Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Lyn Farel on 17 Mar 2011, 13:59
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http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1482522&page=2 (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1482522&page=2)
I suppose this has already been brought up a lot of times, though I firstly can't find back any thread about that and secondly I am not sure if everyone has the same opinion about it.
So, what do our characters know of what existed before the Eve gate ? And Earth (the home world) ?
Maybe it is just me but I find it very unprobable and quite borderline.
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http://www.eve-chatsubo.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1185 (http://www.eve-chatsubo.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1185)
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Well, countless generations of lore could mean that a few hundred people know about Earth, either by having some sort of heirloom in a vacuum-sealed environment, or studying anthropology that leads to very primitive ideas of Earth culture.
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*sigh*
Not everybody seems to have gotten the "so far in the future that Earth is no longer even a distant memory, never mind that we've still got a pack of semi-obscure Terran gods and goddesses populating our fleets" memo.
References to Earth: bad, m'kay?
Ancient mythology, however, apparently made the jump (which is actually fair enough, much as I might grouse a little about it: monsters and gods tend to sort of stick in the human imagination in a way nation states generally don't). So that's all right.
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I think it's fine to note that humanity clearly evolved on some single planet, never mind which one, rather than the same species independently arising in different places.
And I think it's also fine to note that some groups (SoE, etc.) specifically believe that humanity came through the EVE Gate.
Beyond that, specifics can get silly. Sure, myths have survived and formed and evolved (see the description on the Wolf (http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Wolf), for example), but that's to be expected: how many cultural features in our own societies predate writing, for example? Certainly some elements of storytelling and whatnot do, though I've rapidly just now exceeded anything remotely related to my own expertise.
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I think it's fine to note that humanity clearly evolved on some single planet, never mind which one, rather than the same species independently arising in different places.
From an RP perspective though this is going to (obviously) create some clashes. No Minmatar in their right mind is going to willfully admit that their place-of-origin was the same as the Amarr. Same goes for more hardline Caldari and the Gallente.
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I mentioned Earth on purpose in the preface to my Hitchhiker's Guide because sometimes newcomers do not realize that in an OOC sense, Earth is where everyone in New Eden ultimately came from and per the storyline the cluster's entire human population is descended from and connected to our real world. Highlighting that fact draws attention to the absence of typical sci-fi aliens in EVE. In an IC sense, I speculate that the name "Earth" may still endure in various creation myths and could have even become popular as a setting for fantasy fiction while the true meaning of the name is completely lost. In this way, the names "Eden" and "Earth" have effectively switched places in the cultural vocabulary of the EVE universe as compared to our own.
Saying that, it does not stand that any but the most hard line faction loyalists (hyper-devout Amarrians, for instance) would cling to a theory of independent human evolution on the homeworlds of New Eden in the face of what must be staggering archaeological evidence to the effect that humans were nowhere to be found in the cluster prior to ~15000 years before the current YC date. This is not to mention the biomedical evidence that all of New Eden's races are genetically of the same species (and let's not talk about the Jove, thank you). The IC conclusion that humanity originated from one place and that place has yet to be (re)discovered seems irrefutable. To reject it would probably paint you as quite the radical/nutter to the rest of the cluster's educated populace.
Since that singular origin hasn't been found, they might as well call it "Earth", but perhaps there are different names for it in different cultures. Maybe the Gallenteans call it "France"! :P
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I think it's fine to note that humanity clearly evolved on some single planet, never mind which one, rather than the same species independently arising in different places.
From an RP perspective though this is going to (obviously) create some clashes. No Minmatar in their right mind is going to willfully admit that their place-of-origin was the same as the Amarr. Same goes for more hardline Caldari and the Gallente.
I suppose that's possible, but I also think that some Minmatar/Amarr (and Gallente/Caldari) would note that they have shared origins as a species and thus the other side is clearly too (brutal/unrighteous/etc).
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I relate it to the myth of Atlantis. Well educated individuals with a background in history and anthropology might have an understanding of the concept, but without hard evidence it's just an idea.
