Young Writers Society

Well. I've got an idea. But it's not easy to explain.

Imagine this is only the second time humans have evolved. The Earth is much older than we thought. Humans have already been evolved into existence, much earlier than we have. It was them, then the dinosaurs, then eventually us. Does that make sense?

In this previous civilization, humans lived together in tribes, developing technology even greater than ours. But then a great world war happened, and the world reset. Almost every trace of life was erased. From those last pieces of life evolved the dinosaurs, and then eventually humans today. For the second time, humans created civilization, completely unaware it had already been done before.

In this previous Earth, with the very first humans, there were multiple groups of people, organized into sort of tribes. They each were identified by color. There was a Blue Tribe, a Purple Tribe, a Gray Tribe, a Brown Tribe, a Orange Tribe. All the colors of the rainbow (excluding indigo) and the colors black, brown and gray were each a tribe. And each had different levels of advancement, as well as different specializations.

The Red Tribe specialized in bows and arrows. They were hunter-gatherers, but also farmed a bit. Because of this, they didn't live in huge groups. Each child in the Red Tribe was trained with a bow from a young age, until everyone was a master at it. They barely had any electronic tech, however, if they did at all.

The Orange Tribe was the most primitive of the tribes. They were hunter-gatherers to the fullest, and still used spears. They used fire as a frequent weapon, and had no written language, or indeed any electronic tech in the slightest. They were the most wild of the tribes, and the most shunned by the others.

The Yellow Tribe did not have much electronic tech, but they were decently advanced. They were farmers and used agriculture, creating permanent civilizations. They used bronze and iron a lot, and often crafted themselves armor. Armor and blacksmithing was a sign of strength in the Yellow Tribe. Most people had crafted themselves a helmet or an arm guard by the time they were 20. Warriors often crafted full sets of armor for themselves.

The Green Tribe, though with not much electronic tech, also used agriculture to create permanent civilizations. Each city or state was very well protected, a fortress. The Green Tribe specialized in protection, and used shields in combat as much as their swords. There was a mandatory draft for every young man and woman to serve the tribe, from 18 to 22 years old. During this time, these young men and women guarded the cities, kept order inside the cities as a sort of police, and, if necessary, were used in an army to protect from outside attacks.

The Purple Tribe (yes I know, I skipped one) was a civilization with agriculture, not much electronic tech, and permanent civilizations. Oftentimes there was a monarchy form of government. Warriors were a class in this society, and they were predominately women with swords. These warriors were trained at their job from a young age, alongside learning with others as well.

The Blue Tribe was an extremely advanced tribe, entirely self-sufficient, and didn't communicate with any other tribes. It was its own empire/country, essentially. Of all the tribes except maybe the Black Tribe, it was the most advanced tech-wise. It used technology we as a modern human society today have developed, like digital cell phones, smartwatches and computers, but they had also developed things like organic matter 3D printing, holograms, and lazer guns (lazers instead of bullets). The Blue Tribe was a permanent society, had no need of trade, and kept all of its technology inside of its society, not sharing with anyone. It functioned on its own. Being a warrior was not as much of a concern, especially with AI defending the perimeter of the Blue Tribe's territory. The only other tribe it ever communicated with, if it ever had to, was with the Gray Tribe.

The Brown Tribe did not use much electronic tech, but did use farming and had semi-permanent to permanent civilizations. Despite no digital technology, this tribe was advanced given their ingenious use of ropes and rigging systems to help create technology for their society. Intelligence was valued in this civilization more than physical fighting, though there were warriors using ropes and swords in this tribe as well.

The Gray Tribe had permanent societies and a good amount of digital tech. Their tech was electronic and mostly was caught up to what we have today in terms of digital tech, aside from a few exceptions where they were a bit less advanced. Their focus was small items with large amounts of power, essentially focusing on minimization. They were not as advanced as the Blue Tribe, but were still advanced compared to the others. They were not completely solitary, as they did contact tribes like the Purple, Green, and Yellow, but most often they tried to reach out to tribes with about the same tech they had, like the Blue and Black tribes. Oftentimes these outreaches were dead ends, but every once in a while the Blue Tribe contacted them back, and they had a brief moment of idea communication. Because of this, the Blue and Gray Tribes could be considered very loose allies.

