A couple of weeks ago I started a thread to ask “Are there any novels set in the 1800s about paleontology/reactions to the discovery of dinosaurs?” and I’m still thinking about what that might have been like to those living at the time. I mean, we take for granted that dinosaurs really existed, but once upon a time that must’ve been really big news.
I think the closest we could come to that experience is if creatures out of mythology are someday proven to exist too. So pack your bags and let’s go on a flight of fancy for this thread…but not too fancy, how would it really be, do you suppose?
Anyway, later this year an archeology dig site in a remote corner of China digs up a complete skeleton. This skeleton is 50 feet long, very slender and snake-like in appearance yet does have four spindly limbs, and the skull has both horns and some inner structures that haven’t been seen before. Before long it’s hypnotized that these structures allowed the creature to breath fire.
It hits the news: it’s a dragon.
While this is still being debated over the course of the next two years, there are three other big finds:
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[li]In Utah a dig site unearths the skeleton of an unknown bipedal humanoid. The skeleton stands an impressive 17 feet tall.[/li][/ul]
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[li]In Scotland another dig site produces a skeleton that is very zebra or horse-like in build, but has a single horn in the center of its forehead.[/li][/ul]
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[li]And lastly in Greece a dig site finds a deformed horse skeleton. Or a deformed man’s skeleton. Either way it looks for all the world like the fusion of a man and a horse.[/li][/ul]
Scientists clamor to be part of debunking the finds (and a few want to be part of proving the hypotheses about them instead), but by the end of 2021, it’s been conclusively proven by DNA analysis and morphology etc. that all four of these skeletons are 100% real, and not one of them is conclusively proven to merely be a deformed member of an extant species.
So, as 2022 dawns, people are faced with the new knowledge that dragons, giants, centaurs, and unicorns are (or, rather, were) real. How do people react?