The video slot “The Forgotten Land of Lemuria” boasts a unique theme about “a land erased from history” (I’m quoting directly from the slot description here), which, honestly, sounds like a fun concept! It’s not like the idea of an ancient, highly advanced civilization forever lost to time is a new one – all you need to do to realize this trope has been part of pop culture forever is to look at the myth of Atlantis. And I know what you’re gonna say – “But Jules, Atlantis isn’t just something some writer made up for money, there’s ancient proof that it exists, so it’s not pop culture at all!” And no, I’m sorry, but Atlantis was made up by Plato to serve as antagonists for his novels “Timaeus” and “Critias”, so it was quite literally just something some writer made up for money. But what if I told you that it’s not the only civilization like that?

Enter… Lemuria! In 1864, zoologist Phillip Sclater published a rather interesting discovery he made – he could find the fossils of lemurs in Madagascar and India, but interestingly enough, not in Africa and the Middle East – the only landmass that could potentially connect these two places. Or was it? The only explanation Sclater could come up with was that there must have been a hidden continent connecting Madagascar to India across the Indian Ocean. Because of course! I mean, it’s not like all of the current continents started out as one massive super-continent called Pangea millions of years ago which would allow the lemurian ancestors to reside in two seemingly impossible to reach regions. And the existence of Pangea has most certainly not been proven by science using the fact that MANY ancient species used to live impossibly far from each other, looking at the modern map. Nope, not at all. It must be a hidden continent that sunk into the ocean with absolutely no trace! The Illuminati must be behind it.

And, as you might expect, while any scientific backing behind the existence of Lemuria is loose at best, that hasn’t stopped the conspiracy nuts from being all over it! It’s hard counting the number of articles and videos like this one that attempt to desperately convince any gullible soul in their nonsense. It’s funny how what started as “Hey, maybe there was a landmass connecting India to Madagascar millions of years ago” steadily involved into “The Lemurians were godlike beings with power and technology far above our own”. To be perfectly honest, it’s a really fascinating mythology, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s completely insane drivel that actual living people breathing the same air as you and me believe.

Putting certain individuals’ madness, it’s important to note that Lemuria and its mythology has inspired a lot of fictional works. And I do mean A LOT. It has been referenced or featured in movies, TV shows, cartoons, games, visual novels, more books than you can count… Lemuria is at the center of the “Golden Sun” series of videogames, it’s the setting for the brilliant “Child of Light”, it’s featured as a location in both the Marvel and DC universe, it’s the goal in the TV series “The Deep” and so on and so forth. I guess, all things considered, the only thing that’s not crazy about this whole thing is that eventually someone would make a slot adaptation on the stories of Lemuria. I suppose it was only a matter of time, and to their credit, Microgaming did manage to do a pretty decent job with it, featuring many of the elements of the mythology that have been established over the years. I can only hope that the slot adaptation will be the final nail in the coffin of these ridiculous beliefs, but we both know that’s not gonna happen. Or maybe in two weeks they’ll discover Lemuria right where it was supposed to be and I’ll look like an idiot.