| From: | Nexx <nexx@********.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Elves and Humans |
| Date: | Sat, 19 Sep 1998 13:31:34 -0500 |
> From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
> >
> > For now. I think its going to come as a shock to most of the world
once
> > the first elf dies of old age (some 300 years down the line...
>
> Yes, but that still only makes them humans with pointed ears and an
> exceptionally long lifespan. What I really meant was that your average
> typical elf in SR _behaves_ just like humans do -- they want a well-paid
> job, a nice house, a family, and all that other crap everyone else
wants.
> They don't dance around the woods playing harps and shooting arrows at
> intruders. They also don't all go around seeing themselves as the
bestest
> race on the planet.
True, but look at it this way. Imagine that you matured later than
everyone else. I'm talking like, maybe close to five years later. You
don't get your growth spurt until your senior year in high school, you
voice is still a child's. Let's say you marry your High school sweetheart
(a human girl named... Fayette Myers, now Voigt) anyway, get a well-paid
job, a nice house, a family, and manage to almost keep up with the
Joneses. At your tenth wedding anniversary, she's starting to sag a
bit... not much, but its still kinda noticeable, and turning out the
lights doesn't help much. At your 20th anniversary, she's settling into
middle age, and you still look like you did in high school. By your
fiftieth anniversary, she looks her age... and you look yours, if you
count the fact that you're an elf. Two of your kids, the ones who wound
up with smooth ears, look older than you do. Your eldest son is bald, and
your youngest son is getting there. Your daughter, in her mid-forties,
still looks like a Vogue model... and she will, 5 years later when you
bury your wife, tears running down your still un-lined face.
You spend some time in mourning, and there are mornings where you just
don't want to get out of bed because you miss her so much its killing you,
but you slowly get back on your feet, and over time the holo of her in
your wallet gets more and more yellowed. Your great-grandkids are
starting to look older than you now, and you catch yourself looking at
some of their girlfriends... and even more amazing, that they're looking
back. At you, and you're close to a hundred! You start trying to live
your life again, slowly returning to the singles scene, chopping a few
years off your age so you don't scare off the young humans, but letting
the elves know your real age... and dropping hints about the value of
experience. Your daughter has finally given you a grandchild at 75, and
you use him...and your great-great-grandchildren... as a babe-magnet. You
marry again, a pretty young human who you just find yourself unable to say
no to. Sure, you're a century older than her, but what's the saying?
"Young at heart"? Again, though, you find its Fayette all over again...
she grows old, slower, this time, because of increases in technology, but
she grows old... and you now look thirty. Your children come, your
grandchildren, along with great-to the umpteenth-grandchildren from your
first marriage, and you're slowly approaching looking... 35. By the time
your second wife dies, you actually look forty, but you don't feel any
older than when you graduated, nearly 200 years ago.
I'm not saying that elves are suddenly going to start acting like they
live forever next week. I'm saying that when that once you've buried
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, you're going to start
withdrawing a bit from humans, to keep yourself safe. The first elves
(discounting spike babies), came along in what, 2020-something, right?
They likely grew up amongst humans, married humans, and are starting to
see their spouses and friends from when they were young deteriorate before
their still young eyes.
> (That's IMHO where most fantasy RPGs become unrealistic -- every member
of
> a given race tends to behave in much the same way, whereas IRL where
> cultures meet you end up with a mix of thoe cultures.)
That is rather unrealistic, true, but I think part of it has to do with
varying life-spans and obvious physical differences. To use AD&D as an
example, humans and halflings have amazingly similar cultures. Why?
Because they interact a lot, look quite a bit alike (except for height,
though a tall halfling and a short human can be pretty close), and live
about the same length. Their "elders" are maybe going to be five to ten
years older than the humans, but its not going to make that much of an
impact.
Dwarves, on the other hand, find whiskers on women attractive, and live
about 5 times as long as humans, and already had a different culture base
to work from. Since their elders are still around to remind them of the
"old ways", you see less divergence from the norm. True, there will be
dwarves who mix human and dwarven culture, but those will always be the
fringe, and in the minority, simply because the first 40 years of a
dwarf's life will be spent amongst dwarves, learning to do things the
traditional dwarven way, which is unchanged because those same elders
won't let it change.
> > to put that
> > in perspective, that's longer than there has been a USA, and only a
few
> > decades less than we've had a settlement at Jamestown).
>
> So? I would be able see a 14th-century church from my window if those
> houses weren't in the way... :)
That is because you're a goddamned furriner with yer corruptin' Yourapeen
ways ::spits:: ;-)
> Unconsciousness is no excuse.
How about semi-consciousness with a twist of delusional paranoia?
Nexx
