Ok, so this has been on my mind for a couple of days now. But I keep on wondering what civilisation 4000 years from now will think of us (apart from being extremely bigoted about everything). Or, more specifically, about our popular culture and the stories we're going to leave behind for them.
I mean, we have myths from the bible and the ancients about things that supposedly happened. What if they were merely just tales of fiction told to pass the time and set up morals for the youth of the time? And the myths we know today are just the most popular and pervasive of those stories?
What if in 4000 years they look back at our popular culture and view them as myths that we think happened in the distant or near past? What will they take from it? What will our myths be to those people?
That we looked to an alien who could move faster than bullet to save the world? That ordinary the rich donned masks and capes to fight crime and also save the world? That there were mutants among us and that some of them were less than friendly? That teenage girls were called upon to fight against the supernatural? That an archeologist played a key part in defeating the Nazis in WWII? That young children wandered around unsupervised and fought against each other with monsters that could be stored in balls? That young witches and wizards travelled to boarding school in trains?
And what if contact with aliens hasn't been made yet in 4000 years time? What will they make of Star Wars and Star Trek? That they're proof that in ancient times aliens had visited Earth and even taken humans into space with them?
Actually, even if contact has been made by then (and it probably will have by that point) the myths spawned from Star Wars and Trek would still be pretty interesting.
How will those people 4000 years from now see us and what will they think our myths are?
And then there's our fairy tales. Will they make it into our mythology, and if so, which tales will be woven into the myths? Any of them that have been watered down into a Disney movie are sure to survive the 4000 years. But the rest? Will they be forgotten like so many other of our stories, or will they, over time, meld together and form a completely different story that people 4000 years from now will believe we told to each other?
Will those myths 4000 years in the future even be recognisable as stories from now?
