What if Eden Was Mars?

[Jeff Gerke]

Scientists tell us that Mars was long ago a wet and possibly fertile world.

Scientists are now telling us that it's possible that microbial life could've traveled from Mars to Earth inside meteorites and that this life could've survived to thrive on Earth. (See www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311317,00.html.)

I don't believe humans started out as microbial life and evolved into our current form (though God could've done it that way if He'd wanted), but it gave me an interesting speculative idea.

What if Mars had been Eden? At the Fall, God stuck Adam and Even in some kind of space pod and sent them to earth. The fiery sword barring reentry could've been the fires of blastoff and the entry into earth's atmosphere.

I know, pretty lame. But it would give a spiritual explanation for why Mars was once wet but is now dead (sin killed it?) and would help explain why humans seem to have appeared quite late in the history of earth.

I dunno. Might be fun to noodle with.

Jeff

[Teskas]

Noodle? Michelin Guide gourmet dinner with that one. I like.

What about the flaming swords as brilliant exploding comets, like the Holmes comet at the moment?

[Jeff Gerke]

Exactly!

[mongoose]

I like it. spiritually motivated space set analogies have worked for me in the past, including C.S. Lewis' Space Trillogy, and Stephen Lawhead's Empyrion books.

I haven't done anything with it yet, but I was toying with an idea for some fan-fiction based on a similar concept and Stargate.

The leader of a new SG team is a spiritualist and a seeker, after his military spec. ops. career. He believes something's out there somewhere, and wonders what, but doesn't let it worry him . . . too much. There's just this bothersome fact that he used to believe in a spirit guide that kept him alive through all kinds of trials. He has trouble believing in an animal spirit guide any more, but he can't help but wonder who, or what, has been guiding and upholding his life.

So it is that when he's recruited to the SGC, he's not particularly shocked to learn of extra-terrestrial life, including some aliens that posed as animal spirit guides to some Native American colonists of a distant planet. His curiosity is peeked, and he presses for further investigation. It's not outside the bounds of what the SGC is already doing, given that most "gods" were actually aliens. So the Primary Character (PC) just wants to press the search for "friendly gods," especially those aliens that might have posed as the Hebrew or Christian God. I mean, if thor was actually a technologically advanced alien who was relatively benevolent toward people, how would it be if we got the alien claiming the title of Jehova Sabaoth on our side against the Gua'uld?

And thus ensues Stargate's answer to Star Trek 5 (which was lame, IMHO, BTW). Of course, they don't find an alien calling itself Mr. Sabaoth, or anything, but they do find a tribe of his worshipers transplanted to some other planet. They go in cautiously, expecting FUBARs like happened to SG1 whenever THEY encountered Judeo-Christian peoples, but they find at least a small group of genuine believers, like those in the Star Trek Original TV Show episode where the command crew finds themselves on a world something like a combination of Rome of the first century with Earth of the 20th century.

While trying to reach the hearts and minds of this oppressed hebrew sect, the commander of the SG Team finds his heart and mind being tugged at by the power of their faith, and the stark truthfulness of their beliefs. He has to deal with the question; could there be an actual spiritual god governing things, after all, in-spite of all the high technology and alien species he's encountered since joining the SGC? He sees miracles, signs and wonders, but finds no evidence of the technology usually associated therewith. Is this a technology so advanced as to be beyond detection? And why does it only work some of the time, and not necessarily to protect its people physically (though sometimes it does)?

All kinds of fun I could have with those and other questions that would be raised by encounters of a modern, liberal spiritualist with spirit filled believers of the early church!

[Jeff Gerke]

Very cool story idea, Mongoose. Write that baby!

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

In my own story, which has various planets peopled a la Star Wars, I decided that the backstory was important enough to include. I wanted a set of societies that had developed without an Industrial Revolution, but still had a high level of technology. Therefore, I decided that the worlds were populated with descendants of pre-Flood people, who remember the motherland (Earth) only as a legend, and can never return. Shades of Eden, but still different.

[Jeff Gerke]

Sweet. Sounds fun, dividesthewaters (and welcome to The Anomaly!).

Jeff

[myrthman]

I've never shared this thought with anyone but God, so it may not be as clear on "paper" as I'd like it to be. Here goes:

I've often wondered what the New Earth will be. We know this Earth shall be destroyed and a New Earth will take its place to be inhabited by God's faithful and Blood-washed and that they will have eternal life. It all stems from these questions: What's next? What came before? Since God is from everlasting to everlasting (eternity past to eternity future), for Him, there can be no "beginning" (as in Genesis 1:1) and there can be no "end" either.

Then I looked at a chart of the solar system I hadn't seen since 6th grade science class and began to wonder. What if it's all been done before? What if it will all happen again? What if, like Jeff suggested, Mars was **our** Eden and Venus will become **our** New Earth, with Sol acting as a great oven of sorts in which God "bakes" his planets. The implications are mind-boggling. How long until Mars explodes into a gas giant with a huge swirling red storm on it? How long until Mercury "cools" as it moves away from the sun and begins to develop vapors and gaseous atmosphere? And ... are Pluto and the Van Allen asteroids really planets' pieces??

The coolest thing about this line of thinking is that, as eternal beings ourselves, God's Blood-bought children would get to experience the birth, life, and death of countless worlds as God employs His creativity throughout eternity! Makes one ask: what are angels ... really? The Bible declares itself (as the Word of God) to be eternal (several places, including Jesus himself) and God is more than just a religious idea. What if there's more to "bye and bye and pie in the sky"? What if God wants us to not only observe, but participate in the worlds He creates?

I've gotten off into metaphysics or something now. But there's my 2+2+2+2 (8) cents.

[Jeff Gerke]

That's an awesome idea, mythman. I love the thought of God creating and preparing planets through a solar system-sized assembly line. Very cool speculative idea.

Jeff

[Khiya]

I think the very fact that God is a Creator and that we love to emulate him makes it likely that the act of creating isn't just going to end when we get to heaven. We have all of eternity spread out before us to honor God with our gifts (that always blows my mind when I think about it. All those projects to do and stories to write and books to read that you never had time for...) Wouldn't it be cool if we get to create planets for God? Talk about world-building!

[Divides the Waters]

admin said:

Sweet. Sounds fun, dividesthewaters (and welcome to The Anomaly!).

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff! I thought it was time I joined up; I waste too much time on other boards as it is, but this one seemed to be a good place to bounce ideas off of like-minded people.


Most of my first readers have thought the pre-Flood migration thing was a pretty neat idea, and played off well in the story (though it has little to do with the overall plot).

Some of these ideas remind me a little of a more biblical Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Very cool.

I've always wanted to do a short story or something about a planet that was actually an egg, with the people living on the world realizing that it's about to hatch....

Rob

[Jeff Gerke]

Awesome!

I mean, what would you do? Hope for sunny side up?

Jeff

[Divides the Waters]

I figure there would be some people welcoming the end of the world, some just terrified, and some wanting to journey "to the center of the Earth," as it were, to kill the embryo. But what would the repercussions be?

Never did that story, but figured it might be fun.

[Therin]

Ahhh, yes, the egg planet. I think I had that idea myself one (didn't do anything with it).
Here's a question: in this egg planet, what would be inside? Would it be something they could fight, and would it fight back? And where'd the egg come from? The possibilities are endless!

[Jeff Gerke]

Where did the egg planet come from? The chicken planet, of course!