Question about minor races

[rancke]

Adv 12 establishes a cutoff point for Yaskodray on p32... 250,000. years after creation of the pocket universe, itself defined as "more than 300,000 years" old... (p.31).

This also means that the Aslan either were either: added by some droyne else pretending to be Yaskodray; added by yaskodray before -48,000; added by yaskodray after he thought he'd ordered the contact with the prime universe cut off; or added by the Droyne in the prime universe themselves.

The text does indeed seem to state that he cut himself off from all contact with the Universe, locking himself up in a poky little pocket universe for all eternity. I simply don't believe it. It's such an unbelievable thing for him to do that I'm not even going to bother arguing about it. He may indeed have cut himself off from the Universe for a time, but no way did he do so without having the means to reopen contact at will.

MT Ref's Companion sets the introductory date, too, BTW.

Recovery: On about 20 worlds, however, this did not happen.
Around -75,000, the Droyne on these worlds seem to
have almost simultaneously undergone a “renaissance.” The
key to this recovery was a revival of the ability to caste; this,
in turn, seems to have been based on the introduction of a set
of small gold disks, called coyns, which became the basis for
many aspects of Droyne culture.
(MT RefComp, p.54)​

-75,000 is the time the coyns first show up on those widely scattered Droyne worlds, meaning that they were first introduced then. The changes came later, 'over time'. The only thing that would prevent him from going on a walkabout around -1000 would be if he would actually cut himself off from the universe without the ability to get back in contact again. So he blew the bridge up behind him; that doesn't mean he can't rebuild it. He is an ultra-genius, you know.


Hans

 

[aramis]

For a Droyne leader like him, 50,000 years of isolation is a small part of his at least 300,000 years. I don't doubt he pulled out, and stayed out; he's busy trying to become something beyond physical, perhaps... Adv 12 is pretty clear he didn't realize any contact was left.

 

[Whipsnade]

Adv 12 is pretty clear he didn't realize any contact was left.

Aramis,

No. A:12 makes it clear that he didn't realize that that specific point of contact was left. He thought he'd locked everything up, but he'd forgot about that window in the cellar behind the boxes of old magazines. What's more, he recognizes what the players are despite the passage of 250K years.

After shooing the players off, he "locks" up the forgotten window and orders the ship which knew of it to self-destruct but the horse has already escaped the barn, hasn't it?

For a "Super Genius", Yaskodray certainly leaves a lot of loose threads about. He apparently misplaced both a ship and a huge teleportation portal. He left a surveillance system active in the Lair system complete with a super intelligent Vargr android, pocket universe, and active portals. While leaving various enigmatic ruins about is fine, leaving an active facility on Fulacin and a partially active one on Antiquity is just plain sloppy.

If he really was interested in hiding he has had hundreds of millennia to clean up any evidence of his presence, but for some reason he's failed to do the job.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Andrew M]

An equally plausible scenario to the uplifted Aslan, is that the Droyne themselves were uplifted by Vilani researches. As part of their psychohistory project they picked an easily manipulated minor race with moderate psychic potential, and planted on a number of frontier or backwater worlds.

They chose some a uplift Droyne, while the rest they left as a control study. Using a mixture of artefact seeding, psychic implants and social manipulation they gave the Droyne a history, religion, technology and caste system. The reason they made these the same in each case was to allow further study to see how and when their cultures might diverge. In the proceeding 200+ years they did not change one bit.

 

[aramis]

Bill, it's not 250KY of isolation, it's 50KY of isolation.

still, I don't see his hand in anything visible post 50KY PI, and the Coyns referenced are all modern. We are not given what Aslan replaced.

 

[rancke]

For a Droyne leader like him, 50,000 years of isolation is a small part of his at least 300,000 years. I don't doubt he pulled out, and stayed out; he's busy trying to become something beyond physical, perhaps... Adv 12 is pretty clear he didn't realize any contact was left.

Isolating himself for 50,000 years wouldn't be particularily implausible if it wasn't for the evidence that he has stayed around long enough to realize that the Aslans, Humans, K'Kree, Hivers, and Vargr are of more concern to Droyne than the Bwaps and Ithklurs. Locking himself up for all eternity (or until the heat death of his pocket universe) is hugely, mindbogglingly implausible.

