(no subject)
Many centuries ago, the gods of the solar system took human form to oversee the evolution and growth of the planets. One of these beings was Selene, who became the gentle ruler, Serenity, of the kingdom Silver Millennium, centered on the Earth's moon. It was the center of solar system culture and rule, and all of the planets enjoyed excellent relations and unprecedented wealth, science, culture and peace. Even Earth, which only began its civilization, was wisely watched over and thrived.
Then it came time for Serenity to choose a consort. She chose a king from the edge of the solar system, a demi-god named Erebus, the descendant of the original god of darkness. Though it seemed a love match, Erebus in truth harbored a great ambition to become a great ruler. He resented the fact that he would one day die after a short life, whereas it was known that full-blooded gods could live for many centuries through many lives. It did not help that his own planet had only recently emerged from a long civil war between various members of Erebus' family, and he viewed his rule as endangered. The birth of an heir by Serenity - a son, for on his world only males could inherit - would not only ensure he would hold the throne of his planet, but also allow him to gain a foothold in the company of the gods. Indeed, an oracle predicted that the child birthed by Serenity would become a great ruler who would unite the planets under a single banner.
But something happened. The child by Serenity was a mere girl. In Erebus' eyes this was intolerable. Not only this, but he soon after learned of the flawed physiology of his queen's body - she could only give birth once. His anger turned into rage, then hatred. He believed the gods of the solar system had decieved him, and decided to use force to show his displeasure. He first had to find a way to neutralize and destroy the power of the immortal deities; this was accomplished through the accidental development of antimatter by Silver Millennium scientists. Eventually it was found that the effects of antimatter were detrimental to those of the solar system who wielded magic, rendering them almost entirely powerless, even making gods susceptible to mortality. All were affected except Erebians, who were barely harmed due, perhaps, to their strong affiliation with the darkness.
Erebus wasted no time once antimatter was discovered. Though Queen Serenity officially banned further research on antimatter, he secretly ordered the scientists to further refine and perfect the technology. Before the queen was able to act against her husband's designs, she became the first victim of antimatter. Ambushed and powerless, she was stabbed to death by courtiers on Erebus' express command, his first act as the new sole ruler of Silver Millennium. Erbeus' second act was to frame friends and allies of the dead queen as the people responsible for her death and immediately execute them afterwards. Then, he prepared to invade each planet with the combined forces of Erbus and Silver Millennium. With the antimatter technology on his side, the gods were no match for him. Within a generation, the gods of the solar system were imprisoned, the rulers of every planet, killed, and their children, the princesses who were the sailor senshi and protectresses of the planets, slain.
Now, all that was left was to kill his baby daughter, and he could refresh and start anew. But when she was hit by the antimatter, she was unaffected; as Erebus' child, she was immune to the power of the antimatter. Nor could he kill her, as he learned that Queen Serenity had, after she realized Erebus' intentions and before her death, completed a ritual to destroy the mortal parts of the baby's body, rendering her invulnerable to all of Erebus' other efforts towards killing her. Nor could he do the same to himself to become immortal, as only a god could kill another god; Queen Serenity and the god of knowledge, Mercury, had sealed away the tomes containing the information needed to perform the ritual, anticipating Erebus would attempt to become a full god. The stipulation to recovering them was that only Serenity's daughter could find them, and she could only do it without duress. If she were to unseal the ritual, she would almost certainly use it to create or revitalize a god to stop Erebus' designs.
This infuriated Erebus to no end; despite conquering the solar system, destroying the rule of the gods and becoming the undisputed ruler, he could not rid himself of the daughter he viewed as the cause of all of his troubles - and he still had no son. Eventually, he decided on a more crafty, cruel solution to to punish the infant and also prevent Serenity's child from being a symbolic or literal threat to his rule; he declared her illegitimate, but allowed her to live in something vaguely resembling the luxury befitting a goddess, at least in official eyes. Using Erebian and Earth traditions to keep her out of sight and mind, he confined her to his harem on Erebus, forcing her to grow up under the suspiscious, angry eyes of Erebus' female relatives and lovers and male eunichs; almost all of them saw her as a nuisance and burden at best. Erebus sought to minimize her ability to inspire rebellion in the solar system as much as possible; she was not even considered a relative of Erebus, instead referred to in official records as "the girl" or "the visitor". Even after the harem was brought to the Silver Millennium to consolidate Erebus' power, the young goddess was hidden so effectively that many people, indeed, began at think she was dead after all, like her mother, perhaps by secret, poison or illness. People began to lose hope that their situation would change, for as the years passed Erebus became more and more despotic, more and more obsessed with making a son who would cement forever his mysogyny-driven Erebian Empire, his revenge and legacy.
