#+ time.) only homo sapiens (us) survived

[absurdumsid]

IM CRYING NO- GO EEP- FJDJDHDHDHR IM SORRY-

its ok its actually very fun reading abt the history of evolution

[erose-this-name]

humans are not the default race

In every scifi and fantasy setting with """races""", humans are the default.

If you're lucky, we're the short-lived, fast-reproducing pests that are all white Europeans for some mysterious reason, and also have disproportionate rates of being raised as undead because we can't be bothered to make zombie dwarf minis or animate a vampire gnome that has to jump up to bite a tall person's neck.

(We've got BOTH human AND elf skeleton warriors! Oh, hey, I just changed the scale, now it's a hobbit skeleton OR a giant skeleton! Such skeleton diversity! No, Khajiits can't be bone boys, a skeleton with a tail and a cat skull is just TOO SPOOKY)

I feel like a lot of people don't realize that we (Homo sapiens) have the longest running endurance of any land animal. Being able to run a marathon is not normal.

(It's because we evolved the very unusual hunting strategy of Slowly Chasing Gazelles While Throwing Sticks At Them Until The Gazelle Collapses From Exhaustion Then Casually Walking Up And Bashing Their Head In With A Rock™).

Even Neanderthals probably couldn't match our tenacity (they were considerably stronger and tougher though, but by no means dumber judging from the size of their brain cavities{which was bigger than ours actually})

(the evolutionary Neanderthal hunting strategy was probably something like Jumping Out And Stabbing A Wooly Rhinoceros With A Pointed Stick, Then Getting Punted 12 Feet Into a Tree But Getting Right Back Up And Doing It Again Until It Dies Because You Have Superhuman Bone And Muscle Density. And If You Do Break One Of Your Unbreakable Bones Your Homies Will Take Care Of You Until It Heals™

[Neanderthal skeletons are found with healed fractures surprisingly often despite said bones being much stronger and denser than ours, they just kept evolving denser bones until they couldn't even swim without sinking like a rock, but they still got broken all the time])

So given that we, Homo sapiens, actually literally used to be the "species that specializes in sheer endurance, determination, and unbreakable fucking will", I want more fantasy and scifi settings where we are that way! I think the only setting where that's even remotely the case is Undertale. We're not just the "default" intelligent species!

The only reason we're good at everything is because we can make complex tools and can learn and aren't bound by instinct. Which, by definition, all fantasy races would also be able to do. Otherwise, they'd just be considered animals. Like trolls or Redditers.

The "default" species should just be really good at making tools and quickly adapting, but kinda suck in every other category. So I guess gnomes or goblins are the default d&d race.

And Humans are certainly not the Tolkien "that one race that lives short lives and reproduces faster than everyone else and is good at farming" because:

A) we actually do already live relatively long lives for mammals of our size and also GIVING BIRTH CAN KILL US, AND IF OUR PARENTS DON'T RAISE US JUST RIGHT THAT CAN ALSO KILL US, WE ARE SPECIFICALLY VERY BAD AT REPRODUCING

B) we are in no way adapted to farming, and most of our modern health and societal issues stem from the fact that we aren't meant to farm or be civilized, but do it anyways.

We only farm because it helped us survive the ecological collapse at the end of the ice age, now we're in too deep to go back.

When the ice age ended (quite abruptly) the ecosystem couldn't provide for hunters and gathers anymore, a bunch of things were getting heat stroke, sea levels rose, hibernation and bloom cycles and reptile gender ratios were out of wack, predators died out because herbivores died out because plants weren't doing well. Decomposers like vultures and worms had a field day (Until they didn't [RIP condor population]). It would take a while for a new ecological equilibrium to emerge and for evolution to fix things.

But farming doesn't need any healthy ecosystems except for the soil and pollinators, mostly, so that still works. And farming makes more food meaning you can have more people. So now there's more people.

But that also means you can't ever go back to foraging without all those extra people dying of starvation. So, anarcho-primitivism would technically be the most deadly ideology if implemented, and therefore is not based, unfortunately. Here's hoping for an apocalypse to do that for us! (I would not survive it)

Fun Fact: those isolated tribal societies like the Sentinelese that still do hunting and gathering only spend 15-20 hours a week doing that and another 20 doing camp chores, and the rest of their time forming meaningful relationships and not being depressed.

