Surely in their long time on our planet, some of the D'ni must have explored the world and created other settlements in different places. It would be really exciting to discover such remains in e.g. Europe or central Africa.

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Nomen Luni wrote:

Surely in their long time on our planet, some of the D'ni must have explored the world and created other settlements in different places. It would be really exciting to discover such remains in e.g. Europe or central Africa.

An interesting thought, but the path the the surface (particularly the Great Shaft) was only built towards the end of the lifetime of their civilization. The Great Shaft was completed shortly before Anna discovered it... the D'ni never used it, and Anna was the only outsider to have discovered it.

The D'ni cavern is in the same area as Carlsbad caverns, so I suppose it's possible that the occasional D'ni over the years has found their way to the surface, but these would probably be lone individuals. Doubtful enough to make a full colony.

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When Ri'Neref & his followers first moved to D'ni from Garternay, they installed a series of large fans to circulate air. This air came from a number of tunnels, sub-caverns, & other caves (possibly including the Carlsbad Caverns), some leading all the way to the Surface. Upon completion of the fans, a small group of workers disappeared. Many of the D'ni at the time, and afterward, believed that they made it to the Surface, and either couldn't return, or for some reason chose not to return. But the D'ni government held to the end that no D'ni had ever made it to the Surface. Otherwise, D'ni history makes it clear that the Tunnels & Shaft were the first attempt made at reaching the Surface.

Anna/Ti'ana raised Atrus in the Cleft, right next to the opening to the Shaft. If any other D'ni Survivors had come to the Surface, I'm sure Anna & Atrus would've stayed with them (or vice-versa), or we would at least have some kind of record of this event. As for the vanishing workers from Ri'Neref's days...

In one of Gehn's Journals from Riven, he spoke of the Amad, the Surface-dwelling people of his wife, Keta:

"The construction of the imagers has proceeded without fault. It is interesting to see how easily I've been able to adapt the D'ni technology to mimic that of the Amad; in some ways the similarities between the two cultures was striking. I wonder if perhaps there had been communication or commerce between the two cultures in earlier times; maybe Keta's people were even descendants of the D'ni. It pleases me to think so."

Surface-dwellers, around the turn of the 19th Century, in New Mexico, with any kind of electrical technology (let alone imager technology) sounds positively absurd---unless there had been D'ni influence.

There are also several things in Native American culture from the region that could point to this. The name "Pueblo" was given to that tribe by the Spanish, but the Navajo people called them "Anasazi", meaning "ancient strangers" or "ancient aliens". Additionally, the Anasazi believed that their ancestors originally came from underground, through sacred openings to the underworld. Underground pits in Anasazi dwellings, called "Kivas" (afterwhich the 4 pits in Minkata are called), symbolized these openings.

And as discussed in the "Ancestral Pueblo and D'ni" thread in this Forum:

"Some modern Pueblo people in the Southwest still use the kiva as their holy chamber, and among those who speak the language of Tewa, the kiva is called te'i, 'the place of the cottonwood tree.' The kiva is thought to be a bridge between the underworld and the world above, and the hole traditionally placed in the kiva floor, just beyond the deflector stone and in front of the ladder, represents a place of emergence. In Tewa this hole is called p'okwi koji, 'the lake roof hole,' which leads up from a mysterious underground lake...."

This reference to a Tree is very interesting, and the reference to an underground lake is incredibly striking.

It's hard to say how far any Surface-dwelling D'ni could have traveled without much in the way of technology, but considering the D'ni Year 0 began on April 24, 7657 BC, their descendants could've traveled quite far. On the other side of the globe, "Uru" was a word in ancient Sumerian for "Deep City", and Sumerian legend tells of a great underground people.

Finally, in Dr. Watson's account of the rediscovery & early restoration of the D'ni Cavern, he said this about Elias Zandi:

"It was this meeting in the city where I realized that Elias and I differed on our views of the future of D’ni. It appeared to me that he was taking some rather extreme view regarding restoring the city to its 'original glory' and re-inhabiting it with people who called themselves D’ni. He said things like 'We feel the call, for many of us have the blood of D’ni within us, and it calls us home.' I must say that I understood some of what he was espousing, but not the extreme to which he was taking it."

The D'ni had no "official" or "sustained" contact with the Surface, so I would hardly say that they had any "colonies". But there is evidence that descendants of the early D'ni walk among us...

