Comments | wildwest_lantis: All These Pesky Questions...

soapbox_solo38 in wildwest_lantis

All These Pesky Questions...

Feb 07, 2008 22:42

So. Just wondering, because I can't remember this being addressed before:

Do the Ancients actually exist in this AU? Are we conveniently sweeping them off to the side for the sake of the stories? Could they have been very early pioneers who headed West before the large rush and abandoned Atlantis for reasons yet unknown? If so, how did our ( Read more... )

Comments 5

miera_c February 8 2008, 05:12:35 UTC

I think because this AU is set in a specific time and place (Colorado in the 1870s) this kind of mythology is a bit outside of the universe, because it's so incompatible with the realities of history, which are very deeply folded into the AU.

Then again, someone was I think planning on introducing the Ori as some sort of freaky cult.

soapbox_solo38 February 10 2008, 01:45:28 UTC

True, which is why I was thinking about it. However, looking at the history of the "Far West" it could be possible that this AU's "Ancients" were actually a sect of Mormons, who as a group went to Nebraska and then Utah - and conceivably passing through Colorado as well. Atlantis' founders could be a very early "trail blazing" group who left the town to settle with the others in Utah, or the State of Deseret.

My secondhand / Internet knowledge of Mormon beliefs: "The first principles and ordinances of the gospel are: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost." Reading more of what I've found (no offense intended for anyone who belongs to the Latter Day Saint Church), they seem eerily similar to Ancients. Accepting Jesus' plan for them, they "enter the waters of baptism" and receive the laying of the hands, which brings them an "increased measure of the light of Christ", etc, etc. The linked site sums it all up, and it's a ( ... )

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miera_c February 13 2008, 15:08:34 UTC

Yeah I would give a wide berth to any references to actual religions. Drawing that kind of comparison could offend a lot of people.

Thread 5

angelqueen04 February 14 2008, 04:20:49 UTC

Okay, it's been an insanely and difficult week for me, so I'm hoping I'm coherent.

To be honest, when I first started building the foundations for this AU, the Ancients didn't figure into any of it. Atlantis, in my mind, began pretty much as any other western town of this time period, a possible boom town for gold mining that didn't die out. But since that isn't canon by any means within the AU, I'm not married to it by any means.

I agree with miera_c and the others in that we should definitely stay clear of referencing real-life religions. I'd rather not have the comm bombarded with people mortally offended by it (and let's face it, there are always people out there that are going to take offense even if you don't intend for them to do so).

One idea for the Ancients could be an ancient, mysterious native tribe that has vanished, leaving only a few legends told by the other tribes, like Skaara's people for example. Or you know, something.

*collapses*