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Just my little joke, Nait. I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that having a simple backstory is much better than mucking around with separate planets/realities.
So how about this: Rather than have the races be separated by dimensions, simply have a pangaea-like world, in which a single species, separated by shifting continents, is split into five groups. Each faced with a new environment, and adapts accordingly, becoming the five races of our world.
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.
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. :D
Great ^_^!Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent Proto
Ok then Aranel shall be Elvish. I think elves would do decent in a tropical environment. :confused: i hope :choc:
(SPOILER)Aranel is elvish for my real name, Matt
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.
Nonos problemos.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
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.Quote:
2) Experience the birth of the nations. We can't do this if the world has already existed for hundreds of years.
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. :D
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.
I haven't implied this.Quote:
3) Have the population of the world spread throughout the regions rather than concentrated in one continent.
Not a problem, this is what I'm accusing you of doing. See it this way:Quote:
4) Concentrate on the happenings of the world rather than specific people. You could say you are the historians as well as the leaders.
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.
They'll lose it, ang regain it as soon as they have the capability.Quote:
5) Have medieval technology, or at least knowledge.
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!Quote:
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 it did, maybe it didn't. If it makes no real difference, I don't give a rat's arse.Quote:
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.
I've never advocated, nor has anyone else advocated, space travel.Quote:
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
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.
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.
But they couldn't keep a medieval technological level. Technology requires cities and nations, which we won't have without enough people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
Livestock must be domesticated. Othervise it's not livestock. And not reliable to reproduce in captivity. It took thousands of years to get cows from aurochs, reindeer from... Other reindeer, and so forth.Quote:
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.
And of course, edible vegetation hardly can cope with the needs of civilisation. You need lots of that vegetation, and that means domestication - domesticated plants are HUGE compared to wild species, which makes it possible to survive on them.
But that's not a nation. That family will either die out, or form a population for a small island - AND there is not enough genetic diversity! You'll have inbred island idiots who wouldn't know a coconut from riverbed rocks. You need LARGE populations for nations and civilisation - that is why there are no nations of tribes, but nations of peasants.Quote:
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.
It's not the technology, because technology won't be on the minds of starving people trying to survive in the wild. Technology will disappear, and slowly grow - maybe even to the medieval levels you are supposing. It's the infrastructure. No survival without domesticates! No nations without survival. Nations are born when there are people, specialised jobs and and not anarchial tribalism. Which is what we'll have if these people are dumped into the wilderness.Quote:
I'm happy to change the time for nations to come into action, though, if it suits your personal mindset.
*bangs his head on his desk* That was an example of how quickly people can adapt, not what I'm expecting to happen. I was referring to that book, the Swiss Family Robinson or whatever. I'm just saying that if you take someone away from technology it doesn't mean that it will take them hundreds of years to learn how to breed a freaking chicken. xPQuote:
Originally Posted by Nait
Gather 100 people to one area. That could take, what, a month or so? So you have 100 people and you have a leader from the past world, someone they can look to. They work together and build a town, have people spending days scouting areas and not domesticating but hunting food, American Indian style. They can breed chickens, too, that's not exactly a difficult thing to do, to be honest. Maybe some of the animals aren't that wild in the first place? And rabbits! Or some other created creature - there could be a creature that breeds faster than even rabbits. With all the nutrients you could ask for. Food all over the place! Easy. So you have the food to support 200 people because they work together in such ways. They expand over areas, making tracks and making stone walls and all that crap. Blah blah blah.Quote:
But they couldn't keep a medieval technological level. Technology requires cities and nations, which we won't have without enough people.
Livestock must be domesticated. Othervise it's not livestock. And not reliable to reproduce in captivity. It took thousands of years to get cows from aurochs, reindeer from... Other reindeer, and so forth.
And of course, edible vegetation hardly can cope with the needs of civilisation. You need lots of that vegetation, and that means domestication - domesticated plants are HUGE compared to wild species, which makes it possible to survive on them.
And how do you know it took thousands of years to domesticate the cow? You're going by neanderthal eras again, and assuming the big bang took place. I think a lot of people wouldn't be gunning on the big bang after this one. Just because I haven't got any set religion doesn't mean that this world wasn't created by a god/gods.
Okay, when I said there won't be many people, I meant it won't be the populations of five worlds (ie, at least ten billion people) all sent over. Consider it to be millions over the world.Quote:
It's not the technology, because technology won't be on the minds of starving people trying to survive in the wild. Technology will disappear, and slowly grow - maybe even to the medieval levels you are supposing. It's the infrastructure. No survival without domesticates! No nations without survival. Nations are born when there are people, specialised jobs and and not anarchial tribalism. Which is what we'll have if these people are dumped into the wilderness.
And finally, Nait, keep in mind that we have races from five different worlds that have been seemingly magically transferred to a new world. This thing isn't exactly supposed to be realistic by Earthly terms.
EDIT: Idea. Everyone apart from Nait can ignore this if they wish. We are at a medieval stage of technology on this world. They still remember the old world(s). That is that. If you are Nait, assume that one year on this planet is 100 years on Earth. If you are not Nait, you probably don't give a rat's arse anyway so let's just have fun, eh?
Yes, they adapt to be hunter-gatherers. Exactly my point, who needs a better horsecollar when there are no horses?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loony BoB
But American Indians did NOT live in Cities. 100 people isn't a city - it's not even a TOWN, it's a frikking village. If you're saying AZTEC or INCA style, well, that's a whole other story, because the City Builders of America had A) Domesticated animals and and agriculture, B) A whole frikking lot more people than plain or Amazon indiand.Quote:
Gather 100 people to one area. That could take, what, a month or so? So you have 100 people and you have a leader from the past world, someone they can look to. They work together and build a town, have people spending days scouting areas and not domesticating but hunting food, American Indian style.
