Earth-196169
1st March 2,018 CE
People
The History of Earth-196169 so far
The earliest settlements of intelligent beings on Terra were separated among Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), the Atlanteans and the Lemurians (Homo mermanus), the Eternals (Homo immortalis), the Deviants (Homo descendus), Humans (Homo sapiens), and later the Inhumans (Inhomo supremis). These cultures are all made up of hominids that evolved from Homo erectus in one way or another.
Neanderthals, Atlanteans, and Lemurians evolved naturally from Homo erectus. Neanderthals started from a different background, where they were a cave-dwelling people early on while the ancestors of Atlanteans and Lemurians lived in trees. They were the first to care for their injured and practice ceremonial burials for their dead, raise their young as a community, and handle strong emotions like anger and love in a non-violent manner. When the Neanderthals encountered other developing hominid species, they shared these norms with them although they seemed incapable or unwilling to advance beyond hunter and gatherer societies.
The Atlanteans and the Lemurians developed together but migrated to separate coasts of the Thurian continent. Both picked up the practices of the Neanderthals, though they developed their own belief systems and practices from there. These societies differentiated as they separated from one another. The Atlanteans crossed the water of the Western Sea, later known as the Atlantic Ocean, to settle on the island continent of Atlantis. Cleito was an Atlantean woman who gave birth to five sets of twins with the Olympian Poseidon, and those demigods formed the first Atlantean republic and divvied out the 10 provinces of Atlantis. Over the generations, the children of the demonic Elder God Set infiltrated Atlantean society and established a competing religion, creating conflict inside the otherwise enlightened society of sailors, craftsmen, traders, astrologers, and alchemists. The last named historical character in Atlantis was Kull, who left Atlantis and eventually became King of the neighboring Homo sapien kingdom of Valusia.
The Lemurians went East until they reached the Eastern Sea and then crossed to the Lemurian Isles and the continent of Mu. Whatever culture they had developed of their own after learning from the kind but savage Neanderthals was lost to enslavement by the manipulations of the Old Ones and the Elder Gods. Here they formed the society of the Mu under the guidance of the Chthonic goddess Hekate, but entered an age of civil wars that devastated their societies of witchcraft and infernal sorcery. Many left to travel further across the Eastern Sea, later named the Pacific Ocean, to find the future Americas to establish Orenbega. Other Mu would follow to battle them for denouncing Chthon and Hekate. In the Lemurian Isles, the Deviants arrive to help rebuild society and introduce advanced technology to those that remain there.
Before the spread of hominids across the surface of Terra, the Celestials arrived to experiment on them in the same way they had already experimented on the Skrulls, the Kree, and the Kryptonians among others. The Celestials first created the Deviants, but then they created the Eternals and tasked them with helping to develop civilization and promote the growth of intelligent life on Terra. The Eternals attempted to help guide Neanderthals to higher forms of civilization but they never advanced and the Atlanteans had already received their guidance from Poseidan. The Eternals built their city of Titanos in the continent that would become North America. They remained isolated until the fall of Lemuria and the exile of Humans from Eden to the Thurian continent. Some Eternals returned to the Thurian continent to assist in developing Thurian civilization, but many retained their isolationist stance.
The Deviants bred like rabbits, unlike the Eternals who could not reproduce on their own by the design of the Celestials. However, the Eternals could resurrect themselves if they were killed. After the collapse of Lemurian civilization led by evil intelligences beyond the comprehension of any natural thing and the retreat of the Eternals, the Deviants took control of Lemurian civilization. They raised armies with levels of technology that only the Eternals could match at that time. They conquered the Thurian continent with little resistance from the Neanderthals and Thurians who lived there and then crossed to the Atlantean continent. The Deviants almost completed their conquest of the known world until they came to the city-state of Netheria, with its impenetrable dome that protected its inhabitants. The Eternals came to Netheria's aid but saw that the enemy numbers were too great, so they called the Celestials to stop the Deviant's conquest.
Adam and Lilith were the first Homo sapiens and they were raised in the Garden of Eden by the Hebrew God Jehova, to be a mated pair. Jehova had deemed that Adam should determine the order of the biosphere in Eden, while Lilith should name all that was in His Creation. They were called the emanations of the right of God's throne, while another Lilith and Samael, later known as Lucifer, were the emanations of the left of His throne. God's only command to Adam and Lilith was not to eat the fruits from the trees of knowledge and wisdom. Adam wanted dominion over everything else in Eden, including Lilith. She believed she was created from the same earth as Adam and demanded to be her husband’s equal. She rebelled from her role as the subservient and left Eden, and several days later she was replaced by a new woman that Adam named Eve. The serpent tempted Eve to break the 1 commandment Jehova had given them, and she convinced Adam to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge with her. Jehova cast them out of the Heaven Realm and deposited them on Terra where they encountered Neanderthals and learned the basics of survival and spiritualism. They developed their own civilizations, such as the fabled Valusia, until the Deviants began their campaign of conquest.