Several decades, several wives and several miserable daughters later (all who were eventually consigned to the harem with Serenity's child, but given much more influence and precedence in keeping with Erebus' punishment of the child) Erebus finally found the woman he believed would give him the son he wanted. The lady who became his wife was known to come from a family who produced sons, and she was as ruthless and ambitious as Erebus was. And, as the queen of Erebus was the ruler of the harem, she used her influence to further humiliate Serenity's child. Given the situation at the time, it seemed almost certain that a son would be produced and, in accordance with the Erebian customs that the solar system's planets were all being forced to abide by, Erebus' control would be cemented for centuries to come.
Erebus, however, did not count on three things. The first was that one of the eunuchs assigned to guard Serenity's child was not as intolerant as Erebus had hoped, and had secretly vowed to help lessen the poor girl's plight and aid her supporters. The second was that, in the purge, Erebus had overlooked the youngest child of the rulers of Earth - a boy named Endymion. Having heard stories of the child goddess, he declared himself to be her champion, preparing himself for a quest to free the people of the solar system and restore Serenity's child to her rightful place.
The third thing was something no one could have possibly known about, even with the technology of the Silver Millennium on their side: the nexus had decided to open the doors to this beleagered universe for all to see...
Princess Serenity in this universe has several names, like most gods and goddesses. Some of the ones known and what they mean:
-Princess Serenity: Self-explanatory. Most universes outside of this one name her this.
-Serenity II/Selene the Younger: Her two 'official' Silver Millennium titles for the records. The former is Western style; the latter is Latin family style.
-Sorrel: The name she is known as by Erebus, so as to marginalize her association to the Silver Millennium. She also calls herself Sorrel. It is also her name for her association with the hibiscus flower, which she grows as her primary hobby and joy in the harem gardens.
-Sorrel Aril: Sorrel of the Seeds, primarily in reference to her association with the fruit known as mangosteen. The arils, which are edible, look a little like an unbloomed flower.
-The Visitor: Her 'official' name in Erebian records.
-The Uniter: Her name in reference to her prophecy.
-The Godmaker: As the only deity immune to the antimatter, as well as the only one able to access the ritual power to bestow or restore godhead during the era of the Erebian Empire, this is considered an aspect of her power by future generations long after she has disappeared from the records.
-Ketenangan: Another word for Serenity, but used by her supporters as a way to conceal who they were talking about from their Erebian conquerors.
Serenity is a god patterned similar to those of the Olympian gods. However, she is not a fully mature god by any stretch of the imagination. She has no life aspect that she rules over, she is given a bare minimum of an education which does not include developing her powers, and what should be her holy domain, the Silver Millennium, is not in her hands. She also does not partake in nectar and ambrosia, the food that allowed the Olympians to become much more powerful than their predecessors. Nevertheless she has some Olympian powers, though again, much of it she doesn't utilize because she was never shown that she had them and doesn't realize she has them, or she was not taught to control them.
-Healing: Any injury that anyone manages to inflict on her is repidly healed; if an item is not enchanted or sacred it does not affect her at all while in her immortal form. She is also capable of purifying demons and monsters, though she doesn't know of this latter ability.
-Disguise: She doesn't know it, but like her fellow gods she is capable of donning any form she can think of, human or otherwise. She can also turn mortals into other things, but in the case of mortals, if she turns them into another form, it cannot be reversed unless stipulations are put into the disguise for reverting the person back to their normal self, or another god intervenes to change or reverse the magic.
