Mute is the story of a strange chapter in the earth's future where human technology and knowledge has almost all been lost and an anoxiation event has wiped out most of the familiar species. The surviors have rebuilt entirely new cultures and new relationships with the alien flora and fauna around them.
The character through which we explore this world is named Nur, a young girl with a badly scarred face. After her involvement in a tragedy in her home village, Nur is sent away to become a pahan, a handler of a giangtic creature called a brima. The story follows her adventures as she gets to know Mash, her brima, and grows up in an unstable, unknown world.
The inspiration for this story started when I was actually very young, and drawing lots of dragons. I drew several variants of land-dragons who had lost the ability to fly. I imagined people riding around on these land-dragons and using them as beasts of war. Not very original, but I was about fourteen at the time.
When I revisited the idea a few years later, I realized that the land-dragons as war beasts were actually quite tragic. Research on war elephants had shown me much of the horiffic training the animals went through, and documentaries had shown me the sad state of affairs of the animals today. I believe one of the documentaries I watched was World's Deadliest Towns, but I can't remember the name of the other.
I was fascinated and appalled by the plight of the elephants. I read a long article in the New York Times profiling some of the incidents and linking the strange behaviors of elephants with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The worst thing of all, though, which I did not believe when I first read about it, was the horrific practice of phajaan, which nearly every captive elephant in South Asia undergoes and has undergone for thousands of years.
I had to write about it. But my way was not an exposé news article. My way was a story, a story I hoped could reach people in ways the news could not. I was going to write Mute, a story about those without voices.
The culture Nur grows up in is based mainly off of Indian culture, with smatterings of Thai and Laotian culture thrown in. The capitol city, Pak Lai, is the name of a real city in Laos. Of course, much of the culture is entirely unique- inspired by, not an accurate replica of these real-world cultures. I chose these three countries because they all have a particularly close relationship with elephants.
Though most of the people of Mute use very primitive technologies, the story itself is set far in the future. Most people deserted Earth at the advent of a massive anoxic event that wiped out most of the dominant species. In fact, nearly all mammals were wiped out. Only those with a close relationship to humans- and humans themselves- had the edge they needed to survive and evolve. The animals who filled the massive gap were birds, who were already uniquely designed to take advantage of the situation due to their unusal method of breathing. Without mammalian and reptile predators, birds lost the power of flight and became massive land-creatures, much like their dinosaur ancestors.
Most of the creatures, with the exception of brima and a few of the avians, were modeled after an exctinct ancestor. For example, the najok was based partially off of an Iguanadon, and the skeff was based off of an Andalgalornis. The sus were based off of Entelodont, the hippi were based off of Mesohippus, and the gharial were based off of Araripesuchus.