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Worth noting this from the great fiction retcon thread (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1069891&page=1#3) on EVE fiction:
Rewrote Chronicle “Time and the Astrologer,” fixing CONCORD timeline discrepancies, removing reference to Old Earth, fixing discrepancies with regard to the abbreviations commonly used to denote the year, and bringing the Chronicle up to date with the modern day.
According to their (new) canon, not even the five nations' greatest historians and astrologers knew enough about Earth to declare it specficially the source of their 24-hour, 365-day calendar. Instead, their sources came from "early post-collapse settlers".
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EDIT: I'm a dummy.
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The Empyrean Age novel:
"EVE is the name of an ancient wormhole in the New Eden System" she explained, "It collapsed thousands of years ago, but not before our ancestors had already gone through. They were trapped here... cut off from their origins, a place we think they called 'Terra'. Whether that was one system or a cluster, nobody can say."
This is common enough knowledge for reasonably ordinary people (the character speaking is Gable, a Caldari medic) to know.
Detailed knowledge of Earth itself, I'd be a bit more sceptical about, as several groups were NOT from Earth (directly).
The ancestors of all the Athran ethnic groups (Amarr, Udorian, Khanid, Takmahl), came from Soekhiviti.
The ancestors of the Gallente ethnic group came from Tau Ceti, not France on Earth.
The ancestors of the Caldari were from an unspecified mega-corporation (quite possibly interstellar in nature).
The Yan Jung were from a Chinese-derived ethnic group of unspecified origin (Earth itself or intermediate).
This would tend to make for vague descriptions and half-remembered things very mixed together. Tau Ceti is a different colour of star from Sol, for example.
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Hm, the more I think about this, the more I think that considerable disagreement could still exist in New Eden.
For example, how many people today hold differing opinions on how, where, and why humanity originated?
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Everything I have to contribute on this subject has already been said, so I'll just point that it's obvious humanity originated as an experiment by time-traveling Jovians.
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Pfft, you're crazy. Clearly, the Jovians are simply the agents of a higher power who's too important to interact with the universe himself. All realities are his experiments, this one simply being the one we are aware of.
Also, IC Earth references make me sad. I doubt anyone in the current EVE sphere even knows it exists.
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The Empyrean Age novel:
"EVE is the name of an ancient wormhole in the New Eden System" she explained, "It collapsed thousands of years ago, but not before our ancestors had already gone through. They were trapped here... cut off from their origins, a place we think they called 'Terra'. Whether that was one system or a cluster, nobody can say."
This is common enough knowledge for reasonably ordinary people (the character speaking is Gable, a Caldari medic) to know.
Detailed knowledge of Earth itself, I'd be a bit more sceptical about, as several groups were NOT from Earth (directly).
The ancestors of all the Athran ethnic groups (Amarr, Udorian, Khanid, Takmahl), came from Soekhiviti.
The ancestors of the Gallente ethnic group came from Tau Ceti, not France on Earth.
The ancestors of the Caldari were from an unspecified mega-corporation (quite possibly interstellar in nature).
The Yan Jung were from a Chinese-derived ethnic group of unspecified origin (Earth itself or intermediate).
This would tend to make for vague descriptions and half-remembered things very mixed together. Tau Ceti is a different colour of star from Sol, for example.
TonyG had never heard of the Caldari Tube child program until Svetlana brought it up to him at a fanfest. What are the chance he bothered reading the relevant PF before he wrote that?
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/me dies
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We hardly have any idea what our own planet was like fifteen thousand years ago and we haven't even gone anywhere. Now fast forward that amount of time from our modern day, except we're in a completely different star cluster having just crawled out of another very long dark age. I have a hard time suspending my disbelief that anyone is going to have any sort of knowledge of Earth beyond truly ancient myths.
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TonyG had never heard of the Caldari Tube child program until Svetlana brought it up to him at a fanfest. What are the chance he bothered reading the relevant PF before he wrote that?
Seconded, with a maximum of bitterness.