-Item/Charm/Curse Creation: Serenity is capable of creating or enhancing magical and sacred objects or even people, particularly for those she favors. Most often she creates hibiscus flowers and her favorite food with this power. Conversely, like any god, she has the ability to curse anyone who crosses her path or offends her in some way. Like disguising a mortal, the curse or power placed on a mortal is permanent unless stipulations are placed or another god circumvents Serenity's power to hinder it. Again, she is unaware of this power.
-Divine sight: The ability to see the past, present and future, sometimes simultaneously. Though all gods can see and know all time due to the fact they are removed from the constraints of time due to their immortality, only the king of the gods and gods who have prophecy as an aspect of their power can fully understand and intepret what they see to their advantage, hence why most gods, even when learning the future, may fail to prevent certain events from happening (which also underline the concept of an inevitable fate in Greek mythological understanding, at least in this particular interpetation). In other words, Serenity can see the future, but because she is not a prophetic god cannot truly comprehend what events mean, not does she, as a result, have the power to control and prevent or cause events in the future.
-Divine Fire: Looking on Sorrel's full god form, her very essence (which at the moment is suppressed due to her lack of understanding of her powers), is a spiritual event so intense and powerful that those without any divinity are set aflame just from looking at it. It is a completely involuntary power over which no god, not even Zeus, has had control over - only antimatter can purge this ability from a god, and only temporarily unless antimatter is perpetually applied to said god. As most people in the solar system (outside of Earth at least) are in some way descended from a god or demi-god, they are only minimally affected by this unfortunate side-effect of Serenity's heritage, for example feeling heightened feelings around the god based on which god it is. Sailor senshi, being god-like themselves, are also unaffected. Mortals from Earth, however, would be utterly destroyed by looking upon a fully-awakened, undisguised Sorrel.
I know what everyone's thinking. "Invulnerable!? How come she's invulnerable!? That's not cool!!"
The answer is that she isn't. No god is. However, much like in Greek mythology, only creatures who are gods or who have god-like powers or weapons, or special blessings, such as heroes, or have antimatter, can hurt or (rarely) slay a god (the latter being almost impossible unless you are an honest to goodness god). In Serenity/Sorrel's case, her mortal parts were destroyed and her mother charmed her to be unharmed, so she really can't be killed unless the person is on par with (to give a senshi equivalent) Galaxia or Cosmos. But, she can still be hurt pretty badly by sailor senshi and their weapons and powers, and any kind of magical weapon or attack can hurt her to some degree, both depending on how much power is behind it and which element it is (i.e. she has some considerable immunity against powers of darkness and powers of light and Sailor Moon attacks since her progenitors were of those elements). If she ever disguised herself in a mortal form her chances of being hurt badly would increase exponentially, though chances are she would shed the mortal disguise before being finished off, like any good god would.
The reason why she is considered invulnerable in her universe is because for all intent and purposes, she is - because Erebus killed or neutralized nearly everyone who would actually be able to harm her. Her father's blood renders her immune to the antimatter that had destroyed nearly every other deity in the solar system. Sailor senshi and strong magic users have almost all been killed for the present; in the case of the sailor senshi they can reincarnate. As for the gods, they can be revived if their shades can be rescued from the afterlife of Tartarus, which is extremely difficult given Hades' attitude about taking any shade out of his kingdom. (Ironically, the gods Hades, Persephone, Thanatos and Charon are the only gods left untouched by Erebus, due to them rarely leaving their afterlife domain and not meddling in affairs outside of Tartarus, which is hidden on Earth, and also Erebus' fear of death.)
The idea for this particular AU comes from my love of Greek mythology and ancient epics, as well as inspiration from history and historical concepts. It's probably pretty obvious Erebus is based off of Henry VIII, for one. For another the harem was a carefully structured political power base for females throughout the world throughout history in places where women could not directly hold power (except for Western Europe, barring exceptions like Charles II's mistresses). Much of the time harems were headed by a ruler's mother or sister, or if the mother and sisters were not particularly favored by a ruler or the ruler didn't have any, his main wife (where rulers were allowed more than one wife) or favorite concubine; it was almost always headed by some kind of royal or noble female.
