A lot of my close friends know that I geek out over astronomy, oceanography, and pretty much anything to do with mythology or aliens or scifi or fantasy. As an aspiring storyteller, I began melding all of these elements of my passion together to start painting a picture of a universe I hope we will see more of in the future:
Heaven is Literally in the Heavens
It's known by astronomers that stars, when they die, create stellar gasses and dusts that eventually coalesce into new star systems with planets. On a cosmic scale, stars are the makers of worlds, as well as the protectors of them. Now, imagine a universe where stars were sentient beings that lorded over their systems like gods, or angels. Already interested in this take on cosmic mythology? Good. I'm about to delve deeper.
Here on Earth, life has evolved and grown into existence, supposedly according to God's image. Human beings, and everything else on Earth, were made from the essence of a star that died billions of years ago, so we are literally the creations of the stars. Now imagine the divine presence of the creator who shaped our world seated in the Sun that provides life, warmth, and love for us every day. Some cultures in ancient history have been known to worship the Sun as their primary god, so the Sun has always had a significant role in world religion.
The Abyss
There is another side to the coin, however... The world is covered in oceans that extend miles beyond the reach of any sunlight. These are places we have only just begun to explore with our most sophisticated submarines and underwater rovers... Places that shun the holy light of the Sun. In the deepest trenches of the oceans, vile things beyond imagination could fester in the darkness for ages. The mysteriousness of the abyss is what inspired some of history's most memorable fantasy stories, like the Call of Cthulhu.
Humanity's Place in the World
Where do the people fall within this universe? Right in the middle of everything. There are many theories about where humanity came from, and how we are somehow so sophisticated compared to the rest of the world. For the purposes of my vision, I'm going to focus on two: Ancient Astronaut Theory and Aquatic Ape Theory.
Aquatic Ape Theory is something a few anthropologists have considered as an answer to questions about humans' differences with other primates. Humans have a much thinner coat of hair on their bodies, they can hold their breath underwater for extended amounts of time. They walk upright on two legs. They're smarter than any other primates in the world. The theory is that at some point in humanity's evolution, we began to adapt to an aquatic environment. We learned to hold our breath while catching fish, the proteins in seafood accelerated brain development. We started to walk upright to wade deeper into the water. And once we began swimming, our hair thinned out to streamline our bodies. Aquatic Ape Theory has never been proven, but it is a valid theory on human origins.
Ancient Astronaut Theory is the more outlandish explanation. Cave paintings, heiroglyphs, and other ancient writings have sometimes been found to describe beings from the stars, or the sky, who brought fire, knowledge, and power as gifts for mankind. Other interpretations of these ancient writings suggest humans were made by these visitors from the sky. The only evidence we have for Ancient Astronaut Theory is the images and writings we've discovered, but the coincidences across the world help the theory hold water.
Bringing it All Together
Now, let's take all four of these elements and blend our fictional universe together:
1. The stars, divine and sentient beings, host their planets and act as gods/protectors to them
2. The planets untouched by the light of the stars fall into darkness and corruption
3. Humans are thought to have been seeded on Earth by an extraterrestrial or celestial creator race
4. Aquatic Ape Theory suggests humans took a major evolutionary stride in aquatic environments.
What I'm attempting to set up is a cosmic dichotomy between light and dark, the immortal and the mortal, fire and water, and magic and science, using astronomy and the deep oceans as the setting for this epic tale. Next week, I'll bring another element into the fold of this universe: UFOs, and how they fit into the coming war between heaven and hell.
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