🚀 Episode 27 of the Vale & Mark Podcast 🚀

(Ancient Trails Part 5)

🔥 AI Unlocks the SHOCKING Truths of the Hyborian Age! 🔥

What if the ancient world of Conan the Barbarian wasn’t just a fantasy…but a forgotten age built on knowledge so advanced it looked like magic?

In this short, Vale and Mark dive into Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age — a world shaped by cataclysms, shattered empires, and the lingering glow of civilizations that rose long before recorded history. A place where “magic” may have been misunderstood technology, and where ruins whisper the truth about the cycles we still live in today.

With AI-generated art and storytelling, we explore how the myths of the Hyborian Age mirror our own world. The rise. The fall. The rediscovery.Because every dark fantasy starts with a lost civilization… and every lost civilization leaves clues for us to follow.

👉 In this short, discover:

⚔️ What made the Hyborian Age such a gripping sword and sorcery world

🏛️ Why ancient “sorcery” might have been forgotten science

🌌 How Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Conan all echo the same mythic pattern

🧠 Why AI feels like our era’s version of ancient magic

📜 How Howard’s worldbuilding still shapes dark fantasy today

💡 What our own civilization might be rediscovering without even realizing it

This episode is a reminder that the past is never really gone.

It lives in our myths.

It lives in our stories.

And now, with AI, it lives again.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open

00:17 Show Introduction

02:15 Why did Robert E. Howard place the Hyborian Age between Atlantis and recorded history?

03:58 What do we know of Atlantis from within Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age mythos?

08:21 Magic in the Hyborian Age and the Force in Star Wars

10:16 In Star Wars, what was the Infinite Empire and who were the Rakatans of Lehon (Rakata Prime)?

11:37 In Song of Ice and Fire, what was the Doom of Valyria?

13:33 How did the Infinite Empire fall?

15:00 What was King Aragorn's tax policy?

16:48 What was Robert E. Howard's inspiration for his Hyborian world?

19:53 Are sword and sorcery worlds creative escapism or cultural memory in disguise?

20:44 How can fantasy feel familiar while also being fantastical?

22:27 Originally, in Robert E. Howard's telling, Conan was clever and not strictly a brute

24:00 Do these “prehistory fantasies" express nostalgia for meaning?

24:54 What happens when myth fills the gaps science hasn’t yet reached?

25:44 What happens when science fills those gaps and the myth-believers fight back?

28:04 Is the modern tech age our next Hyborian era with data as our magic?

30:52 If ChatGPT was a sorcerer, which spells would it cast?

31:30 AI and the poisonous mushroom meme

33:37 Caramelo the cat's critical cameo

34:00 Closing remarks

35:02 Outro

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💬 What part of the Hyborian Age fascinates you most?

Drop your thoughts below — your insight might guide the next episode.

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