You're relying on the statement that he isolated himself for all eternity 50,000 years ago. It's very, very strange that 50,000 years ago he was able to predict that the Aslans and Hivers and K'Kree would become major races, but what other explanation is there, since he has been totally unable to visit our universe since then? But that's only strange if you accept that he has been unable to visit. If you reject that notion, he isn't unable to visit, so the problem goes away. The problem for us, I mean. The problem remains for those in-universe people who doesn't realize that the Ancients didn't all go away 300,000 years ago.

Remember, to the people in the universe, the theory that the Ancients are still around, or were 50,000 years ago, is a lunatic fringe theory. That's why the Droyne are (erroneously) considered to be a major race. People believe that one of the Droyne worlds invented both the coyns[*] and jump drive 75,000 years ago and spread those coyns around.

[*] That is, the use of the coyns as casting tools; coyns were around back in Ancient times.​

Hans

 

[rancke]

still, I don't see his hand in anything visible post 50KY PI,

Except for the presence of Aslans, Hivers, Humans, K'Kree, and Vargr on the coyns. Sure, Humans and Vargr were around 300,000 years ago. But so were lots and lots of other species who aren't represented on the coyns. Note that I'm not saying that the Humans couldn't have been on the original "medieval" set (the one Yaskodray introduced 75,000 years ago). In fact, I think it was. It's much more unlikely that the Vargr were on that first one, although not impossible. Neither of them would be on the ancient set.

...and the Coyns referenced are all modern. We are not given what Aslan replaced.

True. I've done some work on that myself. I've worked out a suggestion for the ancient coyn set (basically adding a set of six animals native to Eskaloyt, originally used for performing hunt magic, plus a couple of other to make up the 38 coyns mentioned for some ancient coyn sets), but the medieval set is a bit of a puzzler if you insist on the set being 36 in number. If you adopt the notion that it's a coincidence that the current set has 36 (after all, the ancient set had 38), the medieval set could have had, say, 32. Or more if some have been added then removed over the years.


Hans

 

[Starviking]

Bill, it's not 250KY of isolation, it's 50KY of isolation.

still, I don't see his hand in anything visible post 50KY PI, and the Coyns referenced are all modern. We are not given what Aslan replaced.

Well riffing off Hans' observation:

"if it wasn't for the evidence that he has stayed around long enough to realize that the Aslans, Humans, K'Kree, Hivers, and Vargr are of more concern to Droyne than the Bwaps and Ithklurs."

How about the Hhkar, as detailed in Challenge 52? Looked like a threat, then had to evacuate their planet and the Aslan were moved up from 7th place and got a Coyn?

 

[Andrew M]

How about the Hhkar, as detailed in Challenge 52? Looked like a threat, then had to evacuate their planet and the Aslan were moved up from 7th place and got a Coyn?

With the highly stylised pictures used the same coyn could easily stand for either.

 

[aramis]

Or, Hans, he left goodies that would lead to the Jump Drive in those systems, but not in the bwap, etc...

Or somedroyne else found his network... like his pseudobio droyne-ish assistants without his consent.

 

[Andrew M]

Actually, interfering positively with the Aslan would be relatively simple for Grandfather. He would just need to set up a field that would disrupt the operation of the next ship to jump into their system.

The puzzle is, if he were interested and capable of interfering with the development of new races, why would he encourage the K'kree? According to AM5 they would have slaughtered any Droyne they came accross.

 

[aramis]

Interference need not involve direct contact.

Just leave partial bits where someone can find them.

 

[rancke]

Or, Hans, he left goodies that would lead to the Jump Drive in those systems, but not in the bwap, etc...

Or somedroyne else found his network... like his pseudobio droyne-ish assistants without his consent.

Sure, but the argument I'm trying to counter is "Since canon states that Yaskoydray shut himself up in his pocket universe for all eternity 50,000 years ago, he must have put the Aslans, Hivers, and K'Kree on the coyns 50,000 years ago." To which I say, "That canonical statement (or rather, that interpretation of that canonical statement) is completely unbelievable. I do not believe that he'd ever shut himself up like that with no way of getting back into the universe[*]. In which case he did not shut himself up for all eternity 50,000 years ago, and there's no reason why he shouldn't revisit every couple of thousand years or as the mood takes him. Thus the simplest explanation of how he knew that the Aslans, Hivers, K'Kree, and Vargr were going to be major interstellar players is that he observed them after they grew important."

[*] Maybe he (thought that he) shut off all connections to prevent anyone from getting TO his pocket universe but was perfectly capable of reestablishing such a connection FROM there. And did, from time to time, when he wanted to go walkabout.​

Hans

 

[rancke]

Actually, interfering positively with the Aslan would be relatively simple for Grandfather. He would just need to set up a field that would disrupt the operation of the next ship to jump into their system.

