https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2016/03/31/23/41/classroom-1297779_960_720.png # Discussion ## Recap In part one I laid out the purpose of this project. To be honest it boils down to ‘make some money’. Everyone could use some money right? I certainly could. Being on a fixed income, unemployed and probably ‘unhireable’ more than some. In part one I mentioned ‘write a story’ on Steem with the help of those who might be interested and then sell it on Amazon as part of Amazon Worlds. Amazon worlds is Fan Fiction in which other Authors are invited to play in the sandbox of proven best sellers. In this case I chose ‘Atlantis: The Origin Mystery by A.G. Riddle https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/tyler-website/Atlantis/s01.jpg The response to my proposal was underwhelming. I received four votes and two comments. One of the commenters brought up a good point. @vdegascomic said (and I quote) _Will Amazon accept it if it’s been published elsewhere?_ I answered in the affirmative. I’ve slept since then and now I’m not so sure. Will they? I dunno. I’ll just have to try and see. The worst thing that could happen is that I submit the story, they check it out, (they have bots that scan the internet) and they tell me “NO”. Of course I’ll be heartbroken and distraught. It will crush my fragile ego (not). The second installment, Writer’s Group: Let’s write a story together (part two) did MUCH better. It got 44 votes, but alas, only four comments and it was attacked by a vandal. Come ON people. Let’s get a discussion going here. Talk to me. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? Speak up. I’m not soliciting votes (although that would be nice) so much as soliciting discussion. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/09/23/08/51/head-953148_960_720.jpg # Why did I chose THIS book? Why did I chose THIS sandbox to play in? I find it intriguing. Let me explain. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/03/25/16/30/evolution-297234_960_720.png Scientists who examine such things say that about 74 thousand years ago mankind encountered a genetic bottleneck. They say that ALL humans are much more closely related to each other than one would expect. Everyone on the planet, all humans, are much more closely related to each other by DNA analysis than say, bears, Gorillas, Cats or Armadillos. ANY species of animal has ‘sub-species’ which while still of the same species are distinct. Except for man. There IS no subspecies of man. We are all human. Black, White, Brown, Red and Yellow it doesn’t matter. Pure cosmetic differences. Negligible. Why? Those Scientists hypothesize that the reason might be a Genetic Bottleneck. In other words everyone on the planet is descended from only a very few common ancestors. They do NOT mean millions of years ago. They mean thousands. Why would that be? Welp...one reason could be that everyone ELSE was killed off except for a very few, perhaps only a thousand breeding pairs, who lived in the Garden of Eden. Every primal culture have their "paradise lost' myths. Oddly enough most are much the same. The Garden of Eden of the Judeo-Christians that we are all familiar with repeats worldwide. Even the pygmy's of africa have one. http://freethoughtnation.com/garden-of-eden-originally-a-pygmy-myth/ They all contend that in the distant past their ancestors lived in paradise. A safe haven where everything was peaches and cream and god walked with them in the garden. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2012/05/07/01/37/creation-47473_960_720.png All of the 'first' cultures have them and have passed them down to their descendent cultures. The Judeo/Christian 'Garden of Eden". The Isn’t that odd? The Scientists speculate that paradise, the so called Garden Of Eden was in a safe place in South Africa. Safe from WHAT? Glad you axed that question. It so happens that Seventy Four thousand years ago the planet experienced the biggest volcanic explosion that it had had for millions of years. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2012/11/28/10/51/volcanic-eruption-67668_960_720.jpg See part one where it’s explained in more detail. And another thing. Mankind has existed for a quarter million years, give or take, biologically indistinguishable from what we are today. That means if it were possible a person from a thousand centuries ago, if he/she were here today, would look just like you and me. Dress him/her like you or me and they would blend into modern day society perfectly. Until had to interact. They were STOOPID by modern day standards. They had the same brains but it wasn’t wired the same. They had no significant language. They couldn’t think like we do. Etc. They were mentally on the same level as modern day apes. Something happened to change that. What? Dunno. There’s a bunchaton of speculation but we may never know. That’s what I’m A.G.Riddle wrote about. He speculated why that happened. That’s what I am writing about too. THAT’s what I’m talking about. What could have caused humans to become Sapient to the degree that we did almost overnight. Our ancestors were on par with apes then suddenly, almost instantly evolutionarily speaking, we weren’t. We were suddenly so far ahead of them that we were out of sight. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/11/20/07/55/thinking-1052567_960_720.jpg Why? THAT'S the story A.G.Riddle in Atlantis:The Origin Mystery postulates that ancient astronauts did it. OK let’s go with that. I’m writing a story. WE are writing a story about what might have happened then. What happened in the 60 thousand years between 75K years ago and 15K years ago. Other flavors of scientists tell us that during that time frame the earth was in large part covered in ICE. It was a time of continental glaciation. Gigantic Ice Sheets, two miles thick covered the northern hemisphere as far south as France. Almost all of Asia was under ice. Almost all of North America was too. Glaciers came further south than Chicago. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/11/07/11/32/glacier-1031225_960_720.jpg Note: the great lakes was scooped out by Ice then filled in by glacial melt. What was the Earth like during that time? For one thing a whole lotta watah was tied up in that ICE. The sea level was four hundred feet lower than it is today. The continental shelves were dry. Whole civilizations could have been built, survived for a hundred times longer than ours, and vanished from sight when the glaciers melted and the sea levels rose. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/08/06/19/10/apocalypse-411927_960_720.jpg Oh Wait! Every ancient culture has flood myths too. Noah’s ark is just one. There are hundreds. Every ‘first’ people speak of a time of horror when the world was flooded. When the glaciers melted. Note: there are an untold number of stories about the flood. I am in awe of what happened in Washington. The gigantic floods from Glacial Lake Missoula for example. Catastrophic. The scary part is that such apocalyptic disasters weren’t local. The whole world had similar events happening. Imagine what it was like for mankind during that time? Imagine the trauma, the psychic scars inflicted upon the collective unconsciousness of the human race? Lot’s of potential for stories there. But back to ours. In A.G.Riddle’s story a benevolent alien scientists rescues a small group of humans, ‘jacks up their brains’ then releases them back into the wild. THAT is our story. A small Group of Humans released onto the coastal plains of...India. The continental shelf of western India extends for over a hundred miles west. It’s fairly shallow. During the Ice Age, during the time of our story, it would have been dry land. What happened then? But WAIT! Plot twist. Hinduism is the world's OLDEST religion. Nothing else is even close. It’s much older than any of the others. It speaks of a marvelous time before the apocalypse fifteen thousand years ago. It speaks of a magical (high tech) land in which mankind interacted daily with GODS. Would a human Gestalt be considered a God? Back to the Story When we left our hero he had just been born. WAIT! Who says it was a HE? _Chauvinist!_ https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2016/08/09/20/31/mother-earth-squeeze-the-bun-1581680_960_720.png Why not a she? Good question. Why not? In fact why have gender at all? A gestalt human is composed of multiple units. Some are female, some are male. WAIT! What about trans-gender? What about...what about…. https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2016/08/31/15/11/hinduism-1633815_960_720.jpg This has great potential. Discussion please.?