Regardless of who was in charge, the female's power in harem and in court was almost always in connivance with eunuchs initially appointed to ensure members of the harem remained chaste outside the presence of their ruler and didn't present the ruler with illegitimate heirs. Most females as a result had some kind of influence to varying degrees (though in Serenity's case, even with a eunuch helping her she has next to nil influence).
Then it came time for Serenity to choose a consort. She chose a king from the edge of the solar system, a demi-god named Erebus, the descendant of the original god of darkness. Though it seemed a love match, Erebus in truth harbored a great ambition to become a great ruler. He resented the fact that he would one day die after a short life, whereas it was known that full-blooded gods could live for many centuries through many lives. It did not help that his own planet had only recently emerged from a long civil war between various members of Erebus' family, and he viewed his rule as endangered. The birth of an heir by Serenity - a son, for on his world only males could inherit - would not only ensure he would hold the throne of his planet, but also allow him to gain a foothold in the company of the gods. Indeed, an oracle predicted that the child birthed by Serenity would become a great ruler who would unite the planets under a single banner.
But something happened. The child by Serenity was a mere girl. In Erebus' eyes this was intolerable. Not only this, but he soon after learned of the flawed physiology of his queen's body - she could only give birth once. His anger turned into rage, then hatred. He believed the gods of the solar system had decieved him, and decided to use force to show his displeasure. He first had to find a way to neutralize and destroy the power of the immortal deities; this was accomplished through the accidental development of antimatter by Silver Millennium scientists. Eventually it was found that the effects of antimatter were detrimental to those of the solar system who wielded magic, rendering them almost entirely powerless, even making gods susceptible to mortality. All were affected except Erebians, who were barely harmed due, perhaps, to their strong affiliation with the darkness.
Erebus wasted no time once antimatter was discovered. Though Queen Serenity officially banned further research on antimatter, he secretly ordered the scientists to further refine and perfect the technology. Before the queen was able to act against her husband's designs, she became the first victim of antimatter. Ambushed and powerless, she was stabbed to death by courtiers on Erebus' express command, his first act as the new sole ruler of Silver Millennium. Erbeus' second act was to frame friends and allies of the dead queen as the people responsible for her death and immediately execute them afterwards. Then, he prepared to invade each planet with the combined forces of Erbus and Silver Millennium. With the antimatter technology on his side, the gods were no match for him. Within a generation, the gods of the solar system were imprisoned, the rulers of every planet, killed, and their children, the princesses who were the sailor senshi and protectresses of the planets, slain.
Now, all that was left was to kill his baby daughter, and he could refresh and start anew. But when she was hit by the antimatter, she was unaffected; as Erebus' child, she was immune to the power of the antimatter. Nor could he kill her, as he learned that Queen Serenity had, after she realized Erebus' intentions and before her death, completed a ritual to destroy the mortal parts of the baby's body, rendering her invulnerable to all of Erebus' other efforts towards killing her. Nor could he do the same to himself to become immortal, as only a god could kill another god; Queen Serenity and the god of knowledge, Mercury, had sealed away the tomes containing the information needed to perform the ritual, anticipating Erebus would attempt to become a full god. The stipulation to recovering them was that only Serenity's daughter could find them, and she could only do it without duress. If she were to unseal the ritual, she would almost certainly use it to create or revitalize a god to stop Erebus' designs.
This infuriated Erebus to no end; despite conquering the solar system, destroying the rule of the gods and becoming the undisputed ruler, he could not rid himself of the daughter he viewed as the cause of all of his troubles - and he still had no son. Eventually, he decided on a more crafty, cruel solution to to punish the infant and also prevent Serenity's child from being a symbolic or literal threat to his rule; he declared her illegitimate, but allowed her to live in something vaguely resembling the luxury befitting a goddess, at least in official eyes. Using Erebian and Earth traditions to keep her out of sight and mind, he confined her to his harem on Erebus, forcing her to grow up under the suspiscious, angry eyes of Erebus' female relatives and lovers and male eunichs; almost all of them saw her as a nuisance and burden at best. Erebus sought to minimize her ability to inspire rebellion in the solar system as much as possible; she was not even considered a relative of Erebus, instead referred to in official records as "the girl" or "the visitor". Even after the harem was brought to the Silver Millennium to consolidate Erebus' power, the young goddess was hidden so effectively that many people, indeed, began at think she was dead after all, like her mother, perhaps by secret, poison or illness. People began to lose hope that their situation would change, for as the years passed Erebus became more and more despotic, more and more obsessed with making a son who would cement forever his mysogyny-driven Erebian Empire, his revenge and legacy.
