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#adelaide really isn’t wrong when she says they should have taken a supermarket over
lulu2992 · 1 year
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Based on your last post how do you think the cult would have turned out and what do you think would be different if the seeds had the chance to heal from their trauma?
So, let’s imagine this is a perfect world in which they’ve managed to completely heal and put their traumatic pasts behind them. Let’s also consider the Voice is still real and asked Joseph to save at least 3,000 souls from the Collapse because I want to keep the prophetic and supernatural aspect of the story (and also justify the cult’s existence). But, since the Seeds finally have a chance to get better in this AU, let’s also say the Voice didn’t ask them to do anything violent; I don’t want it to ruin everything!
I’m going to start with Faith because… would she even be in the Project? If she had had access to professional help, she could have overcome her drug addiction and regained a taste for life without joining a cult. Maybe she wouldn’t even have come to Hope County to “detox”, as some NPCs say. I also imagine she would still be best friends with Tracey, who would have healed too. It’s a bit unclear which Faith created the Bliss and the Angels but, in this scenario, I don’t think the cult would need them anyway because they wouldn’t brainwash or torture anyone.
While I can see Jacob still training people in case they need to survive in harsh conditions or defend themselves, he wouldn’t “cull the herd” or experiment on living creatures anymore. No more sacrifices, no more conditioning, no more trials, no more brainwashing, no more Judges; just a group of people getting ready for the apocalypse. I guess he could still teach them how to use weapons because it seems everyone owns and shoots guns in Hope County anyway, at least for hunting. I think the Whitetail Militia existed before Eden’s Gate arrived (but was a bit different), so I guess it wouldn’t be considered abnormal for cultists to have a small army too; its members just wouldn’t terrorize the rest of the county. Actually, since we know Eli helped Jacob design and build bunkers, maybe they would still be “friends” and the Whitetails would be part of the cult.
John could still be The Baptist, people could still need to be Cleansed before joining the Project, and maybe he would hear their Confessions too, but because he wouldn’t have such an unhealthy relationship with sin and pain anymore, he wouldn’t make others suffer, psychologically and physically. No more tattoos, no more cutting people’s skin out, and maybe no more “Power of Yes”, either, since this obsession also came from his adoptive parents’ torture. I hope he also wouldn’t have such a fragile ego and a constant need for validation anymore, so he wouldn’t want to impress Joseph all the time or need his approval to convince himself he’s worth something as a person.
Finally, while Joseph would still hear the Voice in this scenario, he wouldn’t have sacrificed his daughter because “God” wouldn’t have asked him to do it. She would have died in the hospital shortly after her mother’s accident… or she would still be alive, and maybe he would have never created “Faith Seed” for this reason! His family members could still be his Heralds, and the cult would have built bunkers and started stockpiling food and supplies, but they wouldn’t have lost so many potential converts in Jacob’s trials, so they probably would already have enough followers. Because they would also look less “weird” and scary, I suppose more people would have wanted to join them, too. And they would still have John’s money, so they could have used it to buy enough food and supplies instead of brutally stealing everything during the Reaping! Maybe the rules (no alcohol, no drugs, no fornication) would still apply because Eden’s Gate remains a religious group, but I suppose cultists wouldn’t be so aggressively obsessed with “sin”.
Now, I don’t know what the Deputy’s role in the prophecy would be. In this perfect world, they would have no reason to arrest Joseph, so that wouldn’t trigger the Collapse and the Reaping (which, maybe, wouldn’t even be necessary). I suppose they could still join the Project and be saved, though, and so could everyone else in Hope County.
I’m aware this is a very idealized scenario but, if the Voice still existed and the Seeds had totally healed from their traumatic pasts, I think that’s what Eden’s Gate could look like. They would still be preppers and technically a cult, but a surprisingly (and, I suppose, unrealistically) wholesome one.
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