So, I’ve got this idea for a scifi vignette that’s been running through my head for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve decided to try to exorcise it by putting pen to paper.
Without getting too deep into the details, humanity has undergone or is undergoing? several simultaneous speciations.
True speciation, the general anatomy among all humans remains the same but breeding produces at best, sterile “mules” or a non viable fetus or in some cases no fertilization at all.
In my scenario, there is one particular type of human species that regardless of parentage will either look elfish (slender, strong, pointed ears) or like a troll (brutish, heavy, almost bestial). This is where I need help. We are iirc Homo Sapien Sapien. This species of human would be Homo Sapien … Gygax? Tolkien? Maybe Homo Sapien Fae?
Or, since the main cause of the split is from living on different planets, perhaps it should be Homo Sapien [Name of Planet of Origin]?
Work with me here darren, its a bit of scifi fluff, not a thesis. They’re all directly descended from Homo Sapien so ok fine Homo …?
Its a group of people who can’t reproduce with Homo Sapiens or any of the other new species in the Homo genus, they either breed elf looks or troll looks regardless of parentage, help me come up with a good species nomenclature, please
To take an example from current sci-fantasy, the Shadowrun role playing game posits a “metahuman crisis” in the early-mid 21st Century, in which latent magic in the universe re-activates and humans with latent metahuman genetics are born or spontaneously change into one of four legendary human subspecies.
Dwarfs: Homo sapiens pumilionis (subspecies name is Latin for “dwarf”.)
Elves: Homo sapiens nobilis (“noble” because, Elves are automatically more noble than the rabble)
Orks: Homo sapiens robustus
Trolls: Homo sapiens ingentis (“ingentis” is literally Latin for “huge”)
Plus the normal run-of-the-mill humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.
In this milieu, they’re all subspecies of Homo sap. YMMV.
One thing that I might consider would be whether or not the concept of elves originates with one particular culture. I have made the assumption in the past that elves seemed like a generally Scandinavian thing, so perhaps homo scandinavii would work.
But I don’t claim to be any expert on nomenclature; regarding the subject, about the only thing I’m sure of is that Asian-American is preferred to chinaman.
I think it means that, in his story universe, human-appearing parents could have elf-appearing children, or troll-appearing children; and etc. Their features are not dependent on standard genetics expectations.
You’re trying to apply logic to a fantasy world. In this situation, no, they don’t. Try not to question the science of it, just roll with the set-up as given.
I’m not questioning the science, I’m questioning the description. I can’t roll with a set-up as given if I don’t understand the set-up. I’m genuinely curious, but won’t disrupt the naming game again with this question if DorkVader doesn’t feel like clarifying.
ok, so a little back story to the story. Humanity made it to the stars, figured out steps to achieve relativistic speeds in a reasonable fashion and eventually ftl using the Handwavium Principle of Quantum Super Symmetry as Applied to Subquantum Foam (or just handwaving for brevity) another application of this principle allowed, much cheaper, more plentiful, but not limitless energy. So we explored, we found and settled planets that were suitable for Terran life and terraformed a few planets that weren’t.
Now, not all planets found were opened up to colonization and some were even kept secret and used as secret bases for genetic engineering labs.
Lets face it, humanity is full of assholes. We genetically engineered slaves, for a lot of different purposes. Homo Mythica was, originally, two different varieties of these slaves.
Eventually, civilization collapsed into interstellar war. Much was lost. The planet Mythos, as it came to be called, was already unknown to most as genetically engineering slaves became just one of several reasons for the descent into war. After this terrible cataclysm for Humanity, interstellar civilization labored through 3000 years of “dark ages”. Now, having rediscovered the means to achieve ftl, the planet Mythos has been rediscovered, some 500 years after the beginning of “the age of enlightenment”. Since it was a breeding lab for slaves almost all records from so many centuries ago are lost and what remains are treated as religious writings and myth. Much remains to be found again. It isn’t known why these people have two different morphologies within one species or why their genetics work as they do. These are a people who have a cultural memory of genetic manipulation and slavery that makes them adverse to that sort of study today, indeed, it is a cultural trait to not have dealings with humanity much beyond trade and a few ambassadors to some nearby planets at the point in time my little scribbling will take place.
Grah! Edit window.
Yes I know this back story is full of gaps and what not. I’m truly just starting out on this little venture of writing a story and this is just meant to be something to help me keep track of some of the reasons characters and groups of people in my story act as they do, not really meant to be a finely detailed universe. I’m sure things will change greatly as I work things out.
The polite term might refer to the planet, and the crude (and insulting) term to the appearance.
I don’t mean to discourage you, but I note that there was a series of books about an alien planet with very humanoid inhabitants - after an apocalypse, the species diverged into distinct subspecies, one gracile and tall (elvish), and one robust and short (dwarvish). They tended not to get along…
This is the background for Julian May’s Saga of the Pliocene Exile. I shouldn’t have said “about an alien planet” - it’s better to say “about a species originally from an alien planet…”
