posted on Jan, 16 2012 @ 02:04 PM
Intro
Let’s assume for a moment that the stories are all true. Thousands of years ago, the human race was created (or at least developed to its current
level of biological advancement) by some God or collection of Gods. I’d like to present something I’ve been thinking of for a while, which
incorporates the lineage of Gods with a vastly complex, millennia-spanning method of selecting a successor.
(I will apologize in advance if some of this is fragmented, as it is still a thought in progress. If you have any ideas that can contribute to the
overall discussion (promoters or detractors), I’d love to hear them. If nothing else, it could provide an interesting thought-exercise, and could
help push forward my own understanding of this fledgling thought. Also, I can’t guarantee my knowledge of the family trees of the gods, as I’m
really only doing research for examples so far to illustrate this idea. The names of the players are secondary to understanding of the game
itself.)
Concept
Consider the persistent idea of a “Father of the Gods”. You could view this as Odin, Zeus, Ra, Yahweh or what have you, and all of these figures
could be an abstraction of the same thing: The source of all life… or the common ancestor.
This top-level figure is (through most traditions, religions, etc) thought to have had a non-zero number of children. If we consider the top level
guy to be one being abstracted by different cultures, then we can apply the same principle to the second-tier beings. For simplicity, let’s go with
Norse Gods, and say that Odin was the father of Thor, Balder, Hoder, Hermod, Tyr, and Heimdall, as well as any others that may have come about from
his numerous “interactions” with the human race and other Top-tier Gods.
Now, consider Odin selecting one of his children to become the next ruler of all gods. I’d like to propose a scenario that could explain behaviours
in many leaders, many families, many religions, which, if it were true, and known by all members of the human race, would undoubtedly result in
unimaginable “ethnic cleansing”. So I’m not saying this as a “Wouldn’t that be cool?”, but more as a “Yikes. It would explain a lot of
stuff if this were true and only a handful of people knew it.”
Background of Lineage
Interaction with the human race dilutes the Godly bloodline. So children stemming from a combination of God and human are reduced in lifespan,
reduced in influence, power, etc. Children of these children are similarly less powerful… resulting in a situation where each successive generation
dilutes the power of the original deity.
However, some of the most powerful families in the world maintain a degree of status due to the purity of their bloodlines… The fewer generations
that have passed within a family, the closer they are to the power at the top, and therefore the more god-like each individual of the family is.
Imagine that the original deities are still around, but do not interact with humans at this stage of the competition, since the game was set in
motion, then left to play out based on characteristics inherent in each bloodline.
Background of the Contest
Odin would have said to each of his children: “You have a set amount of time to influence the direction of your bloodline. Tech them what they need
to know to be successful over the others, but do not teach them [these forbidden technologies]. After the time of your influence, you will leave the
humans undisturbed until a point in the future where one bloodline survives all others. You will each get to live on in the world, but not to use
your Godly powers (beyond that of everlasting life), and you must not present yourself as a God to gain followers.”
The ultimate goal, and winning condition is the destruction of the bloodlines of all of your competitors.
Winning Conditions
Ultimately, the way to make your god happy is to destroy members of the bloodlines of His competitors, but not those of your own, or to increase the
number of members of the bloodline by procreating (hopefully with other members of the same bloodline, so as to avoid increasing numbers for a
competitor as well).
The tricky bit comes with the reproductive rates of humans. It is difficult to remove large swaths of population without having godly powers. Hence,
the continuing development of newer, and more powerful weapons might be a priority pursued by representative of each bloodline. These weapons cannot
be used without tipping one’s hand… so in order to play an end-game scenario, humans must develop far enough to be able to destroy a competing
bloodline ENTIRELY before trying to make such a play, or else they risk being retaliated against.
A Failed Attempt (Check)
There have been attempts in the past to wipe out the entire human race (excepting a single bloodline) and we can use the example of Noah’s Ark here.
This Noah Character was told by his God that a flood was coming. In our example here, this could be seen as an attempt to destroy the descendants of
all other Gods. It was nearly successful, if mythology is to be believed, and one wonders if this could have led to a vast reduction in the number of
candidates.
It would be possible that this occurrence reduced the playing field to a small set of gods with a remaining bloodline. All the old gods no longer
exist and cannot gather descendants. The remaining few had prepared well enough, or diversified enough that the singular weapon of “flood” was
not sufficient to wipe them out.
A Winning Scenario (Checkmate)
Every weapon developed by humanity has had a certain level of uncertainty. You cannot aim a pistol at “a descendant of Thor”, and you cannot
carpet-bomb to specifically target “Descendants of Balder”. Yet.
We have a supremely powerful weapon currently in development, however, and it is called Genetics. We have the ability to see the basic building
blocks of life, to the point where we can discern specific traits that are characteristic of a specific group of people. This has the potential to
give rise to a weapon that can target a specific bloodline… the trick is to know what you’re looking for. How can one tell what the bloodline
traits to be targeted will be, without access to the original, or knowledge that it’s even what they seek? How can you ensure your own god wins?
I had recently read that a potential weaponization of our knowledge of DNA could be engineered viruses that target specific genetic traits… racism
at its most destructive. As you can see, the winning of this competition would require the destruction of a large percentage of the human
population… which seems to be consistent with what some are saying is the end goal of some secret societies.
So…what do you all think? What areas need more thought? What needs clarification? How can I present this more… succinctly?