Notice how most of what they do as "work" (hunting, fighting, hiking, berry/mushroom/etc picking, cooking, camping, arts and crafts, oral history/story telling) are things that we need to do during our limited free time as "hobbies" just so that our "work" doesn't drive us insane. Thus leaving less time for relationships, etc.

If we were actually good at farming or industry or civilization, then things like math and repetitive manual labor wouldn't be work. They'd be the most fun activities.

Sure, these foragers die young, but so did medieval peasant farmers who were even less healthy since they had much less diverse diets (a lot of carbs) and got plague more often thanks to cities and their close proximity to livestock. Our modern sedentary lifestyle is bad too.

Hobbits are suited to farming (also Entwives I guess). Hobbits are quite good at it, at the cost of not being as good at much else (besides going unnoticed and throwing for some reason), they inherently enjoy farming life quite a bit and most* aren't haunted by the sense they should be anything else, like we are. *(The Took family got that Call To Adventure 'tism)

We only think that we're not special or can't be anything other than what we currently are because we no longer have anything else to compare ourselves to. The Neanderthals and Denisovans died out tens of thousands of years ago and the fucking aliens are somewhere, presumably

We are special, only we survived.

But at the cost of becoming the species equivalent of an abandoned child raised by wolves. We fantasize about these things because we all know that we shouldn't be alone. But our perceptions of ourselves are twisted by our trauma and lack of socialization.

Personally, the realization that having lost our family was probably our fault makes that hurt so much worse.

[foone]

Alternative names for humanity along the lines of "Homo sapiens" (Wise man) and "Pan narrans" (Storytelling Chimpanzee) that I'm too lazy to look up/make up Latin for:

chef ape

throwing ape

walking ape

The idea being that we're apparently unique in the animal kingdom in that we cook our food, so we're the Chef Apes. We're also one of the best animals at throwing things: humans have more accuracy and strength when throwing stuff than other apes, by a long shot

And apparently our ability to walk slowly for ages was key to our early survival as persistence predators. We can't outrun a gazelle or mammoth or whatever, but we don't tire easily and so we can just keep following it until it runs out of stamina

Pan basipila: the baseball playing Bonobo

If only baseball had a cooking element, it would be the perfect Human Sport.

We need to devise a sport where you cook something, follow someone for a long time, and then throw it at them.

The most human thing is the surprise pie to the face

Also as much as I like Terry Pratchett's suggestion of "Pan narrans" I wouldn't be surprised if we turn out to not be the only animal that tells stories...

Elephants. I bet elephants do.

Like, there was that case where an injured elephant went to a ranger station for help. One it had never been to before, but other elephants had.

The theory being then that some other elephant had told this elephant "hey if you're hurt, go here, the humans will help"

That, combined with how they have burial rituals (some which might indicate there's an elephant religion!), and that we're working on figuring out how elephants communicate...

It wouldn't surprise me if we learn sometimes in the next decade or two that "oh yeah, elephants tell stories too. They've got FICTION."

So "Pan narrans" isn't what I'd want to bet on as our uniquely human thing.

But at the end of the day, maybe the whole idea of there being a uniquely human thing is, in itself, just another story we're telling.

So maybe it is a good fit after all.

But I especially like the idea that we're the Baseball Ape because I have this image in my head of a galactic council of aliens. Some angry alien who looks like Cthulhu had a baby with a spider has the floor, and they're ranting about "why do the Hu-mons deserve a seat?"

The Crogath are stronger, the Eldru are smarter, the Cybernetic Essense lives longer, the Dromans go farther and faster, the Moltriri have us beat in fiction and poetry, what is so special about these damn bipedal fleshbags that makes them unique in the universe?

And then WHAM. Right between the eyes. A handheld translator device, a bit bigger than a modern smartphone, beans the speaker out of nowhere.

And there's an (untranslated) yell in the chamber as the prime representative calls for order.

