one of my fav things to thing about is why the Shane's were entrusted w the surface knowledge. Like I have a bunch of theories, many of which I will write on ao3...eventually.
the Shane's could've done what Yang did, only in the context of native Americans/settlers in the new world who needed to escape the surface for whatever reason. The Shane's could have used to be kinda evil, using surface knowledge to give themselves money and power and keep a hold of Slugterra, till one generation decided to be heroes instead. Maybe the portals were used and the worlds knew of each other, but then some big war w the SC and dark bane closed off all their hope of conscious peace, so the shadow clan allowed only the families they trusted to know and keep track of everything and foil any plans of integration. And MAYBE, this is why the shadow clan and master shanai don't exactly worship the shame name; they consciously make Eli prove his worth of being a shane that can do that, and will choose others if necessary. But yeah, they separated a looooooong time ago.
but the cool things is that we're playing with THOUSANDS OF YEARS of history. All THREE can be canon. Maybe the Edwardian Shane's fucking sucked and killed people. Maybe the Shane's during the colonial era saw native Americans and woman prosecuted and were like "bro u wanna run away? we can help!". ....you know what just happened, w me writing this out? If the Shane family has been strictly blood relations and Eli's fam goes back 2k years, Eli has to be Native American.
wAIT MAYBE THATS WHY THE SHANES SUPER CLOSED OFF THE SURFACE, LIKE THEY SAW PPL GETTING REALLY SICK 1400S ONWARD AND THEY DIDNT WANT A PLAGUE OF MEASLES TO TAKE OUT SLUGTERRA. okay this took a turn.
what is this reblog I'm so sorry
Is there any sort of fannon (or even better, cannon) timescale for slugterra? Everyone in the 99 seems to have genuinely forgotten what the surface is like, which would take a while. There are irl stories that use constellations that mention stars that don’t exist anymore, stars have died before we forgot. Not to mention the weirdly accurate visuals Gar had of surface cities. So does anyone know when the 99 caverns officially got “cut off” from the surface?
Was it a really really ancient separation that’s only been blurred once the Shane’s went down (or came up??? Idk) hence Gar’s accurate poster visuals? Like the “first Shane” just blabbed cause they didn’t realise that mixing the two worlds could be harmful? And their ancestors have just been eternally doing PR cleanup? Or was it a recent cut off that people have forgotten super fast somehow??
Trixie mentions in 'A Distant Shore' that her mom used to tell her stories about the 'Burning World'
ive always been under the impression that all myths and stories hold some truth to them, but over time the details get exaggerated, lost or changed to fit a given narrative the story teller wants to tell.
so while im not 100% sure about cannon info on the timeline of the Caverns and Surface being separated, I would bet it had something to do with the Terra Portals, Shadow Clan and the Dark Bane.
If the Surface and Slugterra interacted, there would be old text's, but because it's in an old language no one speaks and the art left over would be vague as hell, and there have probably been hundreds of artistic interoperations of what the Burning World might look like over the years, so the illustrations Gar has are probably his, and where most likely influenced by the pictures in Jimmo's journal depending on when he got it.
As for the Shane's, I think there one of a handful of people who know the full truth, and shared the story in full for generations.
this is a personal HC, but-
I think there was a war of some kind involving the people of Slugterra/Surface, the Shadow Clan and Dark Bane, hundreds of years ago, one that separated the Eastern and Western Caverns(Possibly a Northern and Southern Caverns as well), and caused the Terra Portals to become largely inactive for the most part, and in the aftermath the Surface and Caverns where left separated, but before contact was fully cut the Shadow Clan entrusted seiten people with the knowledge of how to get back underground because of what they did during the war to protect Slugterra, the Shane's being one of those families. over the years, more and more families forgot, or died out, leaving the Shane's one of the very few and possibly only ones that take the drop and still protect the Caverns all theses' hundreds of years later
again, pure headcannon with no real evidence
its a crazy rabbit whole to go down, and I would like to hear others thoughts on it from the community!