Terra wasn't the first planet that the Celestials visited. Before experimenting on hominids, the Celestials had visited Skrullos where they created Deviant and Eternal Skrulls. They visited Hala where they created Deviant and Eternal Kree. They also visited Krypton and several other worlds throughout the universe. Shortly after the children of Adam and Eve began to procreate and populate the Thurian continent, the Kree came to Terra and decided to experiment on Homo sapiens using a process that was used to evolve their species. They used a catalyst called Primagen, which created the first Inhumans on Earth and built a controlled environment to study the results. Their test environment was a city named Atillan. Eventually, the Inhuman experiments were ended by the Kree Empire so they could focus entirely on the wars they had started on many fronts in the universe. The Inhumans remained isolated in Atillan, even when the Eternals called the Celestials back to Earth to deal with the Deviant conquest.
The Celestials called the Second Host, where all but 1 of the gathered beings determined that the Deviants must be exterminated after they attacked their creators. The Celestial who sided with the Deviants, Tiamut, fought her peers but was killed in the attack that flooded the Thurian continent and caused the sinking of the continent of Mu, the Lemurian Isles, and Atlantis. This is known as the Great Cataclysm by the other hominids, and it inspired many flood myths. Tiamut's body was buried beneath what would later become Northern California, and many Atlanteans and Homo sapiens survived only by the intervention of the Eternal Utnapishtim, who built an ark to escape the flood. The devastation of the attack changed the landscape entirely, connecting what would later be Eurasia with Africa, forming Hyboria and beginning the Hyborian Age.
The survivors from Utnapishtim's Ark were delivered in the Northeast. The descendants of Atlantis, Adam, and Eve who survived migrated and interbred to a degree to become the Hyborian people. As they spread across the Hyborian supercontinent, they encountered the remains of Lemurian societies now called Shem, Stygia, Hyrkania, and Khitan among others, and the Black Kingdoms and tribes in the far South. The surviving bloodlines of the cataclysm continued to interbreed, diversifying and further diversifying the cultures and phenotypes of the Hyborean peoples. Neanderthals still roamed the wilderness and evolved slightly in the region known as Hyperborea.
At this time, two new hominids arrived on Terra that had not been seen before. The Vanir were a red-haired hominid group in the far Northwest that were aggressive isolationists in the icy wastes. The Aesir appeared to the East of them, were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and were strong but outgoing. Many other peoples across Hyboria feared the Aesir and the Vanir, but it wasn't known that these were the fledgling Asgardians, Norse gods, and the ancestors of Odin, Thor, and Loki. It's unclear if they evolved from Terrans or were somehow stranded among the Hyborians but their strength and power were evident from the start. These beings played a major role in the events of the Hyborian Age, especially at the end when the Picts conquered most of the Hyborian nations and the Hyrkanians invaded from the East to conquer Shem, Stygia, and most of the Kingdoms to the South. The Vanir and Aesir struck back to end the violence before the Neolithic revolution and the coming Ice Age.
Current Species & Cultures
Homo sapiens or Terrans are the most prevalent species on Earth and have a variety of cultures across the seven continents. Their history is very similar to ours except the Celestials unlocked the X-gene in their genome, unleashing their biotic potential so that they could become all sorts of amazing things. It can be assumed that if it has happened in the history of Earth-1218 then it has happened in Earth-196169 unless otherwise noted.
From the unlocking of the X-gene, named after Professor Charles Xavier who was credited with discovering it, Terrans split into 2 subspecies, Homo sapien sapiens and Homo sapien superior or mutants. Unlike Inhumans, Atlanteans, Eternals, and Deviants, mutants began developing extraordinary abilities without intervention. Metahumans started emerging as soon as the Ice Age began from the pairings of 2 normal Terrans, a Terran, and a mutant, or mutants. These powers usually develop near adolescence and are at least discovered - if not triggered - by moments of great stress. Mutants have always been pariahs in their communities because of their powers and because they often have physical abnormalities. Before the age of reason, they were mistaken for demons, witches, or monsters of myth. That superstition was replaced with outright bigotry and xenophobia as our understanding of science, biology, and genetics advanced. Mutants are often the scapegoated minority for all of the major problems in society, and the institutions of human society do what they can to keep them out of positions of power. Many mutants have formed independent nations such as Genosha, Krakoa, Utopia, and Mutant Town. The Hellfire Club and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters have petitioned for diplomatic immunity to provide asylum to mutants, which has never been ratified by Congress but has been respected by executive order under various presidential administrations. Mutants struggle for equal rights and protections under the law in almost every nation.