"WE CAN THROW, MOTHERFUCKER!"

(it takes a while to properly explain the insult. Crogathi (especially drones) don't really have mothers or sexual reproduction, so they don't really get why that would be an insult. It's finally translated as something like "bud-biter")

and it's true. even after the World Series becomes the Galactic Series, no non-human team ever manages to win.

The Eldrul Librarians almost make the cut in 2486 but accidentally piss off the ghost of Colonel Sanders and end up inheriting the Hanshin Tigers' curse.

alien textbooks describe The Colonel as some kind of human patron deity of baseball and cooked avian food, who should not be disrespected at all costs, or his vengeance from his place beyond the grave will be swift and punishing

(they're right)

"Look, we can't PROVE he was why Gemini Noctis went supernova unexpectedly, but given the protests that had happened right beforehand, and the incredible powers ascribed to the human spirits, do you really want to risk it?"

the funniest possible future: humanity gets a key place in galactic politics because we're never able to adequately convince the universe at large that our ghost stories are just that, stories, and they're terrified shitless that we'll unleash spectral torment on them

"humans? look man, living humans are a pushover. you can easily rip them in half, crack their planets with a quark bomb, their ships are little more than tin cans with a tachyon drive taped on the side. but it's not the living humans you have to worry about... it's the ghosts."

"humans are a bit like the Nontilek, with a two-stage lifespan, a grub and an adult. What you think of as "adult" humans is just their infant stage, and they only fully transform once they "die". Once fully hatched into Ghost form, their powers are almost limitless."

you want humans off a colony planet and bomb them from orbit? good luck, now you have a few million ascended humans who can pass through solid matter and can't be killed, and they will never rest until you and your descendants are gone or dead.

you don't believe me? look at this: One of their most popular stories is about them building an empire that spanned a large chunk of their little planet, then having it MURDER THEIR OWN GOD.

It only worked for a few revolutions, and he just came back, promising that one day all of them would join him in the next phase of their lifespan.

They still, to this day, thousands of orbits later, erect little statues of the means they used to execute their deity.

not even the Crogathi, who literally worship death itself, tell stories that frightening to their newly hatched grubs.

Humans are scary, man, stay away and just give them whatever they want.

the rest of the alien's education on the dangers of humans is just a selection of human movies. the sixth sense, poltergeist, ghostbusters, the shining, the devil's backbone, and, of course, field of dreams.

ghosts AND baseball? it's everything they're scared about humans all in one package!

the obvious twist you could do, of course, is simple:

the aliens are right.

humans are a two-phase species where the elder form has immense power but leaves communication and decision making to the younger form, which will be confused and angry if you acknowledge the presence of their elder-stage members among them.

this often leads to them cutting off contact or their elder-stage members causing immense damage through seeming "accidents" on the contacting vessel. This is believed to be some kind of religious prohibition that they are not able to explain.

so it's official contact protocol to pretend you cannot perceive the elder-stage humans among them, and to give them what they want to avoid possible retribution.

No means to combat elder-stage humans has yet been found, and the limits of their power is not known.

All alien captains are required to study the fate of the SS Ennolon, which contacted a lone human craft in the galactic year of 12,783. They had initiated contact and were getting along fine, until the human showed the Droman captain a picture of their "late father".

Captain Droless, accounting for the difficulty in telling humans apart, then pointed at the father sitting in a chair nearby and said "That is them, correct?".

The human looked at the chair, reacted in confusion, then anger, and asked the contacting crew to immediately leave.

It was another 400 cycles before contact could be reestablished between the Droman Federation and the Human Alliance.

the intergalactic guide describes humans as a powerful race of immortal energy beings who have the strange habit of sending their larvae out on missions around the galaxy, occasionally contacting other races, but refusing to acknowledge their elders, except in stories

they seem to frequently put their young in dangerous situations without lifting a hand to help, so this is suspected to be some sort of pilgrimage or coming-of-age ritual.

(From a twitter thread on October 1st, 2022)

[superectojazzmage]

X-Men works best, I feel, when writers understand on at least some level that it's really basically a cyberpunk/biopunk horror story that just happens to also be a superhero comic.

