defelination of the Aslan

[rancke]

I think the Vargr as Ancient uplift scenario is kinda lame and far-fetched. What the hell would Ancients care about wolves for? So many other mammals out there. Why not dolphin- or whale-people? So Vargr will be bipedal pack-minded sophonts with no resemblance to wolves.

Who says they didn't try? The Vargr were just the species that worked decently (there's evidence that the Ancient that were playing around with them still was tinkering with them when he got it in the neck) and survived for 300,000 years. IMTU there's another uplifted Terran species (otters) on one of the worlds in Foreven. It's just that being a minor race, they never got the press that the Vargr got. Any failed experiments obviously disappeared without a trace, and even successful experiments could easily have gotten wiped out during the Final War.

In short, there's no reason why the Ancients had to have any particular regard for wolves (proto-canines) over a score of other Terran species. Most probably they just got lucky.


Hans

 

[Colin]

From what I remember, the Ancients thought that the pack-oriented structure of wolves would make them easier to control than Humans. They were, as it turns, out, wrong, and seemed to have missed the true dynamics of pack socialization.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I think the Vargr as Ancient uplift scenario is kinda lame and far-fetched. What the hell would Ancients care about wolves for? So many other mammals out there. Why not dolphin- or whale-people? So Vargr will be bipedal pack-minded sophonts with no resemblance to wolves.

I seem to vaguely recall a world somewhere in Corridor Sector that had the fossilized remains of a very old dolphin civilization. It had been dead for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years; so it was obviously not some Solomani 'geneering experiment gone to seed. I'm pretty sure this was in DGP MT material, though, so I can't say if it's "canonical" or not.

I'm no fan of the Vargr, but as far as uplifted species go, the Terran wolf would be one of the more obvious choices in my book. Wolves are arguably the third most successful forms of mammalian life on the planet, taking a seat behind only humans and rats. Like the other two, wolves pretty much can be found anywhere there's dry land and a readily available supply of protein -- or at least they were until we humans invented boom stick technology and began wiping out their prey species, urbanizing everything in sight, and massacring their pack communities en masse. They're also highly social, very intelligent, and very nearly as adaptable as your average tribe of pre-agricultural humans.

Y'know, they could really give us humans a run for our money, if only some brainiac could figure out how to ratchet up their brainpower a notch and give them the ability to handle tools. Oh, wait ...

The Big Question of the Ancients to me isn't just a matter of why they schlepped humans all over Charted Space, or even why they uplifted the Vargr (or maybe Dolphins, too). Rather, the real mystery to me is why the Ancients kept returning to the same trough (Terra) for so many of their genetic experiments. In at least one case, they took an entire planet and (re)seeded into a (more or less) copy of the Terran ecosystem, complete with whales, monkeys, humans, et al.

 

[robject]

The Big Question of the Ancients to me ... is why the Ancients kept returning to the same trough (Terra) for so many of their genetic experiments. ...

Forty-two, perhaps? Maybe there were plans for a jump-bypass?

 

[Renaissance Man]

[QUOTE: G. Kashkanun Anderson]The Big Question of the Ancients to me isn't just a matter of why they schlepped humans all over Charted Space, or even why they uplifted the Vargr (or maybe Dolphins, too). Rather, the real mystery to me is why the Ancients kept returning to the same trough (Terra) for so many of their genetic experiments. In at least one case, they took an entire planet and (re)seeded into a (more or less) copy of the Terran ecosystem, complete with whales, monkeys, humans, et al.[/QUOTE]

The Big Answer is probably: the creativity of sci-fi writers has limits, and Ancient interest in Terra helps perpetuate familiar species and familiar situations throughout the setting.

Anyway, I might be brought around about the Vargr thing if I could think of a cool explanation for the additional interest lavished on Terra by the Ancients.

Might I suggest a deeper mystery nestled in the first?

For instance: Terra, like all other life-bearing planets in the known galaxy, had developed life due to the arrival of one or more strains of primordial interstellar bacteria. However, the Ancients' research into Terra revealed that it's seed bacteria was of a unique strain. They thus went about modifying and transplanting Terran species to other environments in order to learn whatever they could about it.

You see, the Ancients postulate that there was another species of interstellar scientists before them, whom THEY called "the Ancients." The Ultra-Ancients were responsible for seeding life throughout the galaxy, for mysterious reasons. The Grandfather was consumed with finding the answer to the riddle of the Ultra-Ancients, and the Vargr and Humaniti were byproducts of this curiosity.

Now - did I just blow your mind?