As someone who loves world-building and extrapolating based on what others have built, I have little time for writers who can't get their damn settings straight. Terry Pratchett, alongside any other author who disclaims consistency and, here's the key, is funny, gets a pass.
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We hardly have any idea what our own planet was like fifteen thousand years ago and we haven't even gone anywhere.
Granted, but we do have archaeological evidence of human beings having existed for a very long time on this planet and potentially enough pieces of evidence to trace an evolutionary history of our species going back much farther than that. That evidence tells us that we most likely didn't come to Earth from somewhere else and probably were not fashioned out of nothing at the whim of a passing deity. In New Eden, there would be no equivalent archaeological record.
To some, the absence thereof and the presence of other advanced human societies at approximately the same level of technological development spread throughout the cluster would certainly lead many to conclude that humans in New Eden came from somewhere other than the planets they consider to be their homeworlds. That place having yet to be conclusively found (although you can imagine a great parade of explorers who have throughout history claimed to have found it), what is so absurd in thinking that place may have been a single planet on the other side of the EVE gate?
I have a hard time suspending my disbelief when anyone claims to have any sort of hard, detailed knowledge of what human life was like 15,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean I won't appreciate the evidence of what life might have been like then and reason out a probable scenario. In the case of New Eden, one such probable scenario is what they might call the "Earth theory" or the "Terran mythology": that everyone alive in the cluster is descended from people who came from somewhere else (probably from the same place or at least through the same route) a long time ago. That notion does not necessarily suggest someone who believes it to be true has or could have details about what happened in that incredibly distant past.
A compelling counter theory that would likely be quite popular in Amarrian circles is that a passing deity did just happen to create all the peoples of New Eden out of whole cloth and plop them on their respective planets at the same time. All the left over relic technology from way way back would then be gifts left by said deity to be discovered when his creations were ready for them. I can imagine this idea, based on the same evidence as the "Earth theory" but resulting in a different conclusion, having a significant following and competing intellectually with the several other theories, the Earth one among them.
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Has any one Considered the Fact that the Jove may be an Idgenious Race and through their Playing God with their own genetic Structure have come to Resemble the Now Abundant Homo Sapien/Superiour Race that currently owns most of the cluster?
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DrizzCat, I think you might do some additional reading (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Category:Jove), as (barring a total retcon) I don't think that theory fits with what we know. And I certainly wouldn't claim it as a "fact".
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Hmmm... well, in TEA, there are references that the amarrian succession trials date back to 'when we were still chasing each other with sticks' ....
so either the amarr regressed a lot further than most before shooting back upwards and reaching space first... or it is entirely possible that the true nature of both the eve gate, and the origin of humanity has been lost to myth and legend.
the technological dark age humanity supposedly fell into after the gate collapsed lasted quite some time.
just my 2 bits... :P
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People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.
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People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.
I approve that answer. ;)
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People in New Eden know about as much about Earth as we know about pre-ice age human society.
This. There are references all over the place from mentions of the Terran calendar, to origin theories, to the various pieces of PF that reference Terra. There's enough for the empires to piece together quite a bit but I'm of the opinion that people who focus too much on this kind of thing are either ridiculed or disappeared. Some things are better off left unknown or at least kept to a select few.
There are more references since TEA but it was already well established in the fiction that those in the know acknowledge Terra while the rest of the cluster prefer, possibly through pride and against all evidence, to treat it as a myth.
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Earth:New Eden::Olduvai Gorge:Earth
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Hmmm... well, in TEA, there are references that the amarrian succession trials date back to 'when we were still chasing each other with sticks' ....
so either the amarr regressed a lot further than most before shooting back upwards and reaching space first... or it is entirely possible that the true nature of both the eve gate, and the origin of humanity has been lost to myth and legend.
the technological dark age humanity supposedly fell into after the gate collapsed lasted quite some time.
just my 2 bits... :P
1) TEA is not a credible source for anything IMO
2) All races collapsed back to the stone age.
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2) All races collapsed back to the stone age.
