An Oracle of Siwa is an individual with the hereditary ability to understand the mysterious language known as the Word of Thoth.
History[]
Early History[]
Many thousands of years ago, the Word of Thoth texts that were a part of the trials of the Super-Ancients required a translator, so the Super-Ancient Beings sent the first Oracle of Siwa to humankind so that they could translate the language for them during the times of the trials' undertaking.
As the Oracle assisted the Four Legendary Kingdoms - who had been tasked by the Super-Ancients with maintaining the knowledge and tools to complete the trials - their ability to understand of Thoth was passed down through each of the Oracle's descendants, a process likely developed by the super-ancients, and would awaken as they matured.
Over the years, some of the Oracles would teach others how to understand the Word of Thoth, such as ancient Pharaohs and Kings such as Khufu and Alexander the Great, and scholars like Callimachus.
During the era of Alexander the Great's reign, an Oracle of Siwa presented him with the Golden Capstone, after they had looked after it for several generations following its use to avert the crisis caused by the Tartarus sunspot. The Oracle also pronounced Alexander as the son of the God Zeus (though since Zeus was in fact a normal human ruler, they more likely meant that he was of Zeus's bloodline).
In the millennia before the present era, it became known to the Kings of the Four Kingdoms and a few of their subordinates that a sacrifice was required to ensure the ceremony for the Capstone's use during the Tartarus event, and for the Trial of the Cities' final ritual on the Altar of the Cosmos, to be successful. Some organisations such as the Trismagi and Cult of Amun Ra (later the Catholic Church) came to believe that it was the Oracle of Siwa's responsibility to play the role of "supreme initiate" during these events. As such, they always made efforts to ensure the Oracle sired an heir to continue the bloodline, though not once in recorded history did a Siwa Oracle produce more than one child.
By the 14th century, those who had followed Callimachus's teachings about how to understand the Word of Thoth had died off, leaving the ones capable of understanding the language the Siwa Oracles.
Before Seven Ancient Wonders[]
Towards the end of the 20th century, various parties were preparing to locate the pieces of the Golden Capstone, and so some acquired either the original Callimachus text or the illicit copies that had been made to aid their attempts to locate the seven Wonders. Of course, being that it was written in the Word of Thoth, they first had to identify the one person who could translate it; the Oracle of Siwa.
Prior to 1996, Milo Omari was the present-day Oracle of Siwa, who initially had no real desire to have a child, until he discovered the intention of the Four Kingdoms to sacrifice an Oracle at the conclusion of the Trial of the Cities, and so planned to sire an heir to make sure he would not have to be the sacrifice. Milo soon seduced and later married one of his maids, Malena Okombo, however, his alcoholic and abusive behaviour eventually drove Malena to flee from him, but only after becoming pregnant.
Around the time that Max Epper and Jack West Jr identified Milo as a Siwa Oracle, they also discovered the existence of the pregnant Malena. With Milo being difficult to locate - and with his spoilt personality believed to provide an obstacle - the pair opted to try and request Malena's permission to use her child's ability when they reached age to help locate the pieces of the Golden Capstone. Though Malena agreed, she was soon after kidnapped by Francisco del Piero and his forces, and taken to a Ugandan volcano where she went into labour. Malena gave birth to a son, and the agents of the Catholic Church, satisfied that they had the next of the Oracles of Siwa, took the boy and left the dying Malena.
Jack and Epper would soon examine Malena's abandoned body and discover a second child still in the process of being born, and so they performed a cesarean, resulting in the birth of a baby girl. With this miracle, for the first time in history there was not one, but two new descendants of the Siwa Oracle, who could someday harness the ability to understand Thoth.
Two months after the births of his son and daughter, Milo was drinking heavily at a bar in Wembley shortly after the Cup final, and had a confrontation with an ironworker who headbutted him, the force of which ended up killing the Oracle. His body would later be found in an alleyway.
Both del Piero's faction of the Church and the Coalition of Minnows would raise the boy and girl respectively, naming them Alexander and Lily, with the intention of waiting until they were old enough to understand Thoth so that they could locate the seven Wonders and the Capstone pieces.
Around the time that Alexander and Lily turned 10, the former came to understand Thoth first, while Lily apparently took another day or so to begin understanding the first verse of the Thoth-written Callimachus text. After translating the verse, both groups set out with their Oracle of Siwa to the location of the first Piece of the Capstone, the Colossus of Rhodes with a Sudan mine.
Seven Ancient Wonders[]
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The Six Sacred Stones[]
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The Five Greatest Warriors[]
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The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
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The Three Secret Cities[]
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The Two Lost Mountains[]
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The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
While in the Chamber of Judgement, the Gold Colossus informed Jack that the ancients' had sent the Oracles who could read the Word of Thoth to humanity so that they could undertake their trials.
In the years after Lily and Alby married, they had four children together, the eldest two, a pair of twin girls, who had the ability to read Thoth, making them Oracles like their mother. Lily and Alby's youngest children, though not Oracles, were adept at learning new languages, and Lily went on to teach them how to read the Word of Thoth as well.
Meanwhile, it was determined by a team of geneticists and DNA experts that the Altar of the Cosmos did not require the sacrifice of an Oracle to complete the ritual, and that only a sample of blood was required.
Abilities[]
Each generation of the Oracle of Siwa is born with a natural ability of intuitive bilingualism that allows them to understand the Word of Thoth in all of its forms. This ability originated because of the Super-Ancient Beings, as the Gold Colossus informed Jack that they had sent the Oracle to humanity to translate the Thoth texts. The ability is passed down through each generation of the Oracle, and manifests roughly around the time the Oracle turns ten; over the period of a week they begin to understand the next dialect in the increasingly difficult levels with each passing day.
The Siwa Oracles are primarily the only ones who can translate Thoth, as even modern supercomputers were unable to decipher it despite long periods of analysis (though Mendoza eventually perfected a translating device). It has also been suggested Oracles of Siwa are gifted at learning other languages, such as in Lily's case, wherein she is extremely adept at learning new forms of language, both spoken, written and gestured.
Known Oracles[]
- The original Oracle of Siwa
- Abraham of Ur
- Nefertari of Siwa
- Cassandra of Troy
- Milo Omari
- Lily West
- Alexander
- Lily and Alby's Twin Daughters
Trivia[]
- It is unknown if the spoken language of Thoth was known to the Siwa Oracles of ancient times, as the Neetha were the first ones being noted to speak it and Lily only realised she could understand it as she heard them speak.
- Though not an Oracle of Siwa, Mustapha Zaeed became able to understand its first four dialects of Thoth through years of patience and discipline.
- Later, Lily and Alby's youngest children, though not Oracles themselves, proved themselves adept enough at learning languages to be taught to read the Word of Thoth.