so i’m working on my sailor moon rewrite and a big part of the story is gonna be WORLDBUILDING and giving the universe a harder magic system (by “harder” i mean that the magic system in pgsm is very soft and pliable and i wish to make it more structured in my story).
the first way i’m gonna be doing that is by adding some stuff to the silver millennium era. starting with giving the girls (and queen serenity) names to differentiate them from their roles as senshi. so in my fic all the girls primarily go by their titles. “serenity” is the title of the current reigning ruler and her heiress. the silver millennium is the name of the combined queendoms, overruled by the lunar queendom. the lunar queendom is a matriarchal society that has the role of queen passed down from daughter to daughter, which began with high queen serenity asteria.
queen serenity’s official title is high queen serenity asteria. she is the immortal queen of the moon kingdom and the highest ruler of the silver millennium, with all other planets’ royal families serving under her, excluding the earth. i chose the name of the titaness of stars for her.
princess serenity selene is her daughter and heiress. queen serenity said she was seen as the incarnation of selene, the greek titaness of the moons.
senshi mercury was born as princess maia, the eldest daughter of the planet of mercury, a society of scientists and creators for the silver millennium, what allowed the empire to progress so far technologically. the nymph maia is the mother of hermes, the greek version of mercury.
senshi mars was born as princess areia, the eldest daughter of the planet of mars, a society of warriors and protectors. areia is a greek epithet that several goddesses had that means “warlike”.
senshi jupiter was born as princess dione, the eldest daughter of the planet of jupiter, a society of agriculturists. dione is a name that came from the same etymological roots as zeus (from the mykenaean goddess diwia, which sounds very similar to the mykenaean god diwe/diwo, an older form of zeus), zeus being the greek version of jupiter.
senshi venus was born as princess astarte, the eldest daughter of the planet of venus, a society of poets and artists, and the leader of princess serenity selene’s personal guard. astarte was the hellenized form of the northwest semitic goddess ʿaṯtart, the equivalent of the mesopotamian goddess ishtar who has been accepted by many scholars as a predecessor to aphrodite. i chose astarte over aphrodite bc she was historically the goddess of love, beauty, and war (ishtar/inanna was also a goddess of love, beauty, and war as well as the queen of heavens).
the outer senshi were lunarians with star seeds that were revealed to be sailor crystals for the farthest planets (excluding senshi saturn). they protect princess serenity selene from threats outside the solar system with the talismans that high queen serenity asteria gifted them. senshi pluto was born as ananke, named after the orphic goddess of necessity. senshi uranus was born as ourania, a greek epithet meaning “heavenly”. senshi neptune was born as thalassa, named for the primordial goddess of the sea’s surface (thalassa is also a moon of neptune!).
the final senshi is senshi saturn, born as persephatta, a lunarian who did not realize her true role until after the golden kingdom of earth attacked the lunarian queendom, leading to the deaths of the inner senshi and the lunarian princess. after awakening, she proceeded to destroy the rest of the silver millennium with a single swing of her glaive. persephatta is a form of the name persephone, the queen of the greek underworld. the popular folk etymology of persephone is “the destroyer”, which fits for saturn.