She was only partly right.
********************
In the mythos Gaia is portrayed as the Goddess of Life. Her power of life and love infused all the beauties of nature. The green pastures, where fluffy bunnies roamed, shone with her glory. The shaded woods, where the deers bounded, pulsed with her touch. The pristine waters on the mountain streams glistened under her wisdom. The blue sky, where sparrows sang, shone with her radiance.
Ancient civilizations saw all this and held her up as the giver of Life, barer of love and mother of all. They were wrong.
Mankind was born weak. Though there would be a few among them that could match the instincts of the wilderness around them, the majority could not even hope to compete with the other habitants of nature. Except in one aspect in which they excelled.
Intelligence.
Mankind was born weak, but smart. It was the only tool that gave them an edge against the harshness of life and it served them well. That intelligence let them form civilizations in which they, the physically weak, found comfort and security. The worship of higher beings eased their nightmares, some of the deities anyway. They grew confidant in their superiority and prospered, never realizing that they lives were based on an illusion.
An illusion of security.
For mankind, for all their intelligence, was still a slave to their emotions, namely their fears. But the illusion seems to protect them, so they turned a blind eye to all the bad and went on their way. One only sees what one wants to.
So it was with Gaia, the Goddess of Earth. Mankind saw the green fields, the fluffy bunnies, the green forests, the blue skies, etc, etc, and dubbed her the mother of life. They ignored the shadows where the wolves prowled. They ignored the tall grass where the lions stalked. They ignored the dot in the blue sky that was the hawk. They ignored the muddy river, formally a clear stream, where crocodiles lurked. They ignored the hurricanes that swirled through the oceans, the volcanoes that burnt all in its path, earthquakes that ripped apart the land and the glaciers that changed the shape of continents.
Gaia wasn't the mother of life. She was the procreator of conflict, of strength, of survival. She pushed her children to wars so that only the strongest survived. She challenged their lives to see them grow. She made the lives of her children harsh so that they grew up stronger and tougher. She watched them struggle and smiled on the survivors.
She was the Goddess of Battle.
Given her ideals, all her children had access to her powers. What they could do and how much they could draw depended on them. Most animals tapped a little bit of her powers on instinct. Most of humanity could only do so on rare occasions, usually under duress. It was only a precious few who learnt to draw vast amounts from her. Viking berserkers, for instance, drew on her to make themselves invulnerable to pain. The most notable modern day users of her power were the martial artists, who had refined the techniques over thousands of years. They called it Ki and the high level practitioners did some amazing things with it.
Thus Mamoru, or more specifically Tuxedo Karmen, would not feel any effects of Ranma's bond to Gaia. He heritage during the moon kingdom allowed him to draw some of Gaia's power, but no more then most low level ki users. He would continue as before, not knowing that he was never Gaia's chosen. The only difference between him and those others who can access Gaia's power was that they took years of training to achieve their abilities, and consequently control it better, while he inherited it.
Of course, Ranma was different. He was a medium level ki user before his bond, so he had access to, and used, the powers of Gaia before. He had some powerful fighting abilities, quick reflexes, etc, as expected from any who achieved what he had. And now he had Gaia’s bond. Her blessing.
He was her chosen champion.
Where before he drew from a stream of power, he now had access to an ocean. He could do pretty much anything he could imagine now. IF he could use it correctly. Because Gaia never gave what one did not earn.
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(Posted Wed, 03 Nov 2004 04:55)
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