The Black Tribe was a permanent society and had a lot of digital tech. To the outside world, the Black Tribe was considered an unknown as they kept very, very private. No one was allowed in or out, like in other tribes. Even the Blue Tribe allowed people in and out with proper certifications. The Black Tribe was very secretive and kept all technology it had to itself, never reaching out. If there were any wars, they never got involved unless an attack was made on them, and even then that effort was usually quickly snuffed out. Inside the Black Tribe's walls,things functioned mostly like a dictatorship. Research was often conducted, and so in some respects the Black Tribe was more advanced than the Blue Tribe. For instance, they had found a way to create an atomic bomb without the radiation fallout. The Black Tribe was untouched throughout most of this world's history, and any uprisings within its walls went usually unnoticed by the outside world.

This story sounds really interesting! I love how diverse the different tribes are.

I'm not sure if you're looking for any source of inspiration, but the idea of a technologically advance human civilization before current human civilization is something that I saw and loved in Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. Both series have the current people of Earth interacting with highly advanced technology left behind by a group of people known as the Ancients. Both of the series are fairly long and don't always focus on the Ancients. But if you're ever looking for inspiration, I'd be happy to tell you more about what the show has! <3

The idea sounds pretty good. The only issue I can see is how there came to be such a disparity between the tribes? Segregation, available resource, location, that sort of thing.

In terms of real world technological advancement, there are communities which don't even have enough to eat but still have mobile phones and computers that have been salvaged and recycled from more prosperous communities. Would there be anything to stop this crossover with the tribes?

@Tenyo, I see your point, yes. That is completely a plot hole. This idea isn't very realistic yet, I know. One way I might have solved that problem is by having, say, the Orange Tribe live on a plot of land that isn't usually visited by other tribes, if at all. Say, a bunch of islands or land behind a desert or something. When humans evolved for us, we all started in Africa and ended up spreading all over the world, which created a sort of internal connection. (I might be completely wrong on that, so if I am tell me.) In this world, I kind of wanted humans to evolve in different places and just sort of stay there. Because of that, each group of humans might have different characteristics that are a part of that variation of the human species. For the Orange Tribe, maybe their average IQ is lower, which might explain why they didn't really catch on to technology from outside sources or made their own. The Purple Tribe might have advanced reflexes just when they're born, especially in women, or something. Maybe the Black, Gray or Blue Tribes have higher IQs when they're born on average, some places more than others, or maybe they have a more productive thinking style or something, which could help them create so much new technology. They might also have immunity to certain STDs just because of genetic engineering on the people of those tribes. The Red Tribe might have above-average eyesight just because it helps the people in that tribe hunt. These slight variations between different groups of people continues depending on the tribes, and maybe they could explain why some tribes are way more advanced than the others. I don't know. Segregation could also be a factor, especially when it comes to the Blue and Gray Tribes not really sharing much with outside tribes.

@Magebird, thank you for the suggestion, but I think right now I'm okay. If you want to elaborate you could, but I kind of want to see where this idea takes me on its own right now. I'd be open to inspiration like that in the future if you want. Actually, I might have watched a bit of Stargate. I think I watched the movie plus some episodes of the first season. I thought it was pretty good.

I'd personally discourage the whole IQ thing, just because it's a bit of a colonialist notion (the idea of a people being less technological advanced because they are inherently less intelligent.) Some other things that might affect it could be;

- Distributing work so that some part of the tribe is able to focus on creating new technology
- A strong sense of tradition that might discourage the use of new things
- A lack of common resources that might prevent major landmarks such as not having metal to harness electricity
- An environment so abundant in resource that there is no desire for advancement
- Work values that would inhibit an industrial revolution and so slow down advancement
- Evolutionary factors, like where you mentioned that a tribe might have better eyesight, which could stop them from ever developing the light bulb or advancing with electricity.
- A large day to day work load that leaves not much time for invention
- Crisis points in history that have forced a tribe to react and progress in order to survive
- Competition or conflict that causes an increase in technology in order to out compete another. This could be between tribes, or some kind of civil war.

You could also have different tribes simply have different forms of technology. One could be really good at medicine and have invented the microscope, but not have any care for vehicles or travel.

Of course these are just a few things that come to mind from what I can remember of realworld history. You know what's best for your story so feel free to disregard them if they don't work for you =]

I love the idea of humans evolving in different places and just staying there. There could be such a huge variation in their cultures.

The differences in the way they've evolved to have those variations is also a really cool too, especially if at some point in the plot any of these people do start coming together.

Give me a nudge if you develop this further, it would be great to see what you do with it.