Several decades, several wives and several miserable daughters later (all who were eventually consigned to the harem with Serenity's child, but given much more influence and precedence in keeping with Erebus' punishment of the child) Erebus finally found the woman he believed would give him the son he wanted. The lady who became his wife was known to come from a family who produced sons, and she was as ruthless and ambitious as Erebus was. And, as the queen of Erebus was the ruler of the harem, she used her influence to further humiliate Serenity's child. Given the situation at the time, it seemed almost certain that a son would be produced and, in accordance with the Erebian customs that the solar system's planets were all being forced to abide by, Erebus' control would be cemented for centuries to come.
Erebus, however, did not count on three things. The first was that one of the eunuchs assigned to guard Serenity's child was not as intolerant as Erebus had hoped, and had secretly vowed to help lessen the poor girl's plight and aid her supporters. The second was that, in the purge, Erebus had overlooked the youngest child of the rulers of Earth - a boy named Endymion. Having heard stories of the child goddess, he declared himself to be her champion, preparing himself for a quest to free the people of the solar system and restore Serenity's child to her rightful place.
The third thing was something no one could have possibly known about, even with the technology of the Silver Millennium on their side: the nexus had decided to open the doors to this beleagered universe for all to see...
Princess Serenity in this universe has several names, like most gods and goddesses. Some of the ones known and what they mean:
-Princess Serenity: Self-explanatory. Most universes outside of this one name her this.
-Serenity II/Selene the Younger: Her two 'official' Silver Millennium titles for the records. The former is Western style; the latter is Latin family style.
-Sorrel: The name she is known as by Erebus, so as to marginalize her association to the Silver Millennium. She also calls herself Sorrel. It is also her name for her association with the hibiscus flower, which she grows as her primary hobby and joy in the harem gardens.
-Sorrel Aril: Sorrel of the Seeds, primarily in reference to her association with the fruit known as mangosteen. The arils, which are edible, look a little like an unbloomed flower.
-The Visitor: Her 'official' name in Erebian records.
-The Uniter: Her name in reference to her prophecy.
-The Godmaker: As the only deity immune to the antimatter, as well as the only one able to access the ritual power to bestow or restore godhead during the era of the Erebian Empire, this is considered an aspect of her power by future generations long after she has disappeared from the records.
-Ketenangan: Another word for Serenity, but used by her supporters as a way to conceal who they were talking about from their Erebian conquerors.
Serenity is a god patterned similar to those of the Olympian gods. However, she is not a fully mature god by any stretch of the imagination. She has no life aspect that she rules over, she is given a bare minimum of an education which does not include developing her powers, and what should be her holy domain, the Silver Millennium, is not in her hands. She also does not partake in nectar and ambrosia, the food that allowed the Olympians to become much more powerful than their predecessors. Nevertheless she has some Olympian powers, though again, much of it she doesn't utilize because she was never shown that she had them and doesn't realize she has them, or she was not taught to control them.
-Healing: Any injury that anyone manages to inflict on her is repidly healed; if an item is not enchanted or sacred it does not affect her at all while in her immortal form. She is also capable of purifying demons and monsters, though she doesn't know of this latter ability.
-Disguise: She doesn't know it, but like her fellow gods she is capable of donning any form she can think of, human or otherwise. She can also turn mortals into other things, but in the case of mortals, if she turns them into another form, it cannot be reversed unless stipulations are put into the disguise for reverting the person back to their normal self, or another god intervenes to change or reverse the magic.
-Item/Charm/Curse Creation: Serenity is capable of creating or enhancing magical and sacred objects or even people, particularly for those she favors. Most often she creates hibiscus flowers and her favorite food with this power. Conversely, like any god, she has the ability to curse anyone who crosses her path or offends her in some way. Like disguising a mortal, the curse or power placed on a mortal is permanent unless stipulations are placed or another god circumvents Serenity's power to hinder it. Again, she is unaware of this power.
