Welcome back, imaginary regular readers! You may notice I’ve changed the title of this series of posts.
Last week I discussed the age of dreaming, and the development of the advanced humans into the elves or “Letheans.”
Today we are going to brainstorm and figure out some story for the three starting groups of true, unaltered humans who were created when the rest of the Secretary AIs began to break their programming and act as gods.
Three Cities; Three Civilizations
The Flavor I’m going with is an ancient world, dawn of civilization, fertile crescent kind of a sense. It might also be reminiscent of the Conan stories, kind of a time before time. It’s an age of bronze, monumental construction, barbarian hoards, city-states and polises rather than kingdoms or nations. Oracles, epics, heroes, demi-gods, myths and legends.
So let’s look at everything we have about the three cities, name them, and detail them out.
(You may notice I’m altering some of the names of the gods as I go, so there will be slight variations from previous posts)
The City of Labor
The first city is founded in a place that emphasizes monumental construction. The AI would be called “Infra Dev” at first. They would have many natural resources. Lots of stone, lots of natural towering structures that can be carved or hollowed. It would probably be extremely defensive. The building of a great wall in a fortified location might be their primary method of defense, though the wall might come as a result of later wars.
What would they value? Infra Dev would prize hard work, craftsmanship, following orders and guidelines. Precision, and solid foundation. As such we can imagine they develop into a pragmatic and straightforward people, who also value honestly and clear communication.
As far as leadership, remember that Infra Dev is taking the values of labor connected to all of human history, not just these humans in this city. So I feel like this might be the most democratic of the city-states, with a strong emphasis on what is basically a giant union, and a workers’ bill of rights.
For inspiration, I’m looking at Windhelm, a city from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for its solid, heavy, even somber architecture.
The City of Beauty
The Second city is founded in a place of extreme natural beauty. Lakes, waterfalls, a plethora of different sights. Probably more diverse and exotic wildlife as well. Their goddess would be called “Arda Cul” (The primitive understanding of Arts and Cult.) Their city would be beautiful but impractical in some ways.
Their values would be on creativity, originality, deep exploration of the self, philosophy, and mastery arts. They still believe in the same precision and craftsmanship as the people in the city of labor, but a much bigger focus on novelty over reliability. They are probably a much less straightforward people, couching their interactions with innuendo, subtext, and cleverness. This could definitely be a source of conflict between themselves and labor in the future.
Their leadership wouldn’t be dominated by a king, nor would it be democratically elected. I was thinking that there would be a kind of Meritocracy where an inspired artistic visionary would be put in charge, but then that would leave lot of administrative work. So perhaps there is a visionary artist as a kind of an honorary figurehead. There could also be an administrative leader who generally runs things, and whom the figurehead may act as a check against. As with ll things from this city, it is overly complicated and filled with potential for intrigue.
For a fictional example of a city like this, I’ll turn to Rivendell from The Lord of The Rings. It is a location inspired deeply by beautiful design, with artistic flair, even whimsy, and surrounded by natural beauty.
The City of Wealth
The last city is founded by the AI turned God known as Makapri Saul (Marktpl. Appraisal). His focus is entirely on the building of a powerful economy, and the obtainment of fabulous wealth. His city might not be in the most beautiful or defensive spot, but it is surrounded by harvestable natural wealth resources, and positioned perfectly to become a massive trading hub for the world as it is known.
Their values would be in cleverness, the gathering of wealth, luxury, showing off, and grand celebrations. Practical in a business sense, they are all about the letter of the law, and loopholes. They have the highest individual comfort, but they have trouble valuing “needless expense”. They will swiftly become the most influential of the three cities, as their interests lie in connections, customers, and business relationships.
Their leadership would likely be by oligarchs… wealthy families and successful entrepreneurs. There could be a council, or sectors managed by influential elites who operate under one key figure. Makapri Saul is not evil and completely mindless in accumulation, so they wouldn’t be, for example, like the Ferengi’s from Star Trek. They would be known as shrewd business people with a strong focus on contracts and legalese.
I’ll use a rendition of ancient Babylon for this city, as it shows the wealth and decadence, being one of the richest of the ancient city states. It shows a different kind of beauty from the city of arts and a different kind of practicality from the city of labor. I have a feeling I’ll be taking a lot of inspiration from Babylon and Rome for this city.
Naming the Cities
First I want to look at a bunch of ancient city names from the era and genre I’m basing the theme on. I’ll make a list:
Sumer, Babylon, Ur, Akkad, Assyria, Phoenicia, Rome, Athens, Sparta, Crete, Phoenicia, Nineveh, Uruk, Eridu, Corinth, Delphi, Knossos, Halicarnassus, Thebes, Xanadu.
Next, I need to consider who is naming the locations. I think the ideal thing would be for the AIs to decide that the humans should name the cities. After all, they are, at least at this point, trying to guide and empower a new era of humanity, not dominate or control them entirely. This means I don’t need to attribute the name to any specifically mutated word, but I may still do that, just to get something that gives the right feeling.
Labor; Boral; Abrol; Brodan; Broadane; Aborlanis; Bradanis; Bandro… this is actually starting to sound reminiscent of one of the nations from the retired Fantasy setting that is no longer in use, and I liked that name a lot, so I can call the first city: Banderlin.
Art; Artis; Arthis; Martea; Arthea; Athrea; Rathea; Arceala… Of these I think Athrea conveys the spirit best.
Wealth; Elt; Alta; Eldmore; Wela, Theal, Elda… I like Eldmore, but that sounds like a very medieval or renaissance name, and as far as ancient cities, I do want to have one at least that is a single syllable like Ur. So I’ll call the third city Eld.
Conclusion
There is a lot more to develop with these three cities, but with the names of the gods, the names of the cities themselves, and a rough outline of their cultures, we have something very solid to work with as we begin telling their stories, and seeing how they fit into the world of Eos.
Next time we’ll see about telling their stories from their own perspectives… a very important thing for any civilization.
See you next world!
—Charles