X-Men is the story of the world entering a new epoch where any random person on the street might randomly get superpowers - ranging everywhere from green hair to mind control - simply because they happened to win(?) a genetic lottery as part of a cosmic process programmed into humanity in ancient times by ineffable star gods. All around you are people who are ostensibly still people, but are also inhuman entities with alien powers who are gradually developing their own subculture that tells them they are the future dominant species destined to replace mankind. Many of them are just normal folks... but just as many see you the same way ancient homo sapiens saw neanderthals.

X-Men is the story of fear and hatred rising in the hearts of men in the face of that new epoch. Corrupt humans and mutants alike use bigotry and xenophobia to divide the two peoples, pushing them into a war not just for politics, but for evolution and the planet themselves. Mankind begins altering themselves and building machines of death to keep up with the mutants, in the process creating a third race of humanity; transhumans and robots, that in time come to be no different from the mutants, superpowered monsters of society's own making that see the humans as flatscan wastes of genes at best, oppressors to be destroyed at worst.

X-Men is the story of humanity fighting amidst themselves in their senseless darwinistic war while their world tumbles through a swirling universe of terrifying eldritch threats. Out in the stars and spiritual dimensions are alien empires once like us now advanced beyond comprehension, legions of magical wonders and nightmares in equal measure, lovecraftian machine hive minds that eat planets, demons that feast on our sin, cosmic entities that have as much in common with us as we do ants.

And above it all, X-Men is the story of how recognizing each other's humanity, of embracing love instead of hate, may be the only thing that ensures even a hope of survival in the face of the unimaginable, mind-breaking horror of a world entering a new era whether it's inhabitants like it or not... or perhaps, the only thing that decides whether or not we deserve to survive.

The best X-Men writers are the ones who recognize this. Chris Claremont, Johnathan Hickman, Grant Morrison, Kieron Gillen, etc.. The writers who recognize that there's something profoundly and utterly, existentially TERRIFYING about what the series really boils down to (a self-defeating war between mechanical and genetic evolution with normals caught in the middle that may be the extinction of all three races) and reflect that in the aesthetics and tone by emphasizing a cyberpunkish vibe.

Emphasizing that this is a world where people - willingly or not - alter their bodies like mechanics alter cars and any random person you see on the street might be a mutant or Sentinel or something that can kill you with a look, and that random person is probably hiding from something even worse that wants to kill them just for being born.

[tanadrin]

Do you think it's possible there's a planet with multiple stable sentient species who interact? Or would such a situation inevitably end up with one getting wiped out or the two hybridizing

Well, they could only hybridize if they were closely related, like humans and Neanderthals. And IIRC there's some evidence that humans and Neanderthals/Denisovans probably weren't all that interfertile to begin with, with most coding Neanderthal alleles getting weeded out of our genome.

I think it would be very difficult for two sentient species that shared overlapping niches to survive. H. sapiens and Neanderthals were both smart, seem to have both had language and culture, and had similar levels of technological sophistication, but the latter had a much lower population and so couldn't really compete when their cousins invaded their territory. And maybe some of this is a function of the wider human clade's tendency to engage in warfare and ecologically disruptive hunting--there's a big wave of megafauna extinction that seems to have followed the expansion of human populations all over the globe--but I'm not sure how many species of big-brained tool-users any niche could support.

But I do think that species with very different niches could coexist peacefully, at least long enough to work out that species in other niches were sentient, and to develop the ethical frameworks necessary for coexistence. If there were superintelligent squid, they wouldn't ever compete directly with humans for habitat (though we might have eaten a fair few by accident). We have also managed (just!) not to render extinct cetaceans, which are fairly intelligent, or our close cousins the chimpanzee. I could also imagine a science fictional scenario where two intelligent species were in some kind of important symbiotic or commensalist relationship that would stabilize their coexistence.

