Topic: Kulthean Ancient History

[RandalThor]

Now, I know the written up history for Kulthea pretty-well (about as good as I do Earth history, yeah, kind of sad, but there it is) and I know that the First Era has been kept very mysterious. But, does Kulthea have the equivalent of a Jurassic era, or Triassic, etc...? Ice ages? How old is the planet itself? Is it a young world? Or old?

Yeah, I could make all this up myself, but I would love to hear what you have to say on the topic, Terry. Thanks for any input.

[RandalThor]

Bump.   

[Terry K. Amthor]

Now, I know the written up history for Kulthea pretty-well (about as good as I do Earth history, yeah, kind of sad, but there it is) and I know that the First Era has been kept very mysterious. But, does Kulthea have the equivalent of a Jurassic era, or Triassic, etc...? Ice ages? How old is the planet itself? Is it a young world? Or old?

Yeah, I could make all this up myself, but I would love to hear what you have to say on the topic, Terry. Thanks for any input.

Hi,

I haven't answered because, to be honest, I haven't given ancient Kulthean planetary history much thought. I haven't even completely resolved (that I recall) rationalizing Althan/human common ancestry (clearly they have one, though both claim to be native to their worlds, not to mention all the other common species). Lots of Portals long ago.

But just in general, Kulthea might be slightly younger than Earth (4 billion years or so), but after life evolved/appeared, I imagine that Kulthea's pre-history would be quite different. If the comet/asteroid had not hit Earth 65 million years ago, this planet might still be ruled by dinosaurs. So, meteor impacts cause mass extinctions, planetary shifts cause climate changes (though Kulthea does have huge Orhan as a stabilizer; I won't even go into how inherently unstable the rest of that moon system must be...). There have been ice ages and heating periods, but Kulthea is solidly in its sun's goldilocks zone.

Kulthea certainly would have had its share of planetary disasters; their solar system is a busier one than Earth's. At some point in fairly recent geologic history (within a few million years, or the crater formations would have eroded away) the micro black hole penetrated the planet.

That's all I got for now. Lots to work on.

[Alten]

In one of my compiled Kulthean chronologies, I found the following:

* ? A globe of granitic magma pushes through layers of suffocating rock and soil towards the planet’s surface. It never reaches the sun’s rays, because seawater washes the sands above. Yet a small finger of lava pours forth upon the ocean floor. Centuries pass, and the magma recedes, leaving a great hollow chamber where needle-fanged lantern fish, horn-beaked squid and electric ells swim after prey. Strange corals, requiring neither sunlight nor algae, sprout from pumice stones or float free in the currents. More time passes. The lands beneath the sea rise to become a desert ringed by mountains (Uj). The empty magma chamber, now a dry tomb for the bones of fishes, rests in undisturbed solitude. (Gethaena)

* -150 000 000 to -1 000 000. The Abarquan archipelago rises from the depths of the seas. (Oracle)

Then we "jump" to 80000 years before the end of the First Era, woth the arrival of the Lords of Orhan.

Dates are "before Kulthean present." The information may not be canon.

[RandalThor]

Thank you both, some interesting things to work from there.

I haven't answered because, to be honest, I haven't given ancient Kulthean planetary history much thought. I haven't even completely resolved (that I recall) rationalizing Althan/human common ancestry (clearly they have one, though both claim to be native to their worlds, not to mention all the other common species). Lots of Portals long ago.

I always thought that humans had been dragged to Kulthea by the spacefaring Althans (K'ta'viir) long ago, or like you said: a portal, but I do have another idea on that:

Humans didn't arrive on Kulthea until late in the Second Era when the Taranians crashed landed in their colony craft. (I would have the "Taranians" be a human sub-culture from Earth, or possibly a religious group fleeing persecution.) They did what they did in the official history, tried to stay hidden away from the existing cultures, but were dragged out of hiding by the Wars of Dominion. Their incredible technology would just be considered mighty magics by the locals and would have helped a lot against the forces of Unlife and the Dark Gods. Afterwards, staying away from the rest of the world was not an option, and they lost much of their technological base during the war, so they pretty-much had to join the rest of the peoples of Kulthea.

This means that the Second Era of Ire was dominated by Elves, they were the preeminent species of Kulthea, like the Althans/K'ta'viir were in the First Era. Now, with the decline of Elves due to the war, humans have become the dominant species during the current era, the Third Era.

Yes, this means that the various kingdoms of the world were originally elven nations, so the crowns, rods and swords of the Jamian kingdoms are connected to the original elven ruling families, which means that the current human rulers (who can attune the items) all have elven (royal) blood - which makes the current anti-elven attitudes of Rhakhaan somewhat funny.

Also, I think that 6,000 years of history during the Third Era is more than enough to understand why and how humans have spread so far across the face of the planet - especially since they started with a higher level of technology than we humans on Earth did, and they had help.  (Elves.)

Whatcha think? (As it pertains to ancient history, I will put something together and post it, and you guys can tell me what you think about it.)