#particularly in north america but also pretty much everywhere the lack of predators have made deer populations dangerously high

[nacricissa]

A slightly less racist Twilight

This is specifically attempting to remove the "overwriting the legends and traditions of an existing indigenous tribe" problem, not any of the other problems.

I don't think the werewolves being indigenous is important for anything other than racist reasons (ooh the mystical native is so much more magical type nonsense), so the werewolves can be a group other than "Particularly macho Quileute men, in the presence of vampires"

What traits must this group have?

Innate magic: this does not narrow things down, as many humans have innate gifts.

Hereditary magic: this is also true of humans (Bella= Charlie + Renée pretty solidly according to Edward)

Magic triggered by the presence of vampires?

Magic that makes them immortal once triggered??

Existing in the 1950s/1960s in Forks (this is when I assume the Cullens first visited Forks based on Emmett's and Billy's ages, but I may be missing a detail in my timelines)

Having legends about vampires which predate this

Is imprinting necessary?

Well, since I'm not trying to change that, I'm calling it a later problem, and so the innate powerset of this people started with someone whose innate talent was similar to Eleazar's, except it manifested in this truly hazardous sexual/romantic fixation, who then got obsessed with someone whose talent was somehow wolf-related and badda-bing badda-boom down the chain we go from there, adding other werewolf traits like the high temperature, good sense of smell, pack mind, and vampire synesthesia (converting the natural aversion to vampires many humans have- a real and normal sense Bella lacks in the same way someone born with a wonky inner ear won't have equilibrium- into a smell) along the way.

How old is this group?

I'm going to assume, for the sake of argument, that vampires are of European origin (see, some of the racism I am not trying to fix). There is nothing stopping vampires from having migrated to the Forks area prior to European colonization, but it is not guaranteed that a lasting impact would have been made.

Vampires can avoid being detected by humans pretty easily, if they don't feel like being dramatic today

Assuming vampires arose after the establishment of agriculture in Europe, the greater number of cities in their continent of origin would likely be a strong incentive to stay there, or return after a visit to this one

Even if there was contact, the legend may not have taken, or may have morphed beyond recognition by the time other vampires arrived.

The number of nomads in North America in the modern day is implied to be relatively low, with minimal risk of intersection despite the ability to run across the entire thing in like a day.

The first contact need not have resulted in the existence of werewolves, that could be the second, third, or whatever time a vampire entered the area that caused it.

Therefore, we can put the origin of the legend of the Cold Ones arbitrarily far back, if we wanted, except we don't want it to be a myth of the Quileute people in general, so if it originated before European colonialization, it must be a group of indigenous people from like, around, who've formed a group based on the fact that they know vampires are real; essentially a vampire-hunting society of professionals (these were very common among all humans everywhere, but mostly for making things, like weapons, or boats) from among whatever people were within a distance of reasonable contact.

This society would have been present during colonization, and would thus either have been

a) colonized

b) discarded as primitive nonsense or

c) both

If it originated after, we can do a similar thing, except this time the vampire-hunting society of professionals also includes Europeans from the get-go, and will end up being more European from day one.

This group would inherently be a secret society; most groups of professionals are, in this case to protect the fact that they can turn into wolves at will from society at large which might not like that. Imprintees and children are inducted by default, so Jacob would be a descendent of this society, but not an active member until the Cullens show up.

How old is this group?

This time I mean as in median age. Jacob says he's not ageing, but all the wolves from Ephraim's generation are dead, on a pretty normal human schedule. I would argue that this version could simply not include the immortality, only an age compression; you age faster, up to peak physique when your powers are triggered, then stay at that age until you are actually that age, then age normally. This makes imprinting on kids either slightly less weird, or even more weird, as the age gap is not guaranteed to "close" completely. But that's never going to be good so I'm not going to worry about it.

How does the presence of vampires affect the society?

In the books, the presence of a vampire is necessary for a werewolf to get werewolf puberty, and start presenting all the associated hereditary traits. This is important enough to the structure of the books I don't want to try to mess with it... as it comes to some of the characters. Things would play out very differently if Jacob or Leah knew they could turn into wolves from the get-go.

However, any good secret society needs an initiation rite, so exposure to the severed limb of a vampire to induce werewolfism in descendants once they come of age, which would probably be the time when the age compression would be least visible to outsiders, so about 23-25. This would presumably make the current werewolves' parents werewolves, but it doesn't have to. Descendants who choose not to be initiated, or who are excommunicated from the society would be able to pass on the gene, but not the access to a vampire bit on demand, leaving random potential werewolves out in the community, though those genes would slowly get diluted by the absence of the imprinting instinct, so the numbers would not exponentially increase.

I imagine Billy and Sam would be initiated before the start of the books, but anyone else is basically a coin toss. It's not like a lot of these characters histories' are super well-developed, and also New Moon is the book I've read the least so what development there is I am not very familiar with. There is also the option of maintaining the cannon lack of other werewolves by having the relic lost by a hilarious misunderstanding when the Cullens first arrive. Say, the society goes to hide it, so the Cullens don't know they can make more of themselves at will (Edward would in theory know, but he should also in theory know about the "vampire presence" theory from his first visit, which he doesn't, which means he is not paying much attention to the werewolves' theories about the world, only the treaty). However, instead of being hidden, it is tossed into the sea, or otherwise irrecoverably discarded, because the person assigned to hide it and the person doing the assigning didn't communicate very well, because all pack members were needed for a show of force, and pack members are notoriously bad at communicating with the uninitiated since they are used to working with people that are used to reading their thoughts.

The influence of the Cullens in forks would be twofold

First, random werewolves begin popping up in the community, joining the pack mind and being forced to join the society with a group-enforced silence law similar to the action of the Volturi upon the vampire community; we are organized, so we will destroy you if you try to divulge our secret. The power wielded by the society would be greater than just "We can turn into a wolf pack and kill you" because of the pack mind. Initiates can be taught much more quickly, because they can be guided through things by their parents through the pack mind, and the coordination and high skill workforce resultant of this would allow similar power dynamics that any clique would have in a small town. They would presumably end up with members in positions of civil or social power within the larger community. Incidentally, because of Jacob's teenage dismissal of society rules, he counts as a "random community werewolf"

Second, a resurgence of the professionalness of the society. Presumably, given the low concentration of vampires in the world, the trade of vampire slaying cannot readily be passed down. Instead, other trades, like accounting, law, medicine, and so on, are passed down instead to further the economic interests of the society in the community. The Cullens appearing the first time would represent a sudden need for what had become a mostly ceremonial tradition, sparking some amount of conflict within the group, as past and present incentives conflict. Some members would renew efforts to maintain the vampire-hunting knowledge, thus meaning the pack members during the time of the books would have a better reason to have foundational knowledge of the specific mechanics of how a werewolf pack takes down a vampire, the elements of a story most likely to be omitted over time because the strategy is really quite boring. Only real good writers can pull off writing more than the broadest of strategies before it gets boring. You don't read a lot of stories with more detail than "parry", a phrase it is difficult to take as instruction on it's own

#nacricontent #twilight #team edward #speculation #worldbuilding #twilight renaissance #werewolves #secret society #long post #I think #this is a meta?