The Races - Page 3

Nait · 07-28-2004, 10:15 PM

But the geographical time-frame with the Pangea Descendant is hugely larger than that needed to diversify a specied of monkeys. And we must also have some sort of mechanism that sees to that NO monkey gets down the tree faster than the others, because you know what happens to dumb monkies when the smart monkies come around. We're talking Neanderthals here. Big ones. In heaps and heaps, without heads.

The window of different species having the same intelligence is very unlikely. We'd need humans to first evolve intelligence, and then have that Pan Sapiens diverisfy into shorties, tallies, leatheries and wateries in a very short time, to be ready for inevitable rise of agriculture, cities and civilisation. Different worlds WOULD come handy in this - we can play along with time and space, and let the different species come together when they're relatively balanced. And, more importantly, other worlds offer the same opportunities as islands or other continents, without the risk of being disturbed and such, in the evolutionary process. A small group of humanoids travelling to another world can easily spawn a genetically diverse subspecies that grows large if it is left alone - but when that species has grown enough, and contacts are held in the other world to share genes, the population will stabilise and keep large groups of humans pretty similar, if there's no more settling and diversifying in those other worlds.

Cz · 07-28-2004, 10:42 PM

The Pangaea idea would require one hell of a coincidence to have all races at fairly even levels of intelligence. But with this being a fantasy setting, you could probably get away with that.

Still, the multiverse idea fits together quite nicely, and as long as there's some kind of legitimate reason for the travel between universes (the work of a god-like being, perhaps) then I'm all for it. Yay multiverse.

Proxy · 07-29-2004, 03:49 AM

Originally Posted by Agent Proto

Absolutely. We're not restricting everyone to just humans. Though, if you choose to be other races. Depending on what region you selected, you may choose to be another race recommended for the certain region you selected. Say, if you choose a desert region, you may want to choose Ingmarians as your race, as they're more suitable for the desert setting of the region. Other races are fine, but you may want to choose the best race most suitable.

Great ^_^!
Ok then Aranel shall be Elvish. I think elves would do decent in a tropical environment.

i hope

Spoiler: Aranel is elvish for my real name, Matt

Loony BoB · 07-29-2004, 10:49 AM

The idea is to...

1) Have five races.
2) Experience the birth of the nations. We can't do this if the world has already existed for hundreds of years.
3) Have the population of the world spread throughout the regions rather than concentrated in one continent.
4) Concentrate on the happenings of the world rather than specific people. You could say you are the historians as well as the leaders.
5) Have medieval technology, or at least knowledge.

So long as your suggestions fit in with that, I'm open to them.

We can't go with Nait's idea of traveling to other dimensions unless it happens in much the same way I had it happen - without their control. Maybe that did happen? That could be a theory/religion: "We were all once living on this very planet, thousands of years ago, and then we were taken and moved to our respective planets, evolved to the people we are today, and now we have been brought back to our home by God(s)." Or something.

The only thing I'm against is them returning to their planet by some sort of space travel or something, because obviously the people haven't reached flight, let alone space flight.

Nait · 07-29-2004, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

The idea is to...

1) Have five races.

Nonos problemos.

2) Experience the birth of the nations. We can't do this if the world has already existed for hundreds of years.

I find it very unlikely that nations would just pop out of the woodwork within a few years of the Rift. Especially if there are only a few hundred thousand people transferred - nations require things, basics that must be born under a pre-history, like agriculture, cities and so forth.

If you look at the history of our own world, where did nations, prior to modern times when the politics of the first world create nations where there were no nations, come to existence? There were the ingredients for civilisation and such existed - agriculture and cities, domesticated animals and smaller things. A nation cannot exist based on hunter-gatherers, you need stable populations. A few years after the Rift, the world would be, I suspect, a place were hunter-gatherers thrive, and agriculturalists are still working on their most basic and small projects to get their farms actually growing - and that is not enough for larger populations.
Look at the nations of the past. The Twin Flood nations, Egypt, Rome, ancient China, Ande nations and Mezoamericania all have one thing in common - agriculture, cities and domesticated animals. There were no nations amongst the hunter-gatherers of the Siberian Taiga, North and South American wilderness, Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa and so forth, when there were some sort of political structures other than "tribe" in Oceania and New Zealand, who had agriculture and domesticates, and on their way to ocean-spanning Empires under Hawaiian (I think it was) emperors.

Nations and the civilisation that support them need time, LOTS of it. If you transfer a buttload of people at the same time into an uninhabited wilderness, most of them will die, and the rest will hunt and pick mushrooms until their grand-grand-grand-kid has forgotten all the stories about agriculture and jumps around half-naked in the forest, not giving a rat's arse about some stupid weeds and such. Maybe his grand-grand-grand-grand-kid has some sort of agriculture, survived some way via some channels.

3) Have the population of the world spread throughout the regions rather than concentrated in one continent.

I haven't implied this.

4) Concentrate on the happenings of the world rather than specific people. You could say you are the historians as well as the leaders.

Not a problem, this is what I'm accusing you of doing. See it this way:

If we go with the jump-start scenario, we WOULD have to RP our way through the early history, decline and tribalisation of the five races.
This means coming up with individual reactions and stuff. If we let this scenario lie, and start the story a few thousand years in the future, THEN we can strategise without the burden of the first settler's unease with a new world, etc. and just concentrate on THIS world.

5) Have medieval technology, or at least knowledge.

They'll lose it, ang regain it as soon as they have the capability.

We can't go with Nait's idea of traveling to other dimensions unless it happens in much the same way I had it happen - without their control.