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Ya' know, ancient "advanced" civilizations has long been an interest of mine. Historicly speaking, there are quite a few ancient cultures that show striking similarities to one another although it is believed they had no contact with each other. Taking local variations into account, there is a small group of people who've come to believe that during the last Ice Age, there was a group of advanced cultures connected by trade that shared knowledge, only to be wiped out when sea levels rose as the Ice Age ended. Many of them are marked by the use of advanced mathmatics, architecture, astronomy, technology that wasn't suppose to exist at the time. (I'm sure that everyone has heard of the Egyptian Clay Jar battery for example, or the Antikythera).

Also taking into account that many myths and legends point to great teachers arriving from across the sea among primitive peoples and teaching them the skills of civilization. When all the evidence is considered, the idea of a few members of a technologically advanced civilization traveling among the primitive tribes of the world (who would later develope into the great ancient cultures of Egypt, The Khmer of Cambodia, The Easter Islanders, the inhabitants of Chichen Itza, the builders of Stone Henge, Avebury, and the megaliths of Europe, The Hohokum of North America's Great Plains), is not so far fetched.

The D'ni are known to be extremely long-lived in comparison to Earthlings, pale-skinned from living underground (look up a description of Quetzlcoatl or the "pale-skinned" visitors who arrived on Easter Island and note the similarities), and possessed an advanced knowledge of a great many things. It is possible that they, or their descendants could have passed parts of that knowledge onto the people with whom they dwelt IF any of them had made it to the surface after installing the great ventilation fans. Such workers would've had a knowledge of construction techniques, mathematics, surverying, stone working...some among them may have practiced astronomy as a hobby, and coupled that with their building techniques would explain why many ancient structures are so precisely aligned with certain stars, constellations, or Sunrise/Moonrise on the Solstices and Equinoxes.

Just a theory, mind you......

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I like your thinking. I'm not so well learnt in the Native American cultures, I mean to get around to, but your arguement does appears to string together a possible thread of D'ni activity in human history. I would much like to research the D'ni timeline and D'ni invention to see how it may or may not be possible for the D'ni to reach Eurasia, Africa and Far East Asia from the Cleft.

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chrissifniotis wrote:

I like your thinking. I'm not so well learnt in the Native American cultures, I mean to get around to, but your arguement does appears to string together a possible thread of D'ni activity in human history. I would much like to research the D'ni timeline and D'ni invention to see how it may or may not be possible for the D'ni to reach Eurasia, Africa and Far East Asia from the Cleft.

I just seem to collect odd little bits of history and archeaology as I go through life. For example, we now know that humans have been "Sea Faring" far longer than previously believed. An 8000 year old peice of Bitumen was found a couple years back (as I recall) with the imprint of bundled reeds left in it. The archeaologist who found it believes this to be from a reed boat, similar to those still in use in South America....but the date of the find has pushed the timeline of when humans roamed the seas much farther back. Now couple that little factoid with the appearance of the Olmec Stone Heads that show facial features not typical of humans native to South America, but more closely resemble African and European features. I also heard that genetic tests are showing a link between Australian Aborigines and coastal South American tribes suggesting that people from what is now australia may have reached South America via ocean travel approximately 8000 years ago in these reed boats.

I think a lot of folks tend to look at the small bits and peices of the ancient past that have surfaced, and they fight over what they could mean. But they fail to step back and take in all the evidence we have at once. In other words they fail to try and see The Whole, or the big picture. There appears to be quite a lot of evidence from all over the world showing that at least one, if not many, great cultures developed during the last Ice Age when sea levels were as much as 366 feet lower than they are today. The numerous marine archeaological sites being discovered (now that people are looking underwater for them) attest to this. Yonaguni, the sunken temples off the coast of Turkey, the village discover in the Bay of Cambay off the coast of India....Ancient cart ruts that go right into the ocean in the mediterranian. The evidence we have definitely shows human habitation below current sea level, and the only way that is possible is either an extinct species of humans that could breath under water (not likely) or these settlements had to have been built when the water was much lower (during the last ice age with that water was locked up in the glaciers). Also consider that at such a time, distances over water would've been shorter than today, and much more likely that a person with a knowledge of ship-building and navigation could've traveled from Africa or Australia to North or South America......or vice versa. And if said person had had a longer lifespan, they could've simply traveled much slower, teaching the locals as they went. Great civilizations mentioned in myths and legends could very well have existed, only to have been wiped out by a natural catastrophe, plunging humanity into an as yet unknown Dark Age where knowledge was lost, not to be rediscovered for thousands of years. We have to remember that the city of Troy was once considered to be only a "myth" until it was found by Heinrich Schleiman and proven to exist.