I think the other tricky thing though would be timing. It took a long time for the genus Homo to develop intelligence. AFAICT the australopithecines were closer to chimpanzees in terms of intelligence than they were to us; H. erectus was a lot smarter, but probably didn't have language; it's not until 700,000 to 200,000 years ago you get human species that are more fully developed in terms of their intelligence, and that feels like a super narrow window in terms of evolution for another intelligence species to also emerge. Because once you do get intelligent tool-users who spread over most of the globe, they seem likely to me to start to modify their environment in profound ways, like we have. So if another intelligent species doesn't already exist, the circumstances in which it is likely to arise after one species comes to prominence are going to be very different--more of an uplift scenario, maybe. Like I think if we discovered a group of chimpanzees with rudimentary language tomorrow, we would do our best not to fuck with them, but we would inevitably have some kind of impact on their existence for better or worse, right?

Maybe your best bet for multiple sentient species would be to have a reason that the first species (singular or plural) that arose didn't come to dominate the entire planet--they were aquatic, and so never mastered fire; or they were otherwise highly restricted in the biomes they could inhabit; or they were small in number like the Neanderthals, but could retreat to refugia in mountains and forests rather than be wiped out; or they were a diverse clade like early humans, but they also spread out very rapidly, and were subsequently isolated by climate conditions. Like, imagine Denisovans (who were already in Asia) had crossed the Bering Strait land bridge to the Americas, and then sea levels rose cutting them off until the Age of Discovery. If you had a planet that didn't effectively have a two supercontinents like Earth, you might have many more opportunities for related-but-geographically-divided species to develop (though that doesn't avoid the problem of what happens when they meet each other and start competing then).

[disease]

HUMAN // THEORIES

Humans, or modern humans (Homo sapiens or H. sapiens), are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the only surviving species of the genus Homo. A great ape characterized by their hairlessness, bipedalism, and high intelligence, humans have large brains, enabling more advanced cognitive skills that enable them to thrive and adapt in varied environments, develop highly complex tools, and form complex social structures and civilizations.

I. SPECIES OF PRIMATE – in terms of biology, we fall under the classification of animals. we share more similarities with fellow species under this classification opposed to less similarities. study the behavior of fellow animals, limitlessly, and focus your attention on that of their primitive states-of-being. apply these tactics to our advanced state of multi-faceted intellect, and learn from them.

II. HIGH INTELLIGENCE – a privilege amongst humankind that, to an exponential degree, fails to be utilized by the masses. success in relation to survival is largely attributed to this level of intelligence on a day-to-day basis. with the exception of cases linear with cognitive neurodiversity—excuses against the enrichment and manifestation of this attribute remain impotent. failure to both utilize and acknowledge this predisposition will only lead to mortal sterility.

Humans are highly social, with individual humans tending to belong to a multi-layered network of cooperating, distinct, or even competing social groups���from families and peer groups to corporations and political states. As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, languages, and traditions (collectively termed institutions), each of which bolsters human society.

III. HIGHLY SOCIAL – as if an art form opposed to a science, one must not only enforce to find a comfortable balance regarding this subject, but also attune themselves into the identification of natural compatibility, emotional maturity, and self-interest of individuals they encounter. if one chooses to form a social attachment with a subject who’s imbalanced in any aforementioned concepts, a state of emotional/energetic hemorrhage may occur. ideally, one must invest the majority of their energy into those in which form a unified duality of mutual restoration with oneself; opposed to the inclination of self-sacrifice, fueled by a multitude of various factors. one must vigilantly prioritize themselves as to not grow tarnished in an act of preservation for not only themselves—but for the consistent nourishment of their otherwise deep-rooted connections in which an active catalyst has been established. avoid social martyrdom.

Humans are also highly curious: the desire to understand and influence phenomena has motivated humanity's development of science, technology, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other frameworks of knowledge; humans also study themselves through such domains as anthropology, social science, history, psychology, and medicine.

IV. HIGHLY CURIOUS – passions, as sacred as they can be bewildering, [sub]consciously occupy the largest percentage of our time. to be mystified by that of which is misunderstood may be one of life’s most-precious offerings. our pursuits in creativity reward us with a key which unlocks subliminal facets within our psyche, only to be comprehended at a later point in time. these lay the foundations at our primal core, and, as a divine mission which one chooses to either ignore or commence upon, choosing the latter inevitably trails the path toward self-actualization. a probable reason why we exist—without the ability to reference some comprehensive manual—is to polarize us toward what we will produce as an earth-bound monolith to perpetually inspire future generations of those impassioned by the very same mystical essence that once lay dormant within ourselves.

