Enki sent Ereshkigal to Kur. We had a fight. Our little squabble caused havoc in the area and she chose to pack her bags. Why did she have to push me over the edge? That said, I blame myself as well a lot. Humans do not like Kur. They call it the 'underworld'. It was one of the many shelters that protected everyone from the Flood. They were designed to ensure survival, almost forever, of a large city. Their infrastructure was designed to ensure that they could thrive until the surface was safe to live on again.

With the panic, crowds flocked to them in much larger numbers than originally planned by engineers. Bombings damaged critical equipment and, in the end, everyone was trapped underground... for a thousand years. A handful of survivors were saved by my peers. As a result, mankind has developed a morbid dread for anything related to the subterranean. They equate it with death, if not hell.

I can understand that. Very well. They revere fire for the same reason, since we used to burn corpses during ceremonies dedicated to the World-Bird. Ashes evoke what happens to Elohim when they die. We turn into diamond dust rather than leaving a body behind. This tradition brought us closer to one another. Anyway, lets get back to today's topic: antediluvian history, especially the twilight of Mû.

Let's start with something fun, some etymology! Fun for me, I mean. The word « Mû » can be translated as « civilization ». All nations use it, in one way or another, usually attached to an adjective that alters its sense. « Reiner mûguo », for example, means « Reiner's language ». However, when used without an apposition, the term always refers to the name of our primordial society. The only significant one, your motherland, the source of all life, humanity and every culture.

I could not give a detailed summary of its past. Not because I don't want to, mind you. If most of the experts are to be believed, Mû has been founded half a million years ago. Five millenniums can be difficult to compile, but this? Your land also had the astonishing specificity of collapsing on a regular basis only to be reborn anew, which is why Enki is so openly certain that you will someday become the old Mû again. What is specifically called the « Empire of Mû » encompasses your world, its original star system and its colonies. Roughly, a good chunk of the explored universe.

During its ridiculously long existence, Mû has discovered many places. The most important being the very first planet where your people later settled. A barren earth, slightly further from your sun, wrapped in a single ocean of ferrous water. An oddity, which fascinated all citizens of that time, because their own home world was covered with salt water. They named this strange wonder « Atta'lente », meaning « Great Ocean ». The passage of ages distorted the phrase, until it became simply « Atlantis ».

I sincerely hope your knowledge of astronomy is enough to visualize what a planet is. It's difficult to describe Atlantis without resorting on imagination, as people from Uruk are not able to understand that stars can sometimes be places. Go ahead, try to explain to a tribe who writes on clay tablets that there are countries in the sky! After a while, you speak of distant islands. I understand why Enlil ignores the subject and even condemns its teachings! Passing a hundred of stupid questions, I too try to throw lightning bolts.

The immense benefit of having been the first place where humanity extended its influence implies that Atlantis quickly grew into an independent state, whose colonial authority will soon rival Mû. Both powers will display treasures of resourcefulness to conquer an area the size of three galaxies. Reiner, my birth country, was a mere outpost at first. Its name comes from the Atlantean expression « Ar'einir », which literally stands for « mining outpost ». Its geopolitical importance increased enormously when an absurd amount of a very scarce material, quicksilver or mercury, was discovered in its vicinity.

Since it is one of the two components required for producing Ar'eloah, a crucial substance on which all our technology is based, this characteristic made Reiner and its closest neighbor, Sied, the richest of all Atlantean settlements! Their influence spread to consume a third of the Milky Way. Unfortunately, this blessing came with a price: for some still unexplained reason, only females can be born in this part of the world. It is almost impossible to breed a male. We thus found ourselves in the dangerously precarious position of being unable to procreate. No complex ecosystem can flourish without sexual species.

Neither of them were willing to give up their riches. They therefore agreed to live in a territory where all births would have to be done artificially, where almost all inhabitants would be female. Children are manufactured in laboratories and implanted in surrogate mothers at a rate of one million per hour. I pass over a hundred millennia, our universe has changed and most of the former colonies are now kingdoms under protectorate of either Mû or Atlantis. Mindset changes. The previously accepted morality begins to undergo a never seen schism.

On one side, we have the Murreans, who see mankind and Elohim as one big family. Therefore, they have identical rights and duties. The 'Homo' class had about thirty distinct races, with Elohim being only one of them. Please note that I am not talking about mere difference in color or bone structure, but serious and profound characteristics. Since none other survived the Flood, I cannot offer any concrete examples. We can say your kinship with apes was better highlighted, considering that there were a few more steps in between.

On the opposing side, the Atlanteans treated Elohim not as a race, but as a new milestone in life's progress. Humans cannot have any rights in common with us, since their 'nature' diverges! Humanity was therefore to be assimilated as a mere animal. They enforced this idea and you were reduced to cattle, a perfectly logical outcome when we know that your species is the second component needed for Ar'eloah's production. This irreconcilable difference deepened until the two countries divorced and established separate federations with their respective protectorates.