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"Sometimes they way you THINK it is, isn't the way it actually is at all." --St. Orin--

The aforementioned thread "Ancestral Pueblo and D'ni" has gone in a similar thread as this one. I think the most distinct problem we have is the time period that we know that some of the D'ni had escaped. This would've put the D'ni in the Southwest during hunter-and-gathering cultures, 7500bce, and civilizations didn't rise until thousands of years later in that area. Anyway, not having to rehash the whole conversation here's the link.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17868

Monkeyboy wrote:

The aforementioned thread "Ancestral Pueblo and D'ni" has gone in a similar thread as this one. I think the most distinct problem we have is the time period that we know that some of the D'ni had escaped. This would've put the D'ni in the Southwest during hunter-and-gathering cultures, 7500bce, and civilizations didn't rise until thousands of years later in that area. Anyway, not having to rehash the whole conversation here's the link.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17868

At least one civilization I know of was "attempted" in that area, and apparenently abandonned by it's people. That would be the aforementioned "Hohokum" ruins. We know nothing about the Hohokum, including what they called themselves before abandonning an agricultural lifestyle. Hohokum is, if I remember correctly, either a Hopi or Navajo word meaning "Those who vanished." Daniel Quinn,one of my favorite authors, talks about the Hohokum as an example of a people that modern civilized folks just can't understand for having tried a settled, farming lifestyle, and then abandoning it, presumably in favor of a hunter/gatherer lifestlye prevelant among the people of that time. He theorized that the nomadic life in that area was simply less work and more pleasant than the toil of farming.

One might look at it in another way. The native peoples of the area could've been shown how to build irrigation canals and how to farm by some of those D'ni workers, but found it to be less suitable than the nomadic lifestyle of their people. Telling the pale strangers they didn't like their ways, the D'ni may have decided to travel onward until they found other more receptive to a settled "civilized" life-style. Introducing a new cultural element doesn't always have the same effect in one area as it does in another. For example, the Sioux Nation (the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota peoples) were farmers in the eastern woodlands before being driven further west to the great plains. When they encountered horse and learned to ride, they took up a nomadic lifestyle..... other tribes who encountered horses ranched them for meat instead of learning to ride them. Same cultural element (horses in this case), different people with a different way of thinking, different results.

But rather than discussing how the D'ni might've influence the tribal cultures of North America (because, as you pointed out, such a thread on that subject already exists) here we can look at how a few D'ni who chose to live above ground may have influence the apparent rise of an advanced civilization or group of civilizations during the last Ice Age around the globe. Just becuase an agrarian society didn't take root in the Southwest of North America, doesn't necessarily mean that their technology, knowledge, and ideas might not have been more readily accepted among the Olmec's of South America, Ancient Minoa on the Island of Crete, the people who inhabited the Island of Akroteri (aka Thera) before it's volcano blew it's top, or even the ancient Egyptians. What I was pointing out is that many writers and archeaologists have noted similarities between ancient cultures that supposedly had no contact with each other, but MAY HAVE BEEN INFLUENCED by an earlier Parent Culture that was destroyed at the end of the last Ice Age by rising sea levels or another disaster such as an earthquake or a volcanic eruption. A culture that exihibits evidence of advanced knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, engineering, science, and art to name a few.

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"Sometimes they way you THINK it is, isn't the way it actually is at all." --St. Orin--

Quote:

At least one civilization I know of was "attempted" in that area, and apparenently abandonned by it's people.

Actually in the SW there were quite a few that were attempted and then later abandoned. As stated, the Hohokam which occupied the Phoenix area of Arizona for about 1500 years, which had large populated areas with beautiful irrigation techniques and grew an assortment of foods. The Anasazi (or Ancient Pueblo), of course, from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, which the lasted for about 1000 years. The Mogollon from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico who lasted between 1000 and 1500 years. There was also the Salado which lasted for about 300 years. All of which ended nearly at the same time give or take a hundred years. The common denominator is drought. Which would, as many of the cultures in the SW or even around the world tend to do, lead to hunter-gatherer lifestyle if they can't grow food to sustain. Not to say, any culture group will want to do agriculture, or want to hunter and gather, there are many aspects to culture that rules the way groups of people will act.