As of January 2024, there are more than 8 billion humans alive.

you uniquely represent 1 amongst eight billion.

radiate your inner light for those blind to the dark.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Being Crossed

You may have laughed at fantasy games’ penchant for dragon-cross-everything. And I couldn’t blame you. Dragons are just so cool, and D&D in particular has come up with many, many ways monsters and NPCs can be part-dragon to make them even cooler. But if you read some history, especially the niche stuff that focuses on odd bits like the History of Salt or the Little Ice Age worldwide rather than the usual politics and wars, you can get a good sense that if dragons did exist, humans would be crossing them with everything. Warning, what has been seen cannot be unseen... even if, especially if, it’s face-palmy ridiculous.

Ladies and gentlemen, the zebroid.

I... To be honest, as a student of biology and genetics I am somewhat flabbergasted this even works. Mules work out, we all know that, but the donkey has 62 chromosomes while the horse has 64, so the resulting cross critter has 63 chromosomes, and that seems... plausible to survive?

Zebras range as low as 32 chromosomes, and only as high as 46 (depending on the species), meaning all zebroid results will have at least nine chromosomes with no matching pairmate. And yet most are quite viable, if almost never fertile. Yikes.

(Biology is so squirrelly sometimes!)

I will note here that humans seem to be pretty darn fragile in this respect. We can survive duplications of only a few specific chromosomes, and a zygote missing any chromosome besides one of the sex chromosomes results in death. XXY and XO are survivable, though not without consequences; OY is not.

If you’re wondering why would anyone even try this? about the zebroid, poke a bit more history. Humans are down to cross darn near anything, it seems. Savannah cats, wolfdogs (oh what a bad idea), and killer bees (possibly a worse idea) are all hybrids deliberately created by Homo supposedly sapiens. Look into plants and it gets even weirder. Though one bit of that weirdness is probably regularly in your fruit bowl; the domestic strawberry of today came from an 18th century cross between a European species and one from the Pacific Coast of North America.

Heck, we’ve even tried to cross gems. At one point in the Middle Ages certain people sincerely believed that aquamarines were the offspring of sapphires and emeralds, and tried various experiments to produce them.

With that in mind, the zebroid seems yet another “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. But apparently it actually was a useful idea... in Boer Africa. Horses fall prey to sleeping sickness. Zebras don’t. If the Boers wanted to haul freight north into the hotter areas to expand, or pull gun carriages to fight the British, they needed draft animals that wouldn’t lie down and die. Zebroids aren’t exactly tame, and usually don’t have a temperament that makes them good mounts - but mules are nasty too, and we use them to haul guns.

The Boers lost. Zebroids are still born; sometimes by accident. And still kind of amazing.

If you have exotic animals in your world... well, it’s something to think about. What might your breeders get up to?

[justcallmekinn-2]

Idea, tell me if you'd read it.

So I've found inspiration in a dream. I have been watching The Orville, and rewatching the Star Treks. In my dream, aligning to The Orville universe, in 2046, as part of a euginics war/movement, I was chosen to participate in a program that promised to rid me of my type 1 diabetes, fibromyalgia, and other illnesses. My husband and infant child were placed into another program the put them into cryosleep to be awakened at a later time. The program I was in took my brain and nervous system, as well as some of my vital organs, and placed them into a artificial carapace. The survival rate of the proceedure was 40%. I was one of the survivors. After a couple of years of learning to use our new bodies the government stepped in and told us world war 3 had broken out and we were required to fight. Most of us were pacifists refused to fight, so the government stepped in and activated a fail safe. We lost all control of our bodies becoming spectators of our actions. The war lasted 10 years, it took us 9 to figure out how powerful our minds were. We first developed telepathic comminucations through the bluetooth like connection that had been designed into us by the engineers. Together, as our bodies were commiