A few days ago an idea for a novel was born, inspired by conversations with the hubby. I've covered it in the last few posts, particularly this one
where I explain the basic structure of this sci-fi Crater Earth, and now, as promised, here is a basic synopsis of the story, written by my husband. His-story to be precise, of ancient man and ancient wars, and how they might tie to the present...
Enjoy!
My current speculation is that what we are dwelling in is a giant crater. So giant that it holds all of the continents of Earth that the people reside on (private and public). So large of a crater is it, that maybe giant men and giant animals and giant trees could have once dwelled here. This crater is on a massive planet, or plane or some such structure that has many other craters.
In each of these craters has evolved life in some unique way based on the size, elements, water present, life present and local activity of that crater (volcanoes, earthquakes etc.). Each of these craters has an atmosphere that creates a kind of dome above the crater, keeping that crater safe from the harsh environment of the outside space.
Some of these craters are favorable for evolving mammalian life, others reptilian life and so on.
In some of these craters, the dominant life form of conscious dreaming creatures have attained a certain level of technology. Some have burrowed down deep in the search for treasures. Others have gone upward to escape their crater. Still others have done a mix of both.
What if some of the creatures burrowed so far in their search for treasure that they broke through to a neighboring crater? What if some of the creatures, cunning reptilian creatures, attained such a level of technology in flight that they were able to break free of their crater and visit another?
The Story of the men of Earth
Just 26,500 years ago giants roamed the Earth alongside hairy apelike men- our ancestors. The giants preyed upon the apelike men using them as food. One day, approximately 12,000 years ago, the ground broke through and out came a flood of water from a neighboring crater and with that water came ships filled with tall blond and red haired men with blue and green eyes. These men, from a crater called Valhalla were in search of gold.
In Valhalla, men and their tribes were measured in the amount of gold they had. It gave them power and prestige and they knew how to use it in marvelous ways. These men dug to impossibly deep depths in search of gold and their technology expanded for that purpose. They fought each other for gold and perfected many forms of war. They developed ways to explore their own crater with ships and horses. They expanded their sciences in the use of gold till they had found a way to harness its power in its entirety, and with that they developed letters and numbers and math.
These men, thousands, or even tens or hundreds of thousands of years ahead of the men of Earth in their evolution, dug until they broke through. They did not know what they were breaking through into, but they knew that gold was there. These men found gold everywhere in crater Earth. Earth is rich in gold!
After a time the flood waters receded. These new men with their horses and their tools and their technology gathered all the gold from above the ground of Earth and slaughtered every giant in their way. It was then that they started to burrow into the ground of crater Earth just as they had done in their crater. Hard work.
The Valhallans decided to enslave the surviving apelike men of Earth to do their digging for them. They found them unruly though, and hard to train. After a time, they began to interbreed with their unruly slaves and produced a kind of hybrid man. More docile were these, but just as able to dig. These hybrids dug and dug, and when a hybrid was born that was too intelligent, the rulers killed that child off. Creators often fear their creation.
The Valhallans dug into the Earth everywhere they found gold. They spread themselves thin. They began to get soft after a time and allow some of the more intelligent hybrids to survive into adulthood. Populations began to build and villages became towns and towns became cities.
The original Valhallans were now long passed and their offspring began to fight over the gold stores. They began to splinter into rival groups. They came up with ingenious plans to secure more gold for themselves at the expense of rival Valhallans. They invented schemes like trading gold for a paper representation of gold that could be used as money from one city to another.
They conceived of a royal class based on their pure blood and a peasant class based on hybrids. They invented new religions to pacify their hybrid offspring as they became more intelligent over time, and more cunning. They invented the idea of nation states to have their hybrid offspring compete with the hybrid offspring of rival Valhallans. They contrived wars from nation to nation. Who would return to Valhalla with all the gold?
Then it happened.
Just 5,000 years ago a force came from the skies. A great army of flying machines attacked all of the cities of Earth. A great battle ensued. The Reptilians from crater Draco had arrived.
The reptilians had advanced so much in their technology that they had polluted their crater. They needed a new crater for their species to survive. After much exploration of neighboring craters they chose crater Earth as their new home.
The people of Valhalla and their slaves fought bitterly and brought the reptilians to a standstill. The reptilians were no match on the ground against the hardy hybrids. Finally, the reptilians used their greatest weapon and a fiery beam from the sky cut the great city of Atlantis free from its foundations and it sank in the sea. The war could go no further, Earth itself would be lost to both the Valhallans and the Reptilians if it continued.
Great talks began between the Reptilians of Draco and the men of Valhalla. A truce was agreed upon. When all of the gold was gathered from crater Earth the Valhallans would depart and the Reptilians would take over. During the transition the crater would be terraformed to get warmer, more hospitable to the reptilian species. As it got warmer and ever more toxic, the hybrids would die off. Plagues, and the poisonous cure for those plagues, would be used against the hybrids in the last days and starvation too. Their food would be tainted and their water. They would be left with nothing, not even the paper that they were hypnotized to believe was worth killing for.
The mines are now exhausted, the Valhallans are preparing to depart. The reptilians own the skies and will soon take possession of the land and sea. The men of Earth, both the wild original men who still hide among the trees and the mountains, and the hybrids of current societies have a fight coming. The men of Earth thought that fight was among themselves, they thought wrong....
Thank you all for coming along on this journey! One of exploring the set up for a brand new foray into a genre I've never attempted, the world of science fiction and fantasy!! :)