Happy Thursday August 17, 2017 and welcome to the Enter Civilands blog 🙂 Today I’ll be continuing on the topic of my inspiration behind the Civilands series with part 2 of the thread. Feel free to check out part 1, in which I talk about how this story was impacted by everyone’s favorite: Game of Thrones. Also, I am really excited to say that I’ll be expanding Enter Civilands to YouTube soon and have some juicy character bios in the works which should include portraits of each of the main P.O.V. characters!
So what was the next thing that inspired the series . . ?
Manifest Destiny.
Epics like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings define the fantasy genre. They create worlds where anything is possible and the stakes are tremendous because of it. But at the same time, they got me thinking: why are fantasy stories mostly so focused on the medieval time period?
Now granted, there is probably some kind of historical background or something behind it that I’m sure avid historians would yell like the answer is one everybody should know–all the power to you and you’re probably right, my historian friends! But whatever the explanation is, it couldn’t satisfy me to hear.
And thus, Civilands digs into this time period–this wild, controversial, pre-industrial time period. What it reveals along the way is the spirit that inspired all the chaos, cruelty, and romanticism of the era. That spirit comes to life because:
From the first days of colonization, we have thought it our privilege and our destiny to go west.
Whether it was for wealth, for power, or even just for a new life altogether, people have always and will always view the west as a territory unexplored. And in that there are so many uncertainties.
- There could be people there who we’re unfamiliar with . . . Will we learn from them, with them, or at their expense?
- There could be wildlife there that could be incredibly dangerous or equally docile . . . Will we adapt to it, slaughter it, or let it eat us alive?
- The land itself could be plentiful or it can be barren . . . Will we explore its majesty, cultivate and create, or starve and destroy?
But these questions do not stop us and they will never stop us.
So we go forth anyway because it’s thrilling. Because even if there is danger, we want to say we faced it and came out alive or even stronger. Because the things we can see along the way are not what we’re accustomed to and it’s in our nature to conquer.
There is opportunity in it too—much more so than if you stay home. Your opportunity is bred from a dream of power. Power that you don’t experience now here as an ordinary citizen. But there? There you can become anything, good or bad, and you will find your true nature along the way. You might not make it out alive at all. But you could become a king. You could become a god.
Of course, you aren’t a god and never will be.
You think you’re stronger than you are and your desire for change and for power pushes you to do things you might not otherwise.
What if the land you sought for was not like our own? What if its inhabitants had abilities that you didn’t have and fought back in ways you couldn’t? How would you react to them and could you justify this life over the simplicity of an already developed city back east? Will your moral code need to be broken along the way or will you hold true? What about the ones you love? Will you be able to give them what they need in this hectic environment? Will you even be able to maintain sight of that?
This is what’s explored through Latera and Hanzah of the native V’ahani clan; through Elan and Malik of the native Tokali clan; through the Morrells, Keagans, and others who each come to the Murrieta Territory for something different–or is it really that different?
I really hope you dive in with me on the journey and find out!
Thanks so much for reading and hope you’re enjoying the Civilands series 🙂 Let me know what you thought in the comments below and/or feel free to share it if you enjoyed!