The puzzle is, if he were interested and capable of interfering with the development of new races, why would he encourage the K'kree? According to AM5 they would have slaughtered any Droyne they came accross.

To me the puzzle would be why he'd do any such thing. The two motives that has been ascribed to him is a half-assed paternalistic interest in the Droyne and a desire to be left in peace. I think he'd be a lot more likely to discourage anyone from becoming starfarers than to encourage it.

I think he missed the emergence of the Vilani into space and just couldn't be bothered to take the time it would take to wipe them out when he finally did notice them. And once there was one interstellar civilization, there was no point in keeping others from emerging.


Hans

 

[aramis]

I suspect anything more recent than -50K Pre-Imperial wasn't his doing, but the infrastructure he set up carrying on with its own intitiative and interpreting the directives in ways he neither knew of nor would approve of... AM12 doesn't make it look like he had much personal interest in anything outside the Pocket Universe left.... but couldn't bring himself to krinatsu, either. A 50KY depressive funk...

In which case, it's far easier to explain the picking of the majors (all of whom are starfaring at least 1000y PI, if not earlier; Solomani are -2500 or so, for example) being done by the bots rather than the boss.

The real secret of the ancients: current Ancients culture is self-aware robots carrying on the work of their creator, despite himself.

 

[rancke]

I just noticed that SotA expressly states that Grandfather didn't seal himself off until quite late.

"Expeditions: Grandfather left one portal at Algine open for millenia: From that portal he would occasionally venture forth into the universe -- in search of some mineral or data he needed. sometimes he would send a robot-crewed ship out on an expedition to a far-off world or star in search of some arcane knowledge.

When that world was colonized by humans, he closed that portal, and shut himself off from the universe." (Emphasis mine) [SotA:33]​

Algine was colonized by Vilani at some unspecified time (I'd suggest somewhere around -1750) and by Solomani around -1000.

I still think that it's unbelievable that Grandfather shut himself off from the univers permanently, but then, the text doesn't say it was permanently. That he hasn't been around for a couple of millenia I've no problem with. Putting the last contact date as far back as -1750 is a bit of a problem, since the Aslans hadn't spread out significantly yet. But maybe Grandfather didn't react to the Vilani settlement straight away, or maybe the settlement was later than -1750.


Hans

 

[Theophilus]

My quest to list canon minor races has been highjacked by Grandfather and his pseudobiological humanoid minions in an effort to keep me from finishing my list. Proof positive that Grandfather is still active at least -2000 or so.

 

[Garnfellow]

Reading the Mongoose (excellent) Aslan book, I found this interesting tidbit under "CONTACT WITH OTHER RACES" (page 62):

The Aslan have incorporated numerous minor races into the Hierate. These species, ranging from the avian-descended Pol Nox to the reptilian Z’kr to the Ulane.

I know the Ulane appeared in Traveller's Digest 17. I have to wonder if the Z'kr are just renamed Ormine, which also appeared in TD17.

 

[kafka47]

Here is a thought...maybe the Ancients were onto something and detected something within the makeup of what would become the major races that would lead to an Ascendance akin to what the Droyne achieved in their Ancient period. And, this was done as the Ancients sampled each of the intelligent races of the galaxy.

Could it be linked back to psionics - no lots of minor races are psionic?
Could it be technological? Lots of races achieve great feats in technology with/without the help the major races depicted on the coyns?

Therefore, Marc et al. being fans of Golden Age SF the answer must lie within there. And, the only answer then seems reasonable from my knowledge of the genre is psychological. There must have been psychological traits that all proto-races exhibit. Otherwise, we must look to the soft sciences or what Marc calls the Social Sciences to find the answer.

 

[Andrew M]

Reading the Mongoose (excellent) Aslan book, I found this interesting tidbit under "CONTACT WITH OTHER RACES" (page 62):

I know the Ulane appeared in Traveller's Digest 17. I have to wonder if the Z'kr are just renamed Ormine, which also appeared in TD17.

To me this reads like a fairly throwaway line, aimed at evoking the broad range of races that inhabit The Hierate. I would not read too much into it. Someone may well choose to develop the Pol Nox or the Z'kr further.

The Orrmine seem to come from the right place, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't link the two.

By the way, are the Ulane developed further in this book, or anything else Mongoose have published?