For nearly 20 millennia, the Atlanteans remained under the Western Sea, which was eventually named after their sunken continent. A continent that was believed to be a myth by the time World War II broke out and the Empire of Atlantis was littered with battleships from the surface angering Prince Namor. Namor became known as the Sub-Mariner to the surface dwellers and disobeyed his Emperor's orders in his attempt to destroy the armies of the surface. Namor’s first target was New York City where he faced off against the original Human Torch and Captain America. When the two surface heroes discovered why the Atlantean prince attacked, they changed their tactic to befriending him. A bold move that would have failed if it wasn’t for an NYPD officer who informed the Sub-Mariner that it was the Nazis, not the Allies, who started this war and were committing genocide. Namor returned to the Emperor and rallied the forces of Atlantis to assist in the war effort. After the defeat of the Axis, Atlantis has been aggressively isolationist and usually only threatened aggression when the sanctity and purity of the oceans are at stake.
The Lemurians still exist but their legacy is much more potent than their kingdom. The Lemurian people also evolved over the millennia in isolation under the sea. They and the Atlanteans evolved into several different phenotypes, some more specific to individuals, and some almost classifying whole new subspecies of Homo mermanus. The Lemurians have taken on many amphibious and aquatic features that Atlanteans never did because of their Deviant heritage and Hekate’s curse. The Lemurian Kingdom is in a consistent state of regime change. The Mu who went to battle the Orenbegans nearly half the world away are now indentured to the military junta Arachnos, led by the authoritarian dictator Lord Recluse. They still hold eons of lore that have been lost to most of humanity, much of which members still loyal to the Chthonic gods keep hidden even from their patron inside Arachnos, Scirocco. The needs of Lemurians are numbered and varied, and with every generation of Mu Mystics, more turn away from their Chthonic patrons.
The Eternals have continued to be among the Terrans since the first thinking hominids walked the Earth. The Mad Titan Thanos murdered the Eternals on Titan and wandered the universe acting as a pirate, warlord, and genocidal madman. The Uranian Eternals were nearly destroyed in an invasion and their survivors returned to Earth. In secrecy, they and the Atlanteans built and maintained their undersea empire. In the last 50 years, they had to face the Fourth Host and decided to stand against the Celestials as the Deviants had in 18,000 BCE with the help of the Asgardian people. They had spent most of the Current Era in hiding, not interfering in human affairs as was the agreement the Celestials had made with the Olympians and the Hebrew God Jehova. After revealing themselves, a rogue Eternal decided to revive Tiamut, the Dreaming Celestial worshipped by the Deviants. Many Eternals were killed in these battles and Tiamut summed the Horde, which infected the other Celestials and turned them on the Eternals. Mutants sided with the Celestials, since the Sokovia Accords and the Superhuman Registration Act had ended the Justice League, and the Avengers, destroyed the Horde and defeated Tiamut.
After the Second Host and the Great Cataclysm, most Deviants retreated into Subterranea. Though Leviathan still roamed the seas, other Deviants stayed in the oceans and raided the surface world out of malice and greed. When the Third Host arrived, the surface Deviants had established new kingdoms and other territories, and new wars with the Eternals had erupted. The Celestials ordered the gods of Asgard and Olympus to no longer interfere with the progress of the Terrans. The Eternals and the Deviants called a truce in their war until the Fourth Host to ease the minds of the 2 pantheons that had been forced to step down. The Olympians seemed to accept moving on to other places and other worlds. The Asgardians, however, couldn't keep from coming to Midgard's aid when it was needed. When a Rogue Eternal resurrected Tiamut, the Deviants went into prayer for deliverance and when Tiamut was destroyed, the Deviants were lost and without their deity.
The City of Atillan changed locations many times after the Great Cataclysm to avoid contact with the savage civilizations of Hyboria and early Eurasia. The Inhumans began a coordinated effort to reverse engineer the process that empowered their ancestors, eventually creating Terrigen Crystals. Terrigenesis was made available to all citizens of Atillan at first, but many didn't want it, so they left and created their own isolated settlements. When the first physical abnormalities emerged after Terrigenesis, biological tests were developed on Atillan to determine who would get Terrigenesis and who wouldn't. Terran civilization expanded to every habitable corner of the planet as the biosphere became more hospitable, and the Inhumans started running out of places to stay isolated. Atillan was then relocated to the Blue Area of the Moon near the Citadel of the Watcher until political upheaval led to its downfall. Now, they are building a new home near Honolulu.