-Divine sight: The ability to see the past, present and future, sometimes simultaneously. Though all gods can see and know all time due to the fact they are removed from the constraints of time due to their immortality, only the king of the gods and gods who have prophecy as an aspect of their power can fully understand and intepret what they see to their advantage, hence why most gods, even when learning the future, may fail to prevent certain events from happening (which also underline the concept of an inevitable fate in Greek mythological understanding, at least in this particular interpetation). In other words, Serenity can see the future, but because she is not a prophetic god cannot truly comprehend what events mean, not does she, as a result, have the power to control and prevent or cause events in the future.
-Divine Fire: Looking on Sorrel's full god form, her very essence (which at the moment is suppressed due to her lack of understanding of her powers), is a spiritual event so intense and powerful that those without any divinity are set aflame just from looking at it. It is a completely involuntary power over which no god, not even Zeus, has had control over - only antimatter can purge this ability from a god, and only temporarily unless antimatter is perpetually applied to said god. As most people in the solar system (outside of Earth at least) are in some way descended from a god or demi-god, they are only minimally affected by this unfortunate side-effect of Serenity's heritage, for example feeling heightened feelings around the god based on which god it is. Sailor senshi, being god-like themselves, are also unaffected. Mortals from Earth, however, would be utterly destroyed by looking upon a fully-awakened, undisguised Sorrel.
I know what everyone's thinking. "Invulnerable!? How come she's invulnerable!? That's not cool!!"
The answer is that she isn't. No god is. However, much like in Greek mythology, only creatures who are gods or who have god-like powers or weapons, or special blessings, such as heroes, or have antimatter, can hurt or (rarely) slay a god (the latter being almost impossible unless you are an honest to goodness god). In Serenity/Sorrel's case, her mortal parts were destroyed and her mother charmed her to be unharmed, so she really can't be killed unless the person is on par with (to give a senshi equivalent) Galaxia or Cosmos. But, she can still be hurt pretty badly by sailor senshi and their weapons and powers, and any kind of magical weapon or attack can hurt her to some degree, both depending on how much power is behind it and which element it is (i.e. she has some considerable immunity against powers of darkness and powers of light and Sailor Moon attacks since her progenitors were of those elements). If she ever disguised herself in a mortal form her chances of being hurt badly would increase exponentially, though chances are she would shed the mortal disguise before being finished off, like any good god would.
The reason why she is considered invulnerable in her universe is because for all intent and purposes, she is - because Erebus killed or neutralized nearly everyone who would actually be able to harm her. Her father's blood renders her immune to the antimatter that had destroyed nearly every other deity in the solar system. Sailor senshi and strong magic users have almost all been killed for the present; in the case of the sailor senshi they can reincarnate. As for the gods, they can be revived if their shades can be rescued from the afterlife of Tartarus, which is extremely difficult given Hades' attitude about taking any shade out of his kingdom. (Ironically, the gods Hades, Persephone, Thanatos and Charon are the only gods left untouched by Erebus, due to them rarely leaving their afterlife domain and not meddling in affairs outside of Tartarus, which is hidden on Earth, and also Erebus' fear of death.)
The idea for this particular AU comes from my love of Greek mythology and ancient epics, as well as inspiration from history and historical concepts. It's probably pretty obvious Erebus is based off of Henry VIII, for one. For another the harem was a carefully structured political power base for females throughout the world throughout history in places where women could not directly hold power (except for Western Europe, barring exceptions like Charles II's mistresses). Much of the time harems were headed by a ruler's mother or sister, or if the mother and sisters were not particularly favored by a ruler or the ruler didn't have any, his main wife (where rulers were allowed more than one wife) or favorite concubine; it was almost always headed by some kind of royal or noble female.
Regardless of who was in charge, the female's power in harem and in court was almost always in connivance with eunuchs initially appointed to ensure members of the harem remained chaste outside the presence of their ruler and didn't present the ruler with illegitimate heirs. Most females as a result had some kind of influence to varying degrees (though in Serenity's case, even with a eunuch helping her she has next to nil influence).