Mongo (planet)
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| Mongo | |
| Statistics | |
|---|---|
| Notable locations | Mingo City (Capital city) Arboria Frigia Coralia Land of the Lion Men Magnetic Mountains Tropica The Fire Lands Sky City Syk, the Blue Magic Kingdom The WERA BBS |
| Notable people | Prince Barin Queen Fria Queen Undina King Thun King Vultan Ming the Merciless Queen Desira of Tropica Gundar, the Desert Hawk, Princess Aura, Queen Azura |
| Creator | Alex Raymond |
| Genre | Various |
Mongo is the fictional planet where the action of the comic strip (and later movie serials) of Flash Gordon is located. The world is ruled by an usurper named Ming the Merciless, who makes the planet a terrible place to inhabit.
Mongo is inhabited by a number of different cultures, some quite technologically advanced, that have been falling one by one under the domination of the vicious tyrant Ming. However, through Flash's efforts, all of these kingdoms presented a united front against Ming in the animated series, and succeeded in removing him from the throne of Mongo.
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[edit] Planetary description
Mongo seems to be highly Earth-like, with an atmosphere fully compatible with Terran life, and indeed the dominant species on Mongo appears to be fully familiar Homo sapiens. Other intelligent races do exist, though most seem to be either H. sapiens variants or creatures of a clearly humanoid pattern, such as Thun the Lion-man.
It is mentioned at least once that Terrans are stronger on Mongo than on Earth, so apparently Mongo's surface gravity is at least slightly lower than that of Earth. It appears to be close, however, as would be expected from its highly Earth-like surface environment, the Terrans may be a bit stronger and more enduring on Mongo, but they are by no means superhuman (other than Flash Gordon's apparent supreme skill as a combatant and gymnast).
Mongo's surface is host to a variety of climates and biomes. Part of the planet is covered by the forest realm of Arboria, ruled by Prince Barin. Another by caverns and mountains, and part is the frozen kingdom of Frigia, ruled by Barin's cousin, Queen Fria. East of Arboria in the Sea of Mystery is the underwater kindgom of Coralia, which is ruled by Queen Undina. Also bordering the Sea of Mystery is the Land of the Lion Men, ruled by its current monarch, King Thun.
Directly east of the Lion Men's kingdom are the Magnetic Mountains, where Ming the Merciless established a new base of operations after he was removed from Mongo's throne. North of there is the Sky City of the Hawk Men, led by their king, Vultan. Directly east lies the jungle continent of Tropica, ruled by Queen Desira, and on Tropica's eastern coast, the Fire Lands, home of Gundar the Desert Hawk.
Mongo is also shown to have extensive underground domains.
All of these kingdoms and their respective rulers were featured prominently in The New Adventures of Flash Gordon.
[edit] Races of Mongo
- Gillmen
- Lionmen
- Hawkmen
- Arborean Hunters
[edit] Creatures of Mongo
- Carnivir Tree
- Constrictor Plant
[edit] Locations on Mongo
- Mingo City
- Dire Marsh
- Gurinium Mines
- Arborea
[edit] Politics
The capital city (or the closest thing to such) of Mongo is Mingo City, the site of the palace of Ming the Merciless, who styles himself Emperor of the Universe, and appears to actually be Emperor of Mongo.
The political structure of Mongo appears to be exclusively monarchical. In no case do we see any sort of republican or democratic government, though there are hints of theocratic elements here and there. Each realm that Gordon and Co. visit has its own king or queen. All initially seem to give at least some deference to Ming the Merciless (save initially Prince Barin and Thun, the ruler of the Lion-men).
The title of Emperor seems to be regarded as at least theoretically legitimate, Thun informs Flash and his friends that Barin would be the Emperor, but for Ming, though he adds his personal view that this would be no improvement. Whether the rank of Emperor is seen as hereditary or is otherwise obtained is never made clear, nor is it clear that the Emperor is seen as an absolute ruler. The authority commanded by Ming seems to be based as much on his vast military power as on his theoretical legal powers. It might be that title of Emperor passes from one monarch to another by some process of election or seniority, rather than being literally hereditary.
Whether Ming is rightful Emperor or not is also unclear, nor is it certain how long he has held the throne. At one point a reference is made to legends of Ming once acting as high priest of an ancient Mongovian king, and it also said that Ming launched invasions 'long and long ago'. Ming claims to be immortal, and these references may be evidence in support of the claim.
Be that as it may, Ming does face challenges at the time of Gordon's arrival on Mongo, Prince Barin has apparently been leading a guerrilla war against Ming based in Arboria (which would be well suited to such tactics, as well as the traditional techniques of 'jungle warfare'). Thun the Lion-man, too, seems to be an active enemy of Ming at the beginning of the series, and as he is the monarch of his people it can be assumed that the Lion-men are also in rebellion against Ming.
