numenor and most of Beleriand sink, and Sailor Moon where Galaxia set the high score record for planets glassed. And it's not even a loss for the good guys, though it's certainly rather Pyrrhic, because people survive and evil ideas die, and Usagi carries Serenity's light into the far future.
There are a lot of elements I want to work in here:
* A steampunk setting in general, possibly as magic punk
* What is the mysterious energy powering the world? Dark energy (anime kind, not astrophysics kind)
* Rise of nationalist and fascist movements
* Some excuse to slaughter any dwarves and hobbits still around
The key thing driving the conflict is a really old trope: immortality. The elves who live in space stole immortality from us. We are proud Numenorian race, and that immortality should be ours. If we can just retrieve that silver crystal/silmaril, we can have the deathless existence we deserve (even though for some reason we celebrate death a lot and have no problem sending people to die for "the people"). This, naturally, is all bullshit, in-setting and out. This is also the kind of bullshit you can convince a lot of people to follow.
Naturally a lot of people will taking names that oppose the Eldar (literally "people of the stars"), based on the goodness inherent in the deep earth. You know, Beryl, Jadeite, Nephrite, Micah... those sort of names, reminder of the true gem that was stolen, the silmaril. Finally, a reason for geological theme naming: political propaganda in the Silver Millennium. And with this, a support for the chthonic deities, or devas, phrased as a return to the old gods, and a turning away from the a'sera, or lords of the elves. And especially against Sera Moon, who is wrapping poor innocent Endymion around her twisted little finger. For Beryl, the woman spurned, this is the flaw in her heart that sets the whole tragedy in motion.
Of course this is driven by those evil daevas, particularly Metalia, who is Melkor/Morgoth/Chaos's latest hope to take over Earth. She is more competent than the male ainur who tried before. And very nearly successful, not expecting the last chance spell by Serenity, who is essentially sacrificing herself to save humans. Devils never really understand that kind of magic at all. But Beryl's jealousy and pride, yeah.
There is still a decent amount of world building to do. I really need a world map, and areas for the four generals to conquer. Something for the Blue Wizards to do.
And then there's Zoroaster, a human prophet who preaches not to follow the deceivers. I think he survives, and tries to save civilization, fails, but settles for saving their souls instead. He teaches people to follow the true cosmic order, and to grant deference to the holy elements (like fire, which can grant visions in BSSM). Graham Hancock talks in his Atlantis conspiracy stuff about how there are stories of a great teacher to visited the people in different parts of the world. Why not this guy, as a Noachian figure? If he has access to the same stasis tech which Artemis and Luna used, maybe both of Pliny's Zoroasters are the same person? And because of people like Zarathustra, maybe there's a reason the Aesir-Vanir war ended in acceptance and reconciliation. The evil beings couldn't be saved, but some great Earthlings stood with the Elves (a.k.a. blood traitors). It would perhaps appeal to Tolkien's sense of Northernness.
Also people lose a lot of technology in the catastrophe. This can happen -- the natives of the Canary Islands lost their boat technology, and were stuck there. But they kind of have to, if I'm going to get from a world which is high medieval back down to rejoin history as she is, already in progress. I think if you were to try to explain spaceships which hold a magical messenger from the planet Mercury, I think only parts of that get preserved, and not the spaceship part. So we also get to use mythology as an echo of history.
Anyway, that's why I was thinking about the Aesir-Vanir War.
Oh, right, since it's a Tolkien fic I didn't think I needed this, but: Trigger Warning: Linguistics
So lately, I've been thinking about the The Æsir–Vanir War. Or rather, there's a whole set of similar wars among the gods/powers all throughout history. In Indian mythology, the good devas oppose the evil asuras. In Persian mythology, you oddly get the opposite! There, the evil daevas are fought by the ahura. These terms seem to carry across PIE cultures. Asura, Aesir, and Ahura are all the same word, and relate to an Old English word for god, ōs.
On the other side, you get a lot of references to devas that you may recognize: daeva, div (Middle-Eastern baddie), deus, zeus, dieu, Tiw (Anglo-Thor), Tiwar, Thor, Tyr. Tuesday literally means "God's day", at a stretch. Note that the devils do not quite go in the "div" category, since it comes from ancient Greek diabolos, to slander or throw across, which you might know due to certain practitioners of the diabolo in Kaliedo Star. But the conflict shows up in a lot of different cultures, all descended from Proto Indo-European speakers.
Prehistorically, what probably happened is that PIE speakers were among the first (but probably not the actual first) steppe culture to tame horses, and used horses to attain something akin to a vast empire. Basically, what Genghis Khan did the in the middle ages, but against populations completely unprepared against horse warfare. Likely, it wasn't a real empire, but a series of conquests from groups/families/bands of this same culture expanding into new areas, and replacing the local elites. And from there, largely replacing the languages.
