Some More Delta Green Scenario Thoughts

 Science continues to trundle onwards, and this week I've found two news articles on scientific discoveries that may have implications for Delta Green.

478 Mesoamerican monuments revealed in Southern Mexico by lidar

Some of the structures date as far back as 3000 years ago, and many are still buried under foliage. The structures include artificial plateaus that may have been used for ceremonial or religious purposes. 

And if you look at the methods, more details of some of these structures may be yet to be revealed. The researchers utilized survey data by the Mexican government that covered approximately 84,500 square kilometers at a lidar resolution of a 5-meter scale.  Typically in archeological surveys, the resolution of lidar surveys is preferred to be at the 1-meter or 50-centimeter scale.  So now archeological teams in the future have their pick of new sites to uncover and there maybe more architectural details to be revealed at the 1-meter scale.

So this means the Handler has a plethora of new potential Mythos sites to play with in an area from roughly San Lorenzo to Aguada Fenix. Some of these sites are presumed to be Mayan and others Olmec. 

Naturally Mythos aficionados will recognize this as Yig country and perhaps a few others will nod towards The Transition of  Juan Romero (Lovecraft) for ideas, but there are other possibilities as well.  Mi-go have been known to mine strange and rare metals from Earth in South America. It's possible that earlier Mesoamerican cultures may have come under their sway.  Also the terrible caverns where the monstrous K'n-yanians dwell span as far south as the South Pole so it's possible there are fissures in the Earth nearby the ceremonial artificial plateaus that could have received worship. 

4,000-year-old Chinese mummies from the Tarim Basin

So there has been some molecular archeology done on 13 remarkably preserved Chinese mummies from the Tarim Basin.

A statement from the article says:

"Starting in the early twentieth century, the mummies were found in cemeteries belonging to the so-called Xiaohe culture, which are scattered across the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region of China. The desert “is one of the most hostile places on Earth." says Alison Betts, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney in Australia."

Handlers and Keepers know that the Plateau of Leng haunts the area (as the Tibetan Plateau is right south of the Tarim Basin). What if the Plateau of Leng is a dimensional anomaly that is carnivorous and wants to expand, but has been thwarted in it's expansion by human peoples in the area with mystic knowledge?  What if a "Plateau of Leng pacifying" ritual has to be done once a millennia by someone with genetic heritage from the Tarim Basin mummies like their ancestors did? Imagine a possibly international search by Delta Green agents aided or confounded by GRU-SV8 agents to find people with the genetic heritage of the mummies and a last frantic run away from Communist Chinese agents in the Tarim Basin as a last desperate ritual against the Plateau of Leng is enacted. 

Or maybe these ancient residents of China knew the danger of the Tcho-tchos and their resting places contain hypergeometric relics that are being trafficked to America (or GRU-SV8) where they are being studied? Perhaps the players are instead smugglers who are trying to profit off of artifacts to be destroyed by the Chinese government. 

After reading parts of the academic paper on the mummies (which is here) I found another interesting wrinkle about the Tarim Basin society that created the mummies. There is evidence for ritual use of something called Ephedra there and in surrounding cultures. 

According to Wikipedia at least, Ephedra is a botanical from which I think one extracted Soma, which is talked about in the Vedas as a "a holy substance to an actual personified god and is considered a teacher, doctor, medicine, a bringer of insight and a vector of inspiration."

Ultimately Soma could get you high to the point where you communed with the gods. Maybe Soma and thus Ephedra could be another component for Space Mead?