Deep City Lecture

[Jules Lavisham]

It's definitely a leg in the Trousers of Time that I wouldn't mind exploring, if just to see what might have been.

Looks like the Guild of Archivists have uploaded the full lecture here.

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

Prime fodder for an alternate history discussion, I'd bet!

Oh, that's good! I was hoping it'd get posted sooner than later!

[Traveler263]

It looks likeThe Wiki page for the Mee-Dis war has been updated, as an fyi.

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

That's good. A fascinating read!

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

I've had a few thoughts on D'ni Cults.

Given everything we learned about the Mee-Dis war with the lecture the other day, I've been thinking about the timing of it, as well as possible implications given certain religious sites we've seen over the years.

We know that at one point, the D'ni had somewhere around 2000 or so cults active at a time- a majority of the famous ones seem to be deviations of the Yahvo religion, but then there are others that we've heard only whispers about, others we've begun to uncover pieces of, and beyond that, surely not every Cult was a deviation of the original existing narratives. There were going to be those Cults and Deviant Sects that diverged greatly from what was considered normal.

Of the Cathedral Island site Calum discovered last October, we know that the place was once home to such a cult- its whole religion seeming to be lifted directly from the religious history of an associated Age. When Calum discovered the place, it had clearly been scrubbed to some degree of the original artwork and thematic imagery, long before it had been raided by the lone surviving family member who'd once lived there.

With deliberate erasure to one of the wall murals, the stowing away of multiple paintings within a vault, and certain more explicit pieces of artwork being hidden away behind moving walls and puzzle locks... I also suspect many of the original religious statues had their more explicit traits scrubbed clean at some point, were defaced, or were otherwise 'obscured' by being hidden among statues of other events or depictions. There's a very interesting statue that's had its head and one of its arms removed with no clear reason as to why.

Given the fact that the religion in question Did come from an associated Age, or was borrowing the traits of that religion and throwing a more D'ni veil over them, I think we now have an idea of as to why this particular series of changes happened. At the time I began looking through the available documents, I'd suspected that something had happened to trigger such a mass desecration, but I hadn't considered the Mee-Dis war to be a potential candidate for why the Cathedral was renovated into a private home instead of remaining a Cathedral.

If the Cults were being squashed out at that point in D'ni history, many would be forced to go underground, especially if they were embracing religion from "outside" of D'ni as their own.

It's likely that if we ever come across other sites of more exotic, underground religions, we'll probably see similar attempts at 'disguising' the religion as something either more palatable, or flat out removed or hidden away. Over the course of time, these sites likely were either abandoned, adopted more 'mainstream' religions such as the teachings of Gish or The Watcher, or became something unrelated entirely. (Such as the visual dissonance of an old Pizza Hut building now being the home of, say, a bank on the Surface.)

All this reminds me, I ought to check with Calum if he's okay with me creating a thread about the Cathedral or not. I'd like to open that up to some more discussion in its own place.

[Jules Lavisham]

Interesting hypothesis, Kelsei, one deserving of greater scrutiny. It would make sense that the laws passed in the wake of the Mee-Dis War would cause a significant degree of self-censorship or rebranding to remain acceptable to what became the mainstream thinking of the time. A parallel from surface history would be the Roman Empire's conversion to Christianity under Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century AD.

Does make me think about those that refused to budge, neither adapting to exist in contemporary D'ni society or going underground. The implications that the D'ni state would be willing to suppress a religion by force if necessary - going as far as to desecrate their places of worship - well, there's some deeply worrying implications to unpack there, to say the least.

In any event, the idea of the post-monarchical years of D'ni society causing a scattering of the numerous non-Gish sects and organisations would chime with my own research into the field I undertook back during the Third Restoration, the sources of which I had to work with being deeply fragmentary at best. Trying to piece together anything resembling a coherent theological framework for any of them was next to impossible for me, and I suspect will remain so unless a significant trove is ever unearthed.

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

The laws declaring anything not state sanctioned as Heretical... well... That alone is cause for concern even on the Surface. It's a dangerous parallel, for sure.

I'm beginning to suspect the Chezahcen group were likely some of the liberal supporters of Lord Kedri's movement. They definitely seem to be the types to protect the interests of out-worlders over the D'ni superiority complex. (Oh how I'd seriously love to get my hands on a Book to the Age the religion came from for a more first hand look at things, see where the truth and fiction division line lies!)

I'm wondering what other cults of that type might have been related to Kedri's movement. Who might have been unrelated but caught in the crossfire? What kind of changes were made for survival, versus who were stamped out? So many questions...

I'd be fascinated to look at some of your research at some point, Jules.

[Jules Lavisham]

Between the years, the multiple hard drives and my self-confessed scattershot approach to file maintenance, I'd be hard pressed to recover much of what I was working on back then. But l'll be happy to share anything I do turn up.

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

Alas, the ravages of time do strike hard.

[Traveler263]

Huh. That's certainly a thought, Kels. I'd wondered what could have caused it at the Cathedral, and the Mee-Dis war does seem like a likely suspect.

(And yeah, go ahead and make that thread, I guess. I'd do it myself, but, eh, given I don't know how long it'll be before the place is ready... I just don't wanna pull the trigger on it *Too* Early, ya know? Use your judgement and free time on that one.)

---

Alas, Jules, I fear the ones who refused to budge were probably pushed into exile, or worse. Unfortunately, if there's anything the Mee-Dis war proves, it's that the D'ni weren't the saintly beings some folks thought they were. They were just as divided in spirit as the rest of us on the surface can be, and tragedies and traumas on a national scale can cause... A Whole Lot of emotional shifts in a people.

Sorry to hear about the Probable Data Loss. That's always a pain to deal with.