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Forty-two, perhaps? Maybe there were plans for a jump-bypass?

Well, now, that just sounds infinitely improbable to me.

 

[Gallowglacht]

The Big Question of the Ancients to me isn't just a matter of why they schlepped humans all over Charted Space, or even why they uplifted the Vargr (or maybe Dolphins, too). Rather, the real mystery to me is why the Ancients kept returning to the same trough (Terra) for so many of their genetic experiments. In at least one case, they took an entire planet and (re)seeded into a (more or less) copy of the Terran ecosystem, complete with whales, monkeys, humans, et al.

Because the Geonee are right. They ARE the ancients, evolved on Earth and spread from here. Grandfather(and the other Droyne) was merely an uplifted Chirper.

 

[Mused]

Or not. Humanoid aliens aren't particularly likely in terms of evolution (for example, how many times has the humanoid form evolved on Earth? Once. On the other hand, eyes and flight have evolved independently several times).

The humanoid form only evolved once? What of all the offshoots that failed, Gigantopithicus (sp.?) and Neanderthal?

Upright, freeing the hands is kind of necessary

So what flight evolved repeatedly and by different means (two different types of insect flight, as well as webbed and feathered wings)

When you look at a gorilla, do you think 'wow, that is a really ugly dude', or 'that is the biggest chimp I have EVER seen'

Make it fun. Have the "Aslan' begin regarding the name Aslan (their name for themselves is Fteirle) in much the same way that persons of East Asian ancestry regard being called 'chinaman' or, even worse derogatory terms (mostly ones that end in 'ink'). Make some clans, anti-human in bent, regard the term Aslan with all the affection that those of an African ancestry regard a certain word starting with n.

 

[Colin]

From a very broad viewpoint, bears are humanoid. Hell, from a sufficiently broad viewpoint, so are penguins.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

The Big Answer is probably: the creativity of sci-fi writers has limits, and Ancient interest in Terra helps perpetuate familiar species and familiar situations throughout the setting.

Aw jeez, that's not the Big Answer. That's the Boring Answer.

Anyway, I might be brought around about the Vargr thing if I could think of a cool explanation for the additional interest lavished on Terra by the Ancients.

Might I suggest a deeper mystery nestled in the first?

That's what I was driving at. We can start with the fact that Grandfather still has a very active interest in what the Vargr are up to these days.

For instance: Terra, like all other life-bearing planets in the known galaxy, had developed life due to the arrival of one or more strains of primordial interstellar bacteria. However, the Ancients' research into Terra revealed that it's seed bacteria was of a unique strain. They thus went about modifying and transplanting Terran species to other environments in order to learn whatever they could about it.

You see, the Ancients postulate that there was another species of interstellar scientists before them, whom THEY called "the Ancients." The Ultra-Ancients were responsible for seeding life throughout the galaxy, for mysterious reasons. The Grandfather was consumed with finding the answer to the riddle of the Ultra-Ancients, and the Vargr and Humaniti were byproducts of this curiosity.

Now - did I just blow your mind?

You are the walrus.

My version of the story is that there is something unique about the biology of Terra that attracted the attention of the Ancients. It happened a little later on down the evolutionary road than the "seeding" level, however; or at least the variation didn't show up to any noticeable degree until some point (early) along the mammalian family tree.

Grandfather may have been merely curious about the odd biochemical markers when he first uncovered them; but he and his children certainly worked hard to get as much mileage out of them as they could. Aliens of the Rim very obliquely (and briefly) hinted at a biological kinship between the Ithklur and Humaniti; and while it's generally made out to be a crackpot theory (and the Ithklur certainly aren't human to any degree), I'm toying with the idea of the Ithklur of MTU having been bestowed with at least some of the Terran markers.

Grandfather didn't just stumble on to Terra IMTU. Rather, he was actively looking for something, and the mammals of Terra came the closest to filling his bill. This was a useful element for exploitation throughout the early history of the Ancient Era, became an urgent one during the Final War period, and is still of great interest to Grandfather to this day.

 

[casquilho]

Stop it guys, you are making my head hurt. :rofl:

To be honest I love this kind of stuff, but the last Traveller group I ran just wanted to know where to go to get the goods and how much could they make from the haul.

Such is life in the merchant zone.

Daniel

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

The humanoid form only evolved once? What of all the offshoots that failed, Gigantopithicus (sp.?) and Neanderthal?

Well, they all evolved from the same bipedal stem, so they're not a terribly good argument for that side.