And more importantly to this discussion, cultural replacement. So when you look at stories like the Aesir-Vanir war, it can be an echo of the gods of the new culture subjugating the old gods. Just like the Olympians defeated the giants in Greece, and the other conflicts. Notably, the Norse war ended in compromise, and they functionally serve as one pantheon. Of course, "Vanir" is close to "ven*", friend, which is possibly connected to the Veneti of Venice, various other groups of Veneti in the ancient world (near Vannes in France, Gwynnedd in Wales, the Baltic Sea), and Venus. I did a deep dive on that word when trying to figure out what Saber would think of Venetians in my other fic, but it's just extra here. I think, perhaps the Vanir are just a little bit different than the devas.
But now it's time to leave (pre)history behind, and ask what I can actually do with this. And instead, the war between the devas and asura is actually a cross-cultural memory of an ancient conflict. And that conflict is the one that brings the end of the Fourth Age.
So my first order of business is to determine the good guys and the bad guys by name. Asura seem to come from PIE *h₂ń̥suros, meaning lords, and Devas come from PIE *deywós, meaning gods. Okey dokey. Can I just say that "Seiraa Muun" sounds a bit like asura? "Sera" to "sura" is not really that far, and matches with my earlier idea that they are effectively elf lords from space. Which means that the antagonists in our story will be devas (which again, sounds a bit like devils). (From my time as a web developer, I should have known they were evil from how much I had to fight <div>s.)
I seem to have come to the ancient Persian view, then. I guess I should loop history back in, and this time, actual written history! The old religion in Iran is Zoroastrianism, founded by its namesake prophet, Zarathustra. He probably lived in historic times, but Pliny the Elder places Zoroaster in 6300 BC, and a second Zoroaster much later. Like Friedrich Nietzsche, I'm thinking, aha, I can use that! 6300 BC is so distant that it's effectively c. 10,000 BC, and I can put Zarathustra in the scene, as an actual character in the story.
So what did Zoroaster teach? Largely that there was a Great Lord, or an Ahura Mazda in his tongue, who created everything and represented goodness on a plane above us. And that there was another great entity, Chaotic Spirit (locally Angra Mainyu), which tries to tear down and destroy the divine order. And here, finally, we find a religious nexus between Tolkien and Sailor Moon. The overall cosmology of Sailor Moon casts Usagi as a messianic figure that a cosmic horror called Chaos sends incarnations and lesser demons to try to destroy. Good and evil are absolutely clear, clear as Crystal.
Tolkien's cosmology is clear, but has some complexities. Obviously, he's a Roman Catholic. But his books are written into an older, pagan world. Intentionally before Christ or messianic thought, though occasionally heroes become just a bit messianic. But the good God, Illuvatar, exists and was the primary force in Creation. Melkor exists on a lower plane, the devil for whom most of his awful power can't reach Earth. While he wouldn't write the story to be directly dualist like a Zoroastrian, we're not that far. Tolkien, along with friends like C.S. Lewis, found the moral and religious values of the pagan world to be much preferable to modernism, from a Christian perspective.
Modernity is something of a hobgoblin to Tolkien and the Inklings. While he wrote, modernism had become the dominant global philosophy. But of course, it ushered in all sort of bad things that we see in his books: industrial waste and extractive industry, seen in Isengard; air pollution, in Isengard and Mordor; dehumanization, seen with orcs; nationalist pride, seen in Numenor and Mordor; a climate of surveillance and fear, as with the Nazgul, and sycophants for authoritarian regimes, like Wormtongue. And an overall turning away from old morals, old faith. The complete collapse of modernism in academic circles by the 1980s came just a bit too late for Tolkien to see, but just in time for Sailor Moon, which is largely postmodern. The romantic past looks forward to a messianic future in Crystal Tokyo.
So it looks like our enemies are probably proto-fascists, rebuilding a great nation that was taken away. As I write this, it occurs to me that their founding myth is probably Numenor, and probably by people who weren't actually descendants of Numenorians. The thing about evil, and this is 100% a real world thing too, is that every evil plan is so dreadfully familiar. There's always false pride which excuses pointless cruelty against outsiders who somehow don't count as people.
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Hitler documentaries on the History Channel (for the kids: it used to have actual history), and wondered how on Earth people bought into that garbage. Being in America right now, I see people buying into the same exact garbage with the most minor of reskins. And, like, I see it and recognize it, and understand how it infects people, and it still makes no God damned sense to me (and I do mean God damned). Like, for fundamentalist Christians, immigrants are literally your fellow immortals, and so many of them think it's okay to imprison them for picking strawberries without a paper. Like, how do you think you'll feel about that when God asks how you treated your neighbors? How do you think you will feel about that a thousand years from now, when you meet the immigrants in heaven? How about when you meet them again, a trillion years later? Oh, they didn't have a paper, lock them up in a Salvedorean prison. For God's sake, really?
