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The Elder Gods.
The Elder Gods are awesome deities in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series and on our Wiki in general.
Today, however, all of the Gods have either been imprisoned or are suffering in a vegetable state due to their immortality thanks to Cetrion, the Elder Goddess who had enough of their charade and now rules the Heavens.
About the Elder Gods[]
The Elder Gods are the supreme deities of the universe. Where as other human Gods (Bill Gates, Montana, me, Travonni, Maxwell, etc.) only have jurisdiction over a single country or planet and typically represent a thing, the Elder Gods are more ethereal and have power in all planets. The blue faces of the Elder Gods are seen in Mortal Kombat 4, and the appearance of Shinnok in the same game, suggest that natural born Elder Gods have blue-gray skin and a humanoid appearance. Another different source of their form is found in Return of The Dragon King's Konquest Mode where an inverted dialogue states that, in their purest form, the Elder Gods resembles the Mortal Kombat Tournament Dragon logo. Beings with this form can be seen in Onaga's unused ending picture found in Deception's Krypt, in Armageddon's Konquest, where Steven finds an inscription of his father talking to dragon-shaped figures, that he states to be the Elder Gods, and Captain Marvel's ending in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. Their true nature and extent of their powers remain a mystery but is believed to be omnipotent, having existed long before the Mortal Kombat tournament and can foresee events.
History[]
Before the planets of Universe came into existence, there was the One Being, which comprised all of known reality. The Elder Gods waged war and created the Kamidogus, powerful weapons used to shatter the One Being. The Elder Gods then created the planets from its body, with Earth as the centre of power.
Even though the One Being was shattered, its divided mind plotted through exceptionally powerful individuals. It acted through Onaga at first, and would later through Shao Kahn, both unaware of its manipulations. It also commands Onaga during Mortal Kombat: Return of The Dragon King to fuse the Kamidogus into one, and apparently only Ermac is able to notice its vague presence.
Long time after the defeat of the One Being, a great, formless evil arose on Egypt on Earth. Before it could do harm to the universe, it was set upon by the three prime Gods of the Earth: Orak, Fujin, and Raiden. The three deities fought a fierce battle against the evil manifestation, burning the entity and new deity almost completely out of existence with their divine power. However, during the battle, one small fragment of the entity that was cut from the whole by Orak did not burn away. Unnoticed by the three Gods, this fragment floated away from the site of the battle and drifted through space for some amount of time until it eventually crashed on Outworld on Yin Yang Island. It is implied that this crash is the event that caused Outworld's sky to turn purple. The fragment developed over aeons into an ominous forest that devoured anyone who dared to enter. Eventually, the forest grew so large that the Outworld God by the name of Zaggot decided to kill the evil at its source. Armed with a magical and diamond-like arrows made by Buddhist monks filled with wrath of the Outworld, the god and his cavalry rode into the heart of the forest. But as they rode, the forest began to kill his men, leaving the God himself as the only survivor. Once at the black lake in the forest's centre, Zaggot doused an arrow into the crushed gem he was given and fired it into the black lake, believing that it would destroy the evil. Unexpectedly, the gem's magic had the unforeseen effect of galvanising the evil into a bird-like form, giving it sentience and supernatural abilities, and thus giving birth to another god, known only as Azazel.
Zaggot fled the place as he knew that he could not defeat the new wicked Elder God alone but with aid from Raiden and Fujin, Zaggot created a magical sword filled with positive and powerful energy which was enough to defeat Azazel called Brutal Terra. At the end of the conflict, Azazel was transformed into a tree - yet the imprisonment wouldn't last much more than a single decade before a solar eclipse freed Azazel again.
Azazel would then proceed to lay waste to Outworld after his long slumber. However, Zaggot was once again ready to fight Azazel and this time planned to destroy him for good. Zaggot nearly killed Azazel with the Terra, but before he could deal the finishing blow, Azazel threw open a portal in time and transported himself to a planet of Orinion whom he rules to this day.
The Elder Gods' rule of non-interference in mortal affairs that do not threaten their own existence was evident when Shao Kahn, Emperor of Outworld, merged Earth with Outworld to reclaim his wife Queen Sindel, in direct violation of the secret rules of Mortal Kombat. Raiden begged the Elder Gods to stop Shao, who was required by those rules to win ten consecutive Mortal Kombat tournaments before he could take Earth, but the Elder Gods did nothing. Thus, the Elder Gods show no signs of being truly benevolent or malevolent towards the various threats posed to Earth. They usually only intervene if the villain of the world poses a potential threat to them or defies their will, like a real life god would.
Their non-intervention nearly caught them unaware when Shinnok escaped from the Never Never Land and attacked them directly but due to their status and Raiden's forces defeating Shinnok, this was prevented. Eventually the sorcerer Quan Chi, used a secret amulet, belonging to Shinnok, to free him but took the amulet for himself. Thanks to the intervention of Raiden, Fujin, and the champions of Earth, Shinnok was stopped. For this, Raiden was rewarded by being made an Elder God himself as he was only a mini-god and as a result promoted Fujin as the new Protector of Earth to take his place.