But what is the purpose of that? Besides, I don't care a whit about how they ended up there, as long as I don't have to closely RP the first dreary months of trying to figure out what is edible and not. Start the story a few thousand years in the future, and this is moot!

Maybe that did happen? That could be a theory/religion: "We were all once living on this very planet, thousands of years ago, and then we were taken and moved to our respective planets, evolved to the people we are today, and now we have been brought back to our home by God(s)." Or something.

Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. If it makes no real difference, I don't give a rat's arse.

The only thing I'm against is them returning to their planet by some sort of space travel or something, because obviously the people haven't reached flight, let alone space flight.

I've never advocated, nor has anyone else advocated, space travel.

Loony BoB · 07-29-2004, 12:14 PM

The one thing you're forgetting is that since they come from times where governments already existed, they will know about various styles of government and they will develop a lot faster. We're not talking overnight - five years is way more than enough for people to have begun building towns, and every town has a leader. Bang. Government, right there. Move on to the next stage - the leaders from the previous worlds will try to unite people under their rule. Some other random people will show great leadership too. Uniting of towns? Bang. Nations, right there. That's all it takes. And just because it's a new world, who's to say that they don't still have apples and cabbages and sheep? Five years is easily long enough to have figured out what is edible. If it took longer than that, the people wouldn't have survived five years. They need to establish what is edible within a week, really, and I imagine they would do just that. Starting with meat, mostly, I'd imagine. If you see a carnivore eating any animal, then more often than not you can do the same. In medieval times a lot of people knew how to use nature to survive, unlike this modern world, so don't think that Joe Bloggs the peasant doesn't know how to help his comrades build a house. The five races would also help each other out a lot.

But yeah, making nations for the very first time would be awfully difficult if it had never been done before, and obviously it took a long time for the world we live in to get to that stage - but once you've figured it out, there's no stopping anyone from trying to do it again. United we stand, divided we fall - a lot of these places would be quick to unite so as to avoid other people coming along and killing them or something.

Nait · 07-29-2004, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by Loony BoB

The one thing you're forgetting is that since they come from times where governments already existed, they will know about various styles of government and they will develop a lot faster. We're not talking overnight - five years is way more than enough for people to have begun building towns, and every town has a leader. Bang. Government, right there. Move on to the next stage - the leaders from the previous worlds will try to unite people under their rule. Some other random people will show great leadership too. Uniting of towns? Bang. Nations, right there. That's all it takes. And just because it's a new world, who's to say that they don't still have apples and cabbages and sheep? Five years is easily long enough to have figured out what is edible. If it took longer than that, the people wouldn't have survived five years. They need to establish what is edible within a week, really, and I imagine they would do just that. Starting with meat, mostly, I'd imagine. If you see a carnivore eating any animal, then more often than not you can do the same. In medieval times a lot of people knew how to use nature to survive, unlike this modern world, so don't think that Joe Bloggs the peasant doesn't know how to help his comrades build a house. The five races would also help each other out a lot.

But yeah, making nations for the very first time would be awfully difficult if it had never been done before, and obviously it took a long time for the world we live in to get to that stage - but once you've figured it out, there's no stopping anyone from trying to do it again. United we stand, divided we fall - a lot of these places would be quick to unite so as to avoid other people coming along and killing them or something.

But, y'see, it doesn't work that way. If there is no ready agriculture for a whole lot of people to feed on, there is not enough food for them all. Even if they hunt as much as they can, it's going to be very difficult to survive, and people are forced to spread out - no cities without food, without people, and no nations without cities.

And even if they have food with them, how long can they survive on that? If they want agriculture, they definitely need seed-cereal - and who carries around bags of seed-cereal, even in medieval times? You are throwing a whole lot of people, all to many people, in a world with NO infrastucture, which they CANNOT build fast enough to survive. The children of peasants turn to hunting, and hunting-gathering, and only a very small percentage of food will come from agriculture - too little. After all the wild game and whatnot has been exhausted in a certain area, they must move on or die - and take their knowledge with them in their grave.

And that's only IF these people have domesticated cereal with them! It takes literary hundreds, thousands of years to domesticate plants, and that's when you know the territory, and only when there ARE bid-seeded and good wild cereals - like in the Fertile Crescent, where there is the greatest amount of different, big-seeded wild cereals that are good for domestication. If there aren't any good cereals for domestication, there will be no domesticated cereals - or the process will be hugely slower than the Fertile Crescent cereals like wheat (IIRC) and rye(IIRC) - as in the case of North American Eastern Plain Corn, which had to be domesticated for thousands of years to be a viable cereal - and which was replaced by better cereals from South America.

So, if you transfer people in an unknown world, without domesticated cereals, domesticated animals, they WILL revert to tribalism after most of the first generation will die in starvation. A process that will take thousands of years to counteract, a short time I'm giving you because there must be some sort of cultural baggage from an era past, which could work as an inspiration - if it isn't forgotten completely.

Loony BoB · 07-29-2004, 01:00 PM

Is timeframe the only thing you have a problem with? We can say it took a few more years, just not thousands, because that's ridiculous to say that they'll exist on the planet for thousands of years and still be in medieval stages.

As for the world and how they live, just assume that it's got a hell of a lot of livestock floating around the place, not to mention fish and of course edible vegetation. Ingmarians don't eat much in the first place as they gain energy from sunlight as well as food - you don't get much food in the deserts of Aiyon, let alone water, although they still do keep drinks with them if they can.

You put a family on a resourceful island for a couple of years and if they have the knowledge, they can build themselves a house and breed chickens and eat the fruit. There won't be every single person from the medieval ages, it's not going to be a hugely populated world at the beginning, just spread out, that's all.

I'm happy to change the time for nations to come into action, though, if it suits your personal mindset.