There were plenty of humanoid dinosaurs, on the other hand. Eoraptor was fully bipedal 230 million years ago, and the Troodons possessed bipedalism and opposable thumbs over 75 million years ago.

 

[Plankowner]

What if what made Terra unique (or at least VERY rare) was that the ecosystem was dominated by Mammals?

If not for a little asteroid about 65 million years ago, life on Earth now would likely be dominated by reptiles (like the Droyne...).

Earth, and a very few other planets, hadn't evolved mammals to the extent that they evolved on Earth.

After all, look at the Major races... 4 of them are Mammalian, so that little ring of the evolutionary bell may have been the reason that Mammals came about and resulted in a new/different type of dominant species. The Droyne, used to only Reptilian life, were fascinated by those few Mammalian planets that they found and did experiments on them (put them in different environments to see what happened).

Of course, you may have to tweek some of the other canon races, but de-mammalianizing them shouldn't be too hard.

Perhaps there are less than 100 worlds where mammals gained dominance and all of them have some kind of extinction event in their pasts...

That makes Terra not unique, but rare and worth studying.

Besides, to the reptilian Droyne, a mammal without fur would look nicer, so humans were picked over Aslan or K'Kree or any other species for most of their experiments...

 

[Gallowglacht]

Besides, to the reptilian Droyne, a mammal without fur would look nicer, so humans were picked over Aslan or K'Kree or any other species for most of their experiments...

What type of "experiments" are you thinking of???

 

[Colin]

Read Harry Harrison's "West of Eden" those kind of experiments.

 

[Plankowner]

Yeah, I was thinking of those books as part of it, but also the idea of taking a species, dropping them on a world with a marginal ecosystem and see what happens. Stress the species and see how it responds and how that is different than what your own species did.

Also, humans can lift heavy things for them, so that is a plus.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Another possibility, a variation of my first hypothesis:

Mitochondria.

The Ancients noted that the mitochondrion germ line was extraterrestrial in origin, and suspected ultra-Ancient tampering with Terran evolution. All other forms of life in the known galaxy had conventional cellular power sources - but Terran cells were a kind of gestalt organism.

 

[jatay3]

I can't see any problem with mixed-gene building humanoids from terran mammals, but I think it's something that a decadent 2nd Imperium may have done and not need an alien race of Kzinti. Someone's mentioned there's always some cat-race that follows a form of bushido!

The trouble with Aslan is the real difficulty of making a decent alien race. It has to be aggressive, expansionistic and possessive to fit in with the Aslan back story; but that just sounds suspiciously like humans. Kafers as written are particulary useless 'bad guys', but that's for a thread in a different forum!

We seem to get locked into terran style analogs when making aliens, even Hivers are called 'modified starfish'. I'd be interested in coming up with a really unique Aslan replacement.

Why shouldn't there be an alien race that behaves suspiciously like humans? Wolves do, in some ways. Ants behave like humans in others.

 

[jatay3]

Why shouldn't there be an alien race that behaves suspiciously like humans? Wolves do, in some ways. Ants behave like humans in others.

Ants are like men in that they fight wars and make slaves of one another.

Wolves are like men in that they are territorial, tribalistic, fight viciously among themselves for political power and prey upon the weak and helpless.

More seriously, the society of a wolf pack does have superficial resemblances to the society of nomad tribes. And wolfs do have a hierarchial structure. And a varient subspecies of wolfs gets along quite well with humans.

 

[Ran Targas]

I believe part of the problem with Aslan is that humans don't play them as they were written. The canon Aslan are more alien than most players and GMs permit them to be. IMHO, there's a great deal of sexual dichotomy, ritual, and clan politics that get thrown by the wayside by players.

Aslan males are like samurai or atleast a caricature of the warrior extreme. Don't water it down, make Aslan males be overly stoic, let them be abrasive and take offense to almost any slight. They should be particularly insolent to us barbarians. And let their clan vendettas and fueds carry over to the game; makes for a lot of excitement. This may seem one dimensional, but Aslan males played otherwise are not Aslan.

Aslan females are very different; they're written as the real brains behind all the claws, making the decisions, and acting as the glue of Aslan society. They control the money, technology, and almost everything else in the Heirate. The females should be the most interesting characters to play; they are the movers and shakers but have to work behind the scenes because of the inequality of their society.

IMTU, there is one male Aslan who is an underworld figure; he organizes, he administrates, he basically acts like a female of his species. The other males don't understand his behavior and some are down right upset by it; to them it's unnatural. But because he has put himself in a position of strength, they won't move against him. The females like him too, if only because he's different and nearly as sharp as they are.