510-561

The Awatute delegation returned from their northern expedition, and their report to the Council of the Thinkers elucidated at length about the problems that had resulted from their inability to effectively communicate with the so-called Bog Builders. Indeed, the development of a back-and-forth dialogue between the Awatute and Edegans had been a very happy coincidence, fostered in part by the two groups’ similar languages. This time, however, there had been no such coincidences.

Awatute society has long, if not forever, been collectivist by nature; the Thinkers have shouldered the crucial responsibility passing down tales of momentous events such as the rise of beekeeping and the discovery of the Edegans through the ages. In the process, however, the names of the individuals who had pulled these feats off were lost to time. Edegans society, on the other hand, is strongly individualistic. When the Edegans celebrated their past, which Awatute visitors felt was not often, they hailed their greatest mythological heroes by name.

These overweening characteristics of both societies, alongside surpluses of valuable goods in each, wound up being the crucial catalyst for their joint advancement of communication and record-keeping. An Edegans individual by the name of Cliv was responsible for the key innovation of inscribing symbols on stone to represent specific concepts, after many years of work towards that end. The Thinkers in turn adopted this, improved and standardized this system for Awatute use over many years, and ultimately edified its place in both societies by their efforts. Naturally, however, each society would go on to remember these advancements in different ways – the Awatute tales focused on the Thinkers’ prediction of a great leap and their steps to make it so, while the Edegans hailed Cliv for his initial creative spark and role in popularizing his system among the Edegans.