However, Raiden soon shed himself of this status when the Deadly Alliance arose as a threat to Earth. Divesting himself of Elder Godhood to lead his mortal pals into direct combat, this time Raiden's efforts were thwarted, with all of his allies either being killed or disabled. The threat posed by the Deadly Alliance was rendered moot, however, when The Dragon King appeared at the scene where Raiden had just been defeated by the two sorcerers of Quan Chi and Shang Tsung. For centuries Onaga had lain in wait from beyond death to be resurrected and complete his conquest of the planets. Raiden, Shang Tsung, and Quan Chi were unable to stop him. As a last effort, Raiden released his godly ball, causing a massive explosion, yet Onaga was alive. Soon, all of Raiden's energies reformed in Outworld, and were evil. This drove Raiden to believe that he could neither trust the Elder Gods nor his mortal comrades. Most of all, Raiden was furious with the mortal Shujinko for being duped into aiding the Dragon King's return.
Ironically, this time the Elder Gods did interfere. Now aware of a possible threat to them and the planets, because Onaga had acquired all the Kamidogus and Shinnok's Amulet, the Elder Gods summoned Scorpion to act as their champion and destroy Onaga. In exchange for his services, they agreed to resurrect his clan. However, after Onaga's defeat, the Elder Gods, for unknown reasons - resurrected Scorpion's clan as zombies, rather than as fully restored humans. Scorpion perceived this as an act of betrayal on the Elder Gods' part and turned against them.
In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, it is revealed that the Elder Gods foresaw that one day the Mortal Kombat tournament would be corrupted, and that the participating warriors would become too powerful and too numerous, jeopardising the safety and existence of the planets. They demanded a safeguard be put in place to prevent Armageddon. Argus, the protector God of Edenia, and his wife Delia, helped constructed a hidden pyramid and created an elemental warrior known as Blaze to watch over the planets and judge when its participants became too dangerous. When the time came, Blaze would call out, awakening Argus' two sons, Steven and Daegon, who would challenge Blaze on top of the pyramid. Whichever son won the battle would become the new god of Edenia, and be given the power to decide the fate of every other warrior. Should one brother be victorious, the combatants would be stripped of their power. Should the other be the victor against Blaze, the combatants would be stripped of their lives. Elder God characters can be created or promoted from a prior status, but the necessary parts must be unlocked in Konquest mode. If all the necessary parts are collected, then your character's appearance would resemble a man or woman in golden armour, called "The Elder God".
The Elder Gods also appeared in both Raiden's vignette and the story mode of Mortal Kombat 9. In the last chapter Raiden was about to face the same fate as his future self, but the Elder Gods (as dragons) descended and healed him. Shao Kahn tried to merge the planets without the necessary tournament wins so the Elder Gods helped Raiden defeat Shao Khan and imprisoned the emperor.
When Shinnok escaped from the Never Never Land and renewed his war against the Elder Gods in the new timeline, he attempted to absorb Earth's life-force, the Jinsei, and use Raiden's portal to the Heavens to allow his hordes of demons, revenants and onis access to the Gods. His plans were thwarted by Earth's warriors and Raiden, and when Shinnok was sealed inside his own amulet, Raiden brought the relic to the Elder Gods, bidding them to destroy it. Explaining to Raiden that destroying the amulet would only free Shinnok once again, they instead banished the amulet into a dark dimension using the Kamidogus.
The amulet would be freed by the chaos cleric and grim Havik many years later, and Shinnok freed some time after the death of Reiko. Shinnok nearly succeeded in staging his coup against his former brethren but was defeated once again by Raiden.
After the former God Shinnok was beheaded by Raiden, his mother, Queen Almeida began to enact her plans to restart the timeline once again. Various already-dead people were summoned, including past Liu Kang and Kung Lao, who are originally zombies. Raiden said that even their immense power was useless against Almeida due to her powerful status as a God of Time, and Raiden then assured everyone that they must take control of her Hourglass in order to stop the reset of the timeline following the New Era events. After Raiden returns to the Heavens to consult them again, all of the Gods had been vanquished, imprisoned or beheaded by Almeida's daughter, Cetrion, who follows her mother's will above everything. Raiden is unable to do jack sith now and he is later deleted from the timeline completely when Almeida succeeds in her plans and beheads the revived Liu Kang into which Raiden was merged.
Movie appearance[]
The Elder Gods imprison their evil "brother" Shinnok with their powers and returned the planets back to their natural state in the first movie. In Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, they are represented by ethereal beings of fire (possibly Blaze), air, water, and weather and they live in an ancient arena-like catacomb called the Eternal Palace, which is their place of worship, called the Temple of the Gods. Their brother, Shinnok, who is the Elder God of Darkness, is the arch-enemy of Raiden and like a father to Shao Kahn, according to MK and he wishes nothing less than power not only over all planets, but over the other Gods as well.
He favours Shao Kahn, considering him to be pretty powerful and cares about him like his son. Shinnok orders Shao Kahn to kill Raven, while guiding him in his path to merging the parallel universes of Earth and Outworld.
Shinnok is later stopped by two of his fellow Gods who appeared in their human forms, while still possessing and representing the elemental powers of fire and water, since they finally learned of Shinnok's plot to rule the universe. After Liu Kang and his buddies won the fight against Shao Kahn and his warriors, the Elder Gods imprisoned Shinnok for a month and restored all the planets back to their natural form. They later resurrected Raiden and offered him Shinnok's position in their ranks.
Gallery[]
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