However, Arboria and Prince Barin seem to be at odds with both their fellow rebels the Lion-men, and with almost everyone else. Flash is told at the beginning of the series that "every race on Mongo is an enemy to every other race" and that "each man stands alone on Mongo". Indeed, a state of perpetual semi-warfare between Ming's subject states seems to be accepted as the norm of politics on Mongo at the time of Flash Gordon's arrival. Much of the efforts of Flash Gordon are directed toward overcoming this mutual and general antipathy.
For all its technological advancement, Mongo is semi-barbaric in terms of its social structures. Ming uses slave labor in mining radioactive elements for power and industry, Thun says that even a week in the mines could damage one's health, and 100 days is the limit of survival for the workers, in effect making the mines a slow death sentence. Ming's beautiful daughter Aura hunts people for thrills, and seems to be simultaneously sadistic and spoiled, though she has her better moments. Being raised by Ming might explain much, however.
Even the protagonist-rulers are seen to practice slavery at the start of the series: The Hawk-men of King Vultan use slave labor from rival states in dangerous high-radiation work, and even Prince Barin hunts political enemies for sport. King Vultan of the flying Hawk-men has ambitions of becoming Ming's son-in-law by the forced marriage of his daughter Aura. The various peoples appear to be highly civilized with regard to each other, but to be conditioned to see all outsiders as enemies to be slain or exploited.
Ironically, Prince Barin says of the Lion-men at one point that they are barely out of the Dark Ages compared to the rest of Mongo, and other native characters make desparaging references to the "savagery" of Thun. However, of all the natives of Mongo that Flash meets, it is Thun who initially and consistently seems to be the most personally honorable, loyal, and decent, even more so than Barin or Vultan, Flash's other main allies.
In the 2007 Scifi Channel series, Mongo's government is the "United People's of Mongo" ruled by Ming.
[edit] The Witch Kingdom of Syk
Mongo's crusts is riddled with caverns and chambers, and in some of them is to be found a realm that is the remnant, according to legend, of a kingdom that once ruled all Mongo, and the monarch of that ancient realm was Ghor-Dhan, pronounced the same as 'Gordon', and his appearance was identical to Flash Gordon of Terra.
Syk is a kingdom supposedly founded on magic, as opposed to the high technology that underlies the civilization of the rest of Mongo, though it becomes clear as events unfold that Syk's "magic" is actually a sufficiently advanced technology, in the sense of Clarke's Third Law, though they do use some of the imagery of magic. Dr. Zarkov even masters some of it, with his own tremendous intellect.
Syk is ruled by the witch-queen Azura, who is feared by everyone on Mongo. Even Ming the Merciless is said by legend to have attempted to conquer Syk, "long and long ago", with an army of one million, who disappeared to the last man. Thun says that legend also made reference to Ming once acting as King Ghor-dhan's "high priest". Supposedly Ghor-dhan left Mongo ages before seeking new worlds to conquer, leaving his lover Azura to rule in his stead...and never returned, leaving Azura to rule Syk for ages, being apparently immortal.
Queen Azura believes that Flash Gordon is her long-lost lover returned, and she is even able to bring forth what seem to be memories of that time in him. When Flash marvels at the similarity to the statue, the similarity of name, and the other indications of some sort of connection, even Dr. Zarkov is forced to note that there are things science cannot account for.
[edit] New version
In the new Scifi Channel series Flash Gordon, Mongo is not only another planet, but also "in another dimension" (i.e. parallel universe). It has been explained that "the dimensional shift" is "quite small" and that there is an inherent connection between Earth and Mongo wherein the quantum mechanics of Bell's theorem and EPR Paradox are working on a planetary scale. That is apparently why there are so many similarities between both worlds, such as language and humans evolving on both planets. Its even been theorized that at some point in time and space, the two planets were much closer.
In the episode Sorrow, it was revealed that Mongo was once a prosperous blue and green planet, but it relied on a glowing red ore called zerilium that was mined on the moon. The people of Mongo even constructed two small artificial moons named Arkaylia and Surd to process zerilium and shelter the miners. Eventually an accident on Mongo released poisonous zerilium gas into the air. This caused acid rain, killed wildlife, and contaminated Mongo's water as it turned gray. The planet became uninhabitable. A congregation of one-hundredths of one one-hundredths of the people of Mongo immigrated to Arkaylia. Those who remained on Mongo perished. After three generations of living on the artificial moon, Mongo's environment partially repaired itself. As a result, the people returned to the planet. Clean water, known as "source water", still remains scarce and usually comes from underground. Centuries after this, Ming seized power from the Verden and began his rule.