I quote:Quote:
They can breed chickens, too, that's not exactly a difficult thing to do, to be honest.
"Many of these these small animals thus yielded food, clothing, or warmth. But none of them pulled plows or wagons, none bore riders, none except dogs pulled sleds of became war machinas, and none of them have been as omportant for food as have big domestic mammals. Hence the rest of this chapter will confine itself to the big mammals."
pg 158, Guns, germs and steel, by Jared Diamond which gives us the reasons why civilisation took place in certain places, and not others. Basically, it's about how some other aread are just plain lucky with what resources they have, from domesticable species and plants, to geographical unity.
And I still say chicken domestication takes a bloody long time, if they didn't come with the settlers. And for that you need a bloody lot chickens, too. >:O
I concede that chicken can be an important domestic animal - look at Oceania, where it was very prominent, and very often the dominant domestic, where there were ALMOST states, or something similar, with a king on top.
Ach, what would THAT do to the environment? More hunting beasts, less other animals, less plantation, and soon we have a new Sahara - but instead of goats, it was rabbits, so we call it Rabara.Quote:
Maybe some of the animals aren't that wild in the first place? And rabbits! Or some other created creature - there could be a creature that breeds faster than even rabbits.
How long would it last? Introduce something like the human beast into an environment, and soon you'll know what happened to the mammoths... And giant sloths. And dodos. And sabretooths. And hairy rhinos. And aurochs. And ad nauseam.Quote:
With all the nutrients you could ask for. Food all over the place!
Stone walls for a measly 200 person village? What are they afraid of, bears? Cities have stone walls, fortresses have stone walls, and that is because you need a bureaucracy for it. And there is no room for bureaucracy in a community of 200 people.Quote:
Easy. So you have the food to support 200 people because they work together in such ways. They expand over areas, making tracks and making stone walls and all that crap. Blah blah blah.
It probably didn't take THOUSANDS of years (as in many thousands), to domesticate some cows, but it DID take a bloody long time for it to A) spread, and B) take place at all.Quote:
And how do you know it took thousands of years to domesticate the cow? You're going by neanderthal eras again, and assuming the big bang took place.
I don't trust gods who don't play by the rules, and you'd have to tell us if the rules are different. But I'd also expect those rules to be internally compatible and logical.Quote:
I think a lot of people wouldn't be gunning on the big bang after this one. Just because I haven't got any set religion doesn't mean that this world wasn't created by a god/gods.
Much better. :DQuote:
Okay, when I said there won't be many people, I meant it won't be the populations of five worlds (ie, at least ten billion people) all sent over. Consider it to be millions over the world.
Well, I'm also aiming for "playable." You're putting so much baggage on these five races. There won't be new religions for five years, it takes a bit longer than that. An people bent on survival aren't much of philosophers, especially if they're first-generation, who have done all their philosophing in the past, in the last world they lived in.Quote:
And finally, Nait, keep in mind that we have races from five different worlds that have been seemingly magically transferred to a new world. This thing isn't exactly supposed to be realistic by Earthly terms.
Then you must give us those worlds! Describe the worlds of the dwarves, elves, ingmanwhatevers, fishies, describe them to us, what they believe, how they work, how they love and hate and loathe, their histories, philosophies and milieus, their pasts and their presents.Quote:
EDIT: Idea. Everyone apart from Nait can ignore this if they wish. We are at a medieval stage of technology on this world. They still remember the old world(s).
One year is a 100 on Earth? What do you mean, what does it matter if there is no communication with earth? Medievals come, five years later they send a message home, and whoopsiedoo, the Industrial Revolution hits'em in the face?Quote:
That is that. If you are Nait, assume that one year on this planet is 100 years on Earth. If you are not Nait, you probably don't give a rat's arse anyway so let's just have fun, eh?
I want this to be logical, understandable, and internally consistent! And also to follow a few basic laws of history. This isn't the Settling of the West - because there was civilisation right behind the corner, pushing itself forward. This is like they'd dumped settlers into an empty america, with mammoths and giant felines, and no human in sight, and locked the door. Which sounds awfully lot like the arrival of the natives through the Strait tens of thousands of years ago.
Yes, but Nait, we don't have to be picky and make the world perfect. :) This is for fun, not for a freaking science project. When you have this large an amount of people toying with a world, not everything is going to make sense. So what if it doesn't fit in with every single law that Earthly history has taught you? This isn't Earth. :p It's also possible that magic may become a part of this world, but we won't get into that just yet.
Just because the rabbits (or whatever) breed like there's not tomorrow doesn't mean we can't give them a short lifespan or a small appetite. These things can be worked around to suit humanoid survival.
Have the Pacific islands been inhabited for tens of thousands of years? =o
As for background of the other races... I don't see why you guys can't come up with that yourselves if you really want to. :)
EDIT: I'll say it again, though, if the only problem you have concerns the amount of time they took to get to the medieval stages, I'm happy to adjust that. I just don't want to change how they got there, or where they are at the point that we'll begin focusing on.
Ok, plz, but the time three hundred, or even five hundred years after the rift. ;_;
I think the teleportation between worlds & dimensions should be possible, because of the medievil thing goin on. mages & magic run rampant throught the fictional medievil worlds. i say yes on warping & teleportation =D