Quote:

Introducing a new cultural element doesn't always have the same effect in one area as it does in another.

Absolutely! Looking at McDonald's around the world, a purely American cultural identity, and look how and what it serves around the world in different cultures. Beer in Germany, or the Mc Teriyaki burger in Japan. Cultures take elements of things being introduced to it and accepts some things and drop others. And not all things that seem beneficial to a society is accepted.

Quote:

But rather than discussing how the D'ni might've influence the tribal cultures of North America (because, as you pointed out, such a thread on that subject already exists) here we can look at how a few D'ni who chose to live above ground may have influence the apparent rise of an advanced civilization or group of civilizations during the last Ice Age around the globe. Just becuase an agrarian society didn't take root in the Southwest of North America, doesn't necessarily mean that their technology, knowledge, and ideas might not have been more readily accepted among the Olmec's of South America, Ancient Minoa on the Island of Crete, the people who inhabited the Island of Akroteri (aka Thera) before it's volcano blew it's top, or even the ancient Egyptians.

But being D'ni is under New Mexico one would only assume they would have influenced cultures near that area. North American cultures would be closest and more than likely influenced one way or another. The D'ni would have been on foot, not having the resources of the Cavern to move very far away. I would assume it would have been possible after a few generations to get to farther places like the southern tip of South America. They could have influenced the Olmec as they were in Mexico, not in South America. However, all of these cultures didn't rise at a time when the D'ni may have surfaced, as I pointed out earlier. So, if looking for a culture that was influenced by the D'ni, North America would not be it if looking at the time frame when the fans and shafts to the surface were being built in the Cavern which in Earth time it would have been approx. 7500BCE. Or as DocOlana has pointed out during the fall of D'ni groups possibly came to the surface in the mid 1700's AD. Without proof of other times of groups of D'ni going to the surface I fear we can only use those dates.

So, I suppose we would have to look at those dates and possibly dates from the 7500BCE date to account for the long lives of the D'ni. Where in the world could cultures during those times been influenced? and could those cultures been influenced taking in consideration of travel from New Mexico? How did the get there? Another item we may have to take into consideration is what technologies would those groups of D'ni had known during that time and which may have been picked up by the influenced cultures?
With these restrictions we would have to look and see which possible civilizations are around those times. There may have been an early enough civi in S. America. I don't have enough knowledge of the area to know. Then over there in the old world, one would have to research those groups and see. I just don't know without a few trips around the internet and the local library.

I hope this isn't too far off-topic, but I found an interesting link, regarding an real ancient Australian tribe known as... the Uru.

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There's a community of that name in Bolivia as well, with some interesting features. I found them while researching a story about something quite else.

Here's an article about them.

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"What you still don't understand I have either forgotten to tell you or don't know myself."

I've always been fond of the idea that the D'ni who vanished during the construction of the vent shafts became the Atlantians of legend.

Atlantis was supposed to have existed about 10,000 years ago, roughly corresponding with the D'ni arrival on Earth. They were, by Plato's accounts, quite advanced scientifically and militarily. Though the D'ni themselves became by-and-large passive, the colony would have first-generation memory of the Garternay culture, and may have followed a path more like the Terahnee, becoming aggressive and dominant. According to Plato, it was Atlantis' attempt and failure to conquer and enslave Greece that led to it's distruction.

Supposedly, Atlantis was governed by 10 brothers, and their descendants. What if, instead of brothers, they were Guild Masters? I could, rather easily, par 18 guilds down to 10, combining some and eliminating others, particularily those that applied to the Art. On the fly, this is what I came up with:

Remaining Guilds
Archivists
Cartographers/Surveyors
Caterers
Chemists
Engineers/Mechanists
Healers
Legislators
Linguists
Maintainers
Messengers

Gone
Analysts
Book Makers
Ink Makers
Miners
Stone Masons
Writers

As to the name "Atlantis" The D'ni words "oglan tiwa" mean "ancient shaft". Distant generations of the colony could refer to it as such, and which could, over many centuries, change pronunciation into what Plato knew.

Other possibilities:
"golantan" - judge
"kahntintan" - oppressors
"oolintahn" - control

I could buy that

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Hmm, interesting idea. I'll look into the Altantis myth and try to bring forward the known history and 'location' of it.

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As of April 2013.