*Translatio Imperii* in *Forgotten City* (Video Game)
Translatio Imperii in Forgotten City (Video Game)
Abstract:
*In 2021, Modern Storyteller studios released their video game The Forgotten City, developed on the engine of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, first as a modification, then as a standalone game. My paper will focus on The Forgotten City’s reimagining and recontextualization of the concept of translatio imperii within the context of a story with sci-fi context told primarily through references to ancient literature, culture, architecture, and philosophy. The mixture of these ancient elements with modern media and literary topoi achieves an interesting answer to the rethinking of the relevancy of Classical Studies in the 21st century, and especially its fruitful role in pop culture and entertainment. *
* note: Paper presented in the CHORUS conference in Nantes, April 2024.
The Forgotten City is a video game developed by Modern Storyteller studios and released in 2021. The game follows RPG, Role Playing Game, mechanics, where the player assumes a nondescript character and is free to pursue many ways to experience with the storyline, by engaging with Non Player Characters and the gamescape itself. The Player is free to delve into all the plotlines or explore all the nooks and crannies of the digital space, while progressing through the main story, or not.
The Forgotten City opens with a scene straight out of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the Player finds his character lost in dark woods, next to a river. There, by a bonfire, sits a Character, named Karen, who tells you, the Player that you are in 21st century Italy, by the Tiber. Karen tasks the Player with exploring some Roman ruins that hide nearby, in search of a fellow lost traveler.
Exploring, the Player finds a roman city in ruins, littered with statues that seem to flee, frozen in gold. On the walls one finds graffiti with ominous warnings.
Eventually, the Player falls upon a portal that transports him back in time to the year 65CE, in the same Roman city, now back to its original splendor. Through the character Galerius, the game exposes the plot predicament. There are no ways to leave the city. Scattered through the walls are plaques warning, with doubtful latin:
“The many shall suffer, for the sins of the one”. The 22 inhabitants of the city are bound by the looming-threat and are prompted to follow the so-called Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.
If any action is made to break this rule, golden statues scattered through the city come alive and shoot arrows that turn others into gold. The Player knows this through experimentation, but the NPC’s are unaware of the true consequences. The Player is given the task of finding who will trigger the rule and stop them. At this point, we can freely explore the gamescape, talking to characters or searching through the city. Quickly, the Player will realize that the true mystery is the one that enshrouds the city. By progressing in the game and discussing the topic with certain characters, it is revealed that this city is in fact the Underworld. Exploring the catacombs of the city, the Player finds vestiges of previous cultures that inhabited the same place. Under the Roman city are the Greek ruins. But under these ruins, the Player finds decrepit Egyptians architecture. Further down, the Player stumbles upon Sumer Lamassu statues and temples. It seems, then, that the Underworld has been populated by souls from 4 major civilizations. Exploring these layers, the Player will find inscriptions bearing in the 4 different languages the same warning: “the many shall suffer for the sin of the one.” The Forgotten City, in this plot point, employs the metahistoriographical concept of Translatio Imperii. This concept which depicts history as linear and teleological, expressed through the notion that the rule of the world is transfered from civilization to civilization, is expressed in Judaeo-Christian tradition in the Book of Daniel. However, the writers of this game articulate this translatio imperii in a way that is more akin to the Hesiodic myth of the ages. The former refers to the sequence of civilizations and prophesizes the culmination in the Heavenly Kingdom. The latter traces a progressive decadence, which correlates directly with the distancing of humanity from conviviality with the gods. The Forgotten City uses the sequence of civilizations to imply, like in Hesiod, a decadence and departure from contact with the gods. I will approach this theme later. The sequence of civilizations as decadent reflects a topos repeated by many of the characters throughout the gameplay, which portray the new civilizations as imitating and corrupting the former.
For example, the Greek character, Georgius, if the Player chooses to humour him, will reflect on that fact that the Romans imitate Greek culture, particularly architecture and their gods . This attitude is also made explicit by Khabash, an Egyptian character. As under the Roman city there were Greek ruins, so under the Greek there were Egyptian ruins.
Khabash argues that “As Egypt declined and the Greeks had their turn to flourish, their souls came here in great numbers, but instead of adopting our ways, they copied and corrupted them”. As the imperium is in translation, the culture of the previous civilization is copied and corrupted, demonstrating the two elements of translatio imperii and myth of the ages concepts: the changing of cultural paradigm and further decadence of the original civilization. Khabash also stumbles upon a lower layer, below Egyptian civilization, that of the Sumerians, which are unknown to him. Ironically, while Khabash is a vocal critic of Greek and Roman appropriation, he rejects dogmatically that the Egyptians have done the same to this even older civilization. In order to establish the linearity of progression from civilization to civilization, having the same point of origin, the developers sprinkle the gamescape with items of civilizational equivalence.
For example, Karen, the first character encountered, is revealed to be Charon. Charon has a name linked with each civilization: “Khumut-Tabal to the Sumerians, Kherty to the Egyptians, Kharon to the Greeks, Charon to the Romans”. Likewise, the Player is tasked to find four plaques that adorned an obelisk, each plaque being dedicated to the God of the Underworld in that culture’s language and script. The Forgotten City, regarding the gods, applies a sort of religious syncretism, showing that the gods are merely adapted from culture to culture, but maintaining their primary attributes.
In the climax of the game the player confronts the God of the Underworld. Entering the Great Temple which houses the God, the Player transverses five cellae that lead into each other like corridors. Each cella is adorned in the style of each of the 4 civilizations, in chronological order from most recent to oldest.
At the end of the most ancient cella, the Player finds a sci-fiesque, spaceship like room, where the God of the Underworld sits enthroned. Thus, with this digital conceptualization, the developers make evident the linear sequence of the civilizations, with their origins in the gods, which are now revealed to be an Ancient Alien race natives of Elysium.
The God of the Underworld now reveals that the Elysians brought civilization to humanity, “in a place called Sumer”. But human decadence led them to abandon Earth. Only Hades remained, managing the Underworld as a social experiment in morality, observing the progression of civilization to civilization as their dead arrived at the Underworld which here functions as a mirror of history.
Each civilization is further from the direct contact with the Elysians. Interestingly, what defines this Ancient Alien race as gods is merely their technological mastery, accumulated over long lifespans.
We see here a reception of the Hesiodic myth of the ages, reframed in a similar way to the concept of translatio imperii. The gods had contact with the Sumerians, which establishes the Golden Age. But as human decadence progressed, each new civilization is further away from the original influence from the Ancient Aliens, being merely imitations and corruptions. The Forgotten City here articulates this myth with the popular pseudo-scientific theory of Ancient Aliens which defends the influence of Aliens in Ancient History. The same articulation is found in another popular video game franchise, Assassin’s Creed. In this game, then, the developers reframe a classic myth by articulating it with 21st century Pop culture, mixing Classical sources with science-fiction. The Forgotten City, then, brings literary, historical, and cultural experiences of antiquity into a new medium, refashioning the popular perception of antiquity to serve the purposes of today. By these efforts, the developers of The Forgotten City have shown the enormous potential for gamescapes to use reception as a mechanism to illustrate our assumptions about history and our present times.