Society that knows God

I swear this is not a rip off from Avatar. I had this idea way before that movie. This is actually a relic from Tero Ne's background story.

So as I've described, the elves and humans are very different in her world. They are the difference between wine and beer, both alcoholic but with way different connotations and flavors. But as both elves and humans are humanoid with fairly compatible biology and do interact any more, of course there could and would be interracial relationships. Over time this would blend the two cultures through half-elf children. So I decided to prevent that by allowing their biology to bear children but very specifically. (I had this idea checked by a biologist and as extreme as it sounds, he deemed it plausible.)


The children of these human/elf pairings would all be female. They would have a perfect blend between their parents' features, i.e. shorter ears than elves but pointed compared to humans. Biologically I was toying with the idea that they have two sets of cells like the modern day chimera condition. They would be fertile but their children would revert back to the father's race and be more of a blend between the half-elf's human parent and the father, eliminating any trace of the opposite race. The lack of male half elves would prevent a growing population of half elves and this biology would prevent a third culture from muddying up the two precedents.

 Now you are wondering why I am talking about races and how half elves work when that's not what the title of the entry is at all. But I promise there is a train of thought here.

So in this fantasy realm, I played with the idea that the creator (within the realm's mythos, not me) actually imprints onto every soul that he places into the world. Every soul fundamentally knows that there is a god, a higher being that controls aspects outside of the physical world. Now, as they were only fledgling souls that were immediately placed into a baby's forming body, people don't have a clear picture of who he is. So while everyone can agree that there is a god, there are various translations and interpretations of him. Is he human, elven, animal, female, nature, active or passive, etc. What exactly does he have control over? Is he currently watching and directing events in their lives or remains a passive observer? Did he once walk among them? Does he do so now? Then is where religious sects, probably fairly regional, would develop to create the religious/political structure of the world (which I don't really have defined beyond the idea of city states (imagine ancient Greece).

Part of Tero Ne's story is that she actually gets to meet the creator. I forget how or why but she actually is temporarily transported to his plane of existence (probably just spiritually but in a very concrete interactive way). She gets to meet him face to face.

And finds out that he appears as a male half elf. (I told you it was relevant.)

I want him to be fairly young and fresh and actually kinda immature. He's gotten bored with watching the mortal realm and so while he still greets every outgoing soul, he doesn't follow them down. He has no idea how the religious structure has developed, how it has caused strife, how his creations are faring, humanoid, animal, plant, planet. Tero is actually something of a wake-up call for him and he manages to get interested enough to help out a little but he's actually kinda impressed at how his creations have grown and what they have created. So he'll stop the major terrible disasters where he can and within reason but for the most part he is now consciously letting the realm function on its own.

I think he helps Tero out with her destructive powers, giving her greater control or something, before returning her to the physical realm. Of course no one is going to believe her that their creator is a male half-elf because those don't exist so Tero doesn't really do anything except record her story and put it into a library.

But the social implications of everyone knowing that there is a being of higher power out there are interesting. I think the biggest thing that would be affected would be the innate moral code everyone has. We are driven by the sense of good and evil and define rules based on assumptions of what is good and evil and if you do evil you will be punished if not by those around you, then by something greater than you.

It would also be interesting to see how science would fare. If researchers would really dig down into the hows and whys of the physical world or would they be willing to chalk it up to the mystical work of the god they know exists. I'm pretty sure I've given my view on this. That science can discover the rules that God set up for this universe, but honestly a lot of scientific research is conducted by those who don't believe there is a higher power out there and history actually has plenty of examples were religion stamps down on scientific discovery because it did not agree with the current accept view (Galileo).

I wonder if there would still be a group that rejected the possibility even though they can feel his imprint on their soul. Probably.

EDIT: Sorry for the late post, I apparently had it queued up to the wrong day, damnit.