The Jove apparently stuck it out in a somewhat better state. It is possible that they retained detailed knowledge of human civilization from before the jump to New Eden and collapse of EVE. This knowledge may have been lost or distorted severely during their various turmoils, of course.
In any case, the Earth connection predates TEA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84nrp08MWo) and TonyG's handling of the storyline and the retconning that has taken place since.
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"Our Lord visited his flock and saw that all was not good.
Blasphemy and heresy ruled the land.
The Lord punished the sinners and drowned them in their own blood.
But the people of Amarr lived righteously and in fear of God.
Thus they were saved and became God's chosen."
Some races fared better than others it seems. It's possible the Conformists rejected technology rather than lost it, or did at some later point. This would better explain their long history of established civilization yet relatively low level of advancement. The Amarr have been cautious of technology, perhaps due to some lesson learned (or taught) in their past, and so their progress is generally slow, deliberate, and well planned.
That said there hasn't been much pressure to advance until the other races, with their shorter history of civilization but more energetic and less careful approach, caught them up.
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An agent in the lvl1 epic arc, says something about how something (a platonic relationship between a Lord and a pretty young woman in his service) "hasn't happened since the time when the Reclaiming consisted of stabbing our heathen neighbours with pointed sticks"
There's several of the scriptures that mention the non-originalness of the Amarr to Athra.
"Here we are. This is the world of God. We are his chosen ones.
This place, this planet of peace and abundance, he made for us. It's ours for the taking."
Second Letter of St. Junip
"And so it was, That Gheinok led his people on the great exodus,
To the land of our Salvation, To the land of God, To the land of his Chosen, To Athra."
Gheinok the First 1:32
"The Amarr people came into the world and the world came into being.
Our illustrious ancestors freed their souls from the evils of the old.
world and created a new one."
book I.
There might be more, anyway, those point to the knowledge that humans are not from Athra. They're from somewhere else.
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Interstellar_Travelling is the scientific article on interstellar travel, mentioning more about this sort of thing.
The Amarr also have the most extensive collection of ancient artifacts, however given that the old world(s) were full of sin, research is not particularly important. Does it matter that Soekhiviti and Earth were actually different planets? Or that Tau Ceti is different still?
As regards civilisation collapse following the EVE Gate disaster, the Jovians are mentioned as recovering to a high tech civilisation within a few centuries (i.e. spaceships), but were not by themselves able to maintain the gate network. (The interstellar travelling article mentions Jovian legends about using the ancient stargates to travel around, but then the gates crumbled).
It's also mentioned about "neolithic societies" encountered by the Amarr during their expansion.
However, I don't see where it says everyone collapsed to the stone age. vOv.
In any case, Terrans lol. Since there's more than 3 different origin planets on Earth-side. Earth proper, Tau Ceti, Soekhiviti, miscellaneous. There'd be relics from multiple Earth-side groups, and that's even mentioned in the Interstellar Travelling article, which is a thing written IC.
So, even when you don't look at the Empyrean age novel, there's enough to show that humans aren't from New Eden, and that they came through the EVE Gate, but the relevance of that information to anything going on in New Eden is very, very low.
Like I wrote in the Amarrian example. It may be of academic interest to note that Sol, Tau Ceti and Soekhiviti were different coloured stars, but the practical relevance of that is zero. Furthermore, those worlds were full of sin anyway.
Things from >15000 years ago are well, kind of irrelevant. Being an expert on Earth history in New Eden is an extremely niche occupation. None of the worlds in New Eden are Earth, so ultimately it doesn't matter.
People are a product of their environment. With none of the planets being Earth, then Earth has no relevance.
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2) All races collapsed back to the stone age.
The Jove apparently stuck it out in a somewhat better state. It is possible that they retained detailed knowledge of human civilization from before the jump to New Eden and collapse of EVE. This knowledge may have been lost or distorted severely during their various turmoils, of course.
In any case, the Earth connection predates TEA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84nrp08MWo) and TonyG's handling of the storyline and the retconning that has taken place since.
I wasn't counting the Joves. I too think it's likely that they know of earth.