h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Many creation myths have all life springing in some sense from a female (but not very active) figure." - Mund

Not very active? Take a look at the Greek myth of the creation of the Gods. Were it not for Gaea (the Earth Mother and original Goddess of Greece's one time Matriarchal society) there would be no Greek theology as we know it (Zeus, Heracles, Hermes and so on). It was only because that she managed to outwit (and castrate) her husband Uranus (who was also her firstborn son) and her son Cronos that the Greeks have it that creation went so well.

Incest seems to play rather a large role in ancient theology. Perhaps Eastenders is on to a good thing.

1. The oldest Creation myth I've found is Sumerian.
The gods Ninmah and Enki are having a boozing session (nothing changes) and decide that it would be a good laugh to have a competition in which one god creates beings out of clay and another has to decide their fate.
Ninmah creates beings which are a bit wrong. They're a bit misshapen and they have no genitals, but not a bad effort: Enki decides that these are the first priests.
Enki's beings are rubbish: they cannot stand up, they cannot feed themselves. Ninmah is outraged by these useless creatures and drives Enki underground. How dare he produce something so pitiful...(Of course these are the first humans.)

On a different note entirely, anyone mentioned The Rocky Horror Show yet? Frank N Furter had his own motives for creating a man...

Xanatic's green soldiers reminded me of the tin soldier. Is it in the Nutcracker suite? My knowledge of childrens' stories and balet is a bit rusty.

***B

No, the Tin Soldier is in a story by H C Andersen. And the Sumerian were the first to have writing, so we won´t find an older creation story.

But it does have some strange things in it that one. Rockets and spaceports and stuff.

What about the movie Bicentennial Man?

Bicentennial man (a robot wants to become human) goes onto the list with HAL, Johnny 5 from Short Circuit... These are things which have been given massive intelligence and flip.

What was the motivation of the creator?

Before they manufacture men, why don't they ever ask a woman what he should be like first?

I think golems should play a very important role in this subject, as they go across several cultures. Has no one mentioned Pinocchio?

Pinnochio came up in the thread which gave rise to this one.

What about that enw movie AI. That seems to be a new version of Pinocchio. And with Haley Joel Osmont as the robot kid, so it can´t be all bad.

What about the terracotta army in Terry Pratchett's "Interesting Times"?

a Pratchett-fan called Ben

"Hi Ben, long time no speak! Hope lifes good. I once saw a kinda neat T-shirt with Pinnochio and his girfriend in an interesting (indeed favouite) configuration. The caption was TELL ANOTHER LIE PINNOCHIO!"

"Go figure!"

I'll check "Interesting Times", because armies seem to be an interesting special case of manufacture. As mentioned on another thread, Jason and the argonauts raised one from dragon's teeth, Russian and German (I think, I'm searching for references) tales have armies growing from sticks. There was the terracotta army buried with the Chinese emperor in case of trouble on the other side...

Those are the manufactured/invoked versions. Then there is the Arthurian army sleeping underground until Albion is threatened. And the wonderfully trans-logical horses used by Tolkien's riders of Rohan. When you know you want your horse you whistle for it, but it had to set off days before your whistle to be ready. Pretty special cavalry!

This thread is getting ridiculously broad, but many of the ideas are fitting in rather well, with lots of parallels - social/creation myth, cautionary/fairy tales, real life, new fiction.

From twenty posts back...

I didn't mean to suggest that all female deities were passive, just that some of them are, as a way to ask how closely modern myths need to follow ancient ones (with the Schwarzenegger/Lara Croft archetypes you have to despair).

I don´t know if this counts. But it seems kind of like the Arthurian statue. Apparently an old Danish king named Holger Danske is sleeping in the basment of a Danish castle. They´ve also put up a statue of him there. If Denmark is ever threatened he should awake and start fighting for us.

I of course meant Arthurian army.

Any ideas for useful searches or search engines for this kind of investigation?

I just remembered one, the replicants from Blade Runner. They were factory made as far as I remember.

Have you mentioned the original Manufactured Man - the Golem?

Legend has it that he was creat by Rabbi Low (now buried in Prague in one of the few surviving Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe).

Yep, he has been mentioned. But I don´t think he was supposed to be created by a single man. He was more of a concept, like a genie in a bottle.

What about those homonculus?

I'll go through my research at home on the Golem. The name is now generic but i'm 99% sure that Low was responsible...

homonculi aren't necessarily manufactured - again I'm not sure..