But I digress. What we get is the first trip through modernism and industrialization about 12000 years ago. The War of the Ring is able to postpone this push to conquer the world, but only for so long. Melkor's role in the song of creation means that his patterns are always around, and there is always a path to the Dark Kingdom. While peace and prosperity hold on Earth, wars shift more and more towards the skies.
----
The elves and half-elves who remain in Aman proper, those of the crew of Eärendil, take their flying ship, and settle in the safe harbor of the Moon. At this time, it is a living world, one of shallow seas and silvery ferns, and broad pale-leaved acacia trees. All of the worlds of Arda had life in those days, though none had been prepared with beasts and walking creatures, nor fruits nor fields of grain, for only Earth was fully ready for the children of Illuvatar.
Elwing, Eärendil's fair bride, returned to Earth from time to time on his voyages. One trip, she convinced the Entwives to come with her to the Moon, to make the Moon truly bloom, a home for the remaining of the first-awakened people away from the strife of Middle-Earth. It took centuries of hard work, but together, they were able to build gardens and farms on the Moon, and make more than an outpost, and make it in fact a home for their people.
The elves settled down and had families, and grew and multiplied, though not nearly so hastily as the humans on the world below. Children of the Noldor, they continued to make the great ships which could sail the heavens, and ventured to the worlds beyond. And in this way, the Eldar became "Children of the Stars" in an entirely new way. They set foot first on the golden world, then the red world, then the one quick as water. But past the moons of the Great Giant, they began to notice trouble. Fell beasts had come to the outer planets, strange misshapen creatures whose tentacles were vicious, poisonous, evil.
The barrier which sealed Morgoth out of Arda could not seal out all of his minions. And come they did. To some, they offered delusions of power and glory, but those of strong heart chose to stay, and to fight for their homesteads on the inner worlds.
----
In this war against evil aliens (I guess they have tentacles?), the elves win, but at great cost. Eärendil and Elwing are among the slain, and their daughter Serenity takes the throne. But there's a bit of a demographic crisis, as the remaining (half-)elves are young and predominantly female. The society shifts to become more matriarchal, largely by necessity. A major problem was how to get to the sort of feminine vision of a kind of pagan moon goddess from a male-dominated elven culture in the Third Age -- this is my solution.
The next sort of problem is: what about the remaining elves in Aman-the-former-continent (where is that anyway, Europa? Attempt no landing?) and the various Ainur. Especially the Valar. They are like pagan gods in a sense, but pay homage to the Most High (except that one dude, you know who), which is all Tolkien's way of making it a pagan world that leads to Christ. But the bigger part is that I need those roles freed up for mortals to take, as sailor suited warriors of planets.
Here, I'm going to use a little divine help, and simply say that Illuvatar called them away, and that they are needed on other worlds, currently under occupation by Morgoth in his other forms of Chaos. Without realizing it here I borrowed a little bit from C.S. Lewis, though in his reckoning, Earth is the true occupied territory under the Devil's forces and the aliens are probably better off than we. But Sailor Moon canon supports this view of the cosmos, in all sorts of ways. The cosmic horrors are real. Morgoth can't reach inside the solar system unless we follow his offspring and let him into our hearts. But there are other worlds in need of dire help (thanks Galaxia-chan (though she hasn't been born yet)).
And so each of the Valar, as a parting gift, are allowed to bless one of the children of Illuvatar with a bit of their power. Much like Sauron, this power invested actually leaves the Vala, leaving them a bit diminished. And, well, there's one more catch. Each blessed person becomes a guardian tied to the worlds of Aman. Which means that they must forsake both the Gift of the Elves and the Gift of Man, in order to receive this gift of the Valar. Or in more concrete terms: they may never die and pass to the realm of Illuvatar, nor may they live in the blessings of the undying lands. Instead, they are to be reborn, again and again, a guardian until the end of time.
This is actually the part where it's important that they're half-elves. See normally, you just get the gift you were given by God, death or fading off to fairyland. But half-elves may be granted a choice. And so to those chosen, they are granted a third option. This is not an easy choice -- for Venus, it means that romantic love can never follow you to the next life. For Mars, who lost so many of her family in the war, her passion makes it the easiest choice ever. Die painfully a thousand times? Sure, as long as I can stop Morgoth another day. I'm sure I can get some great stories out of this. Tulkas, naturally, doesn't choose a champion right away, but waits until the time is right. Later he chooses Endymion, of course, one of the last princes of the old Gondorian line, and the one that remains truest of heart. This line, of course, goes back to Arwen, so half-elven.
Eventually, people on the Earth make contact with those on the Moon. At one point, the princess of the moon visits Earth, lands in a bamboo field, gets found by a bamboo cutter, and everyone likes her. The king tries to marry her, but she has to go back to the Moon. She's still interested in dating humans, just not any of them. Later on, someone builds a telescope, and eventually after discovery there is something like formal visits to Earth. Maybe radio.
Here I start to remember my earlier technical constraint -- could a civilization exist only 12 kYA that we couldn't detect today? Even those things I just mentioned have consequences -- a radio would probably decay and oxidize away. A telescope might survive, because glass is a rock, but not if it submerged and became sea glass. Which is a key reason to set things at the Younger Dryas, because we can bury a lot of the material culture in a way that's effectively irretrievable. If we're talking 20 meters of sea level rise, well, you all saw Evangelion, right? So many population centers are at low altitude.
Here, the plot proper needs to start. I don't entirely know what happens here, because it depends on characters. But the end is a foregone conclusion: the complete destruction of the Moon Kingdom; the loss of livable environments on all but Earth; rapid heating on Earth leading to sea level rises enough to sink major cities entirely; the end of "civilization" on Earth for the next 5000 years (and radio for 12 kyr). It's really bad! But not out of line for either story, which saw Numenor and most of Beleriand sink, and Sailor Moon where Galaxia set the high score record for planets glassed. And it's not even a loss for the good guys, though it's certainly rather Pyrrhic, because people survive and evil ideas die, and Usagi carries Serenity's light into the far future.
There are a lot of elements I want to work in here:
* A steampunk setting in general, possibly as magic punk
* What is the mysterious energy powering the world? Dark energy (anime kind, not astrophysics kind)
* Rise of nationalist and fascist movements
* Some excuse to slaughter any dwarves and hobbits still around
The key thing driving the conflict is a really old trope: immortality. The elves who live in space stole immortality from us. We are proud Numenorian race, and that immortality should be ours. If we can just retrieve that silver crystal/silmaril, we can have the deathless existence we deserve (even though for some reason we celebrate death a lot and have no problem sending people to die for "the people"). This, naturally, is all bullshit, in-setting and out. This is also the kind of bullshit you can convince a lot of people to follow.
Naturally a lot of people will taking names that oppose the Eldar (literally "people of the stars"), based on the goodness inherent in the deep earth. You know, Beryl, Jadeite, Nephrite, Micah... those sort of names, reminder of the true gem that was stolen, the silmaril. Finally, a reason for geological theme naming: political propaganda in the Silver Millennium. And with this, a support for the chthonic deities, or devas, phrased as a return to the old gods, and a turning away from the a'sera, or lords of the elves. And especially against Sera Moon, who is wrapping poor innocent Endymion around her twisted little finger. For Beryl, the woman spurned, this is the flaw in her heart that sets the whole tragedy in motion.
Of course this is driven by those evil daevas, particularly Metalia, who is Melkor/Morgoth/Chaos's latest hope to take over Earth. She is more competent than the male ainur who tried before. And very nearly successful, not expecting the last chance spell by Serenity, who is essentially sacrificing herself to save humans. Devils never really understand that kind of magic at all. But Beryl's jealousy and pride, yeah.
There is still a decent amount of world building to do. I really need a world map, and areas for the four generals to conquer. Something for the Blue Wizards to do.
And then there's Zoroaster, a human prophet who preaches not to follow the deceivers. I think he survives, and tries to save civilization, fails, but settles for saving their souls instead. He teaches people to follow the true cosmic order, and to grant deference to the holy elements (like fire, which can grant visions in BSSM). Graham Hancock talks in his Atlantis conspiracy stuff about how there are stories of a great teacher to visited the people in different parts of the world. Why not this guy, as a Noachian figure? If he has access to the same stasis tech which Artemis and Luna used, maybe both of Pliny's Zoroasters are the same person? And because of people like Zarathustra, maybe there's a reason the Aesir-Vanir war ended in acceptance and reconciliation. The evil beings couldn't be saved, but some great Earthlings stood with the Elves (a.k.a. blood traitors). It would perhaps appeal to Tolkien's sense of Northernness.
Also people lose a lot of technology in the catastrophe. This can happen -- the natives of the Canary Islands lost their boat technology, and were stuck there. But they kind of have to, if I'm going to get from a world which is high medieval back down to rejoin history as she is, already in progress. I think if you were to try to explain spaceships which hold a magical messenger from the planet Mercury, I think only parts of that get preserved, and not the spaceship part. So we also get to use mythology as an echo of history.
Anyway, that's why I was thinking about the Aesir-Vanir War.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto