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[survival_isnt_living]

A lighthearted question of sorts for you all--or so I hope.

[His smile is slight and wry.]

I'm sure everyone's noticed the distinct architectural differences between our current undersea neighbor and Keeliai. I hadn't really thought about it much, before we arrived here, just assuming this was the local standard, but...

[He pauses, visibly weighing how to ask this.]

Now that I've seen two kinds, has anyone ever seen architecture like the ruins? Or Keeliai, for that matter.

[For those who are keenly attuned to nuance: there was a faint, almost invisible 'else' after 'anyone.']

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[storm_warning]

[Did you miss her? I know you did. Aim better and you won't. 8D]

Yeah, it's a huge tourism thing in Greece.

[Or Italy. Ororo can't remember which; the whole world tour thing was a blur.]

So not modern though. Guess that's why they're ruins.

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[survival_isnt_living]

[Quite oddly, nothing Ororo has ever said to him has forcibly divorced her so much from the people who slaughtered his Legion as this.

As a result, his faint, sardonic smile and tilted head are probably in some ways more open than any other expressions she's gotten out of him yet.]

I wouldn't be making assumptions about time in this place as opposed to any of our homes', but it's a theory.

What's Greece?

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[storm_warning]

[Glad to be of sass-service, my good sir.]

You're thinking they transplanted some last city of Atlantis BS up in here? Like, time teleportation?

[Oddly, her tone's more thoughtful than disbelief. She's run into so much weird stuff here that weird hypotheses are the only ones that make a grain of sense.]

Greece is a country back where and when I'm from. It's a bunch of old ruins in it that people visit all the time.

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[bereavements]

Not the architecture here. But, the architecture on Sinbrilee is pretty Roman.

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[survival_isnt_living]

--Roman?

[Sep looks relatively shocked.]

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[bereavements]

[ Be shocked. Maybe you're from Westeros, too. ]

Roman. As in Rome. Italy. Though, I guess it could be Grecian, too. Not like I know the difference. The architecture here? I don't know. There are tree houses in back yards, I guess but nothing like the ones in the Earth Sector. And I've never been in nice enough digs like mine in Fire.

text; 100% encrypted

[imaginate]

[This is a picture message. Kyle has drawn out various buildings in Sinbrilee, and labelled the features. On the other half of the page, he's drawn very similar-looking structures and circled the similarities. Hey, he was studying architecture before he dropped out of school.]

text; 100% encrypted

[survival_isnt_living]

[Staaaaaare.

It' a lovely picture, Kyle! And he's seeing the similarities, that's for sure. So it is definitely a helpful drawing. However... the return message is also text. In Aleran--which has some definite similarities to French, Spanish, Italian, and English, being a descendant of Latin and old Germanic language and with an almost identical alphabet... but not quite the same:]

I appreciate the picture. I only wish I could understand the annotations as well as the visual clues.

text > video; 100% encrypted

[imaginate]

[The great thing about a power ring? Kyle gets a jumbled translation of the words. So he just switches to video, and calmly repeats what's written on the paper.]

[When he's done, he adds:]

Sorry. I forgot text doesn't translate.

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[sophos]

[wow you sure did ask about two of her favorite things.] Sinbrilee's architecture is very reminiscent of what's collectively identified as Greco-Roman, or Classical, back home - they're similar and interconnected, but there's still differences between them, depending on age, influence, etc. I've noticed bits and pieces akin to both in Sinbrilee.

Most of what remains back home are just ruins - Greek and Roman society at their heights were roughly three thousand to two thousand years ago. I'm around a lot of architecture in the same style that's... newer and still functioning, but my case is a little offset from most of the world.

Keeliai in general seems to be a lot more akin to Asian architecture and influence. Though... I'm not sure how much those words will mean to you.

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[survival_isnt_living]

[With the replies Sep's been getting, he's starting to put a few pieces together and feeling like he owes one of his old teachers a big apology for occasionally dozing off. And maybe yell at his father about if he knew any of this for sure.

Still, he laughs and holds up a hand.] Some of them do. Asian does not.

The Greek and Roman societies, though. They were related? [Greek is new to him.]

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[sophos]

Asia's really broad a term. There's a lot of different countries, each with their own cultures. Keeliai seems most similar to Chinese, with other East Asian elements.

The Greeks were first. [that comes out right away, almost defensively and protectively.] As the Romans started becoming more powerful, they drew a lot of influence from the Greeks, architecture included, and their pantheons are near identical - they share a lot of the same gods, but the Roman versions take on slightly different characteristics. [Her bias is super Greek this probably comes out in her tone, despite trying to be neutral; there's an edge in the way she says 'characteristics.']

In most versions of Earth, together they're referred to as Classical antiquity, because of their similarities as cultures. Sinbrilee definitely has elements of both, especially in the architecture. The Romans... ended up conquering the Greek city-states, though. They're both considered the cradle of 'western civilization,' but the relationship between the two was always tenuous despite that.

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[lineality]

I don't know about China, but parts of Keeliai don't look too different from Republic City, to me. Fire and Earth Sectors, especially.

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[survival_isnt_living]

[Finally, someone who seems to be in a similar state to his!]

Is Republic City your home?

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[lineality]

[what are these "Rome" and "Greece" of which you speak]

Born and bred. Honestly, most of my world looks similar to Keeliai, but parts of it are more behind the times than others.

I haven't seen anything like the ruins before, though. Whoever these people were, they were clearly a different culture entirely.

[video]

[littlecousin]

Yeah, the other city looks a lot like parts of Atlantis.

[Which is basically Underwater Rome, except sometimes it gets drawn as looking weirdly high-tech or faintly Middle Eastern instead of Classical, because continuity is for losers.]

[video]

[survival_isnt_living]

[Now he's interested! Someone else who got 'home' vibes!] Atlantis? Where is that?

[video]

[littlecousin]

[Good question; it gets blown up a lot.]

Under the North Atlantic--uh, an ocean in my world. It's built on the site of an island sub-continent that sank about 25,000 years ago.

[lostundercover]

Something like Keeliai maybe. That kind of thing usually varies by culture where I'm from.

[survival_isnt_living]

But the ruins are less common?

[Septimus smiles wryly.] I'm starting to wonder if it's our isolation which has kept my world so much more homogenous than what most humans seem to manage.

[lostundercover]

Ruins are ruins. You can't really judge them the same as you would normal architecture.

Isolation's a powerful thing. [His tone has that hint of empathy only possible with perceived mutual understanding.]

[the_other_eight]

I've been noting similarities to cultures seen in my world's ancient history.

[survival_isnt_living]

Earth again? [Just to clarify. He's sensing a pattern.]

[freeskies]

Two kinds? Don't get out much, do you? [he seems amused by the concept, and after having pillaged so many ruins on his own, it's not hard to have seen certain similarities in styles, even if nothing was ever quite exactly the same]

The more you see, the more you'll notice has a habit of never changing. Arches and columns? Quite common, very functional. Though I admit, it's rather strange to see a host of differences within a solitary city.

[survival_isnt_living]

[Sep's eyebrow goes up a little. That stung.] I was quite well traveled before I came here, actually. [Snippy? A bit.] Staying home all the time made me feel confined and there's so much to see. [And sneaking out to have adventures on pirate ships is fun. And it drove his father crazy.

Still, he is slightly mollified by the dawning realization about his own culture--and its possible shortcomings.] That said, I've gathered that homogeneity across an entire race's culture is not the norm in most other places. I'd assumed that Keeliai's feel was simply how this world felt.