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Sun Wu K'ung (fiction)
A fictional character, sometimes called Monkey, the Monkey King, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, or the Mind Monkey, from the literature of Old Earth China. He was first and most vividly portrayed by the late Ming (4th century AT; 16th century c.e.) author Wu Ch'eng En in a work called Journey to the West. This was a fantastic adventure with comic, satirical, and philosophical elements, and had enduring appeal. Wu K'ung remained a popular figure in many descendant and related Terragen cultures with roots in Old Earth's Eastern Asia. The story of the Monkey King was still so potent on Penglai that its imagery was an essential element in the Hsein ascendancy, and later in the Penglai "Empire". This ensured that the story of Sun Wu K'ung would become part of a large swath of Terragen culture, with special appeal to human nearbaselines and tweaks as well as many primate provolve, splice, and rianth clades. Derivative characters are also popular in the Terragen milieu today, most notably that in Gen Li Tsu's classic interactive, Monkey of Penglai. To this day, the Great Sage appears in a multitude of contexts, from stories for children to advertising campaigns to works of philosophy (where he symbolizes, among other things, the potent but restless "monkey mind" of the intellect which must be tamed by discipline before a spiritual journey can begin).
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- Penglai
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- Sun Wu K'ung (historical persons) - Text by Stephen Inniss
Any of a number of beings or their avatars that have taken the name of the fictional character over the millennia since the first tale of Monkey was told. The best known in the current age is the transapient who presently serves as the Primus of the Institute for Primate Provolution.
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Development Notes
Text by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 02 June 2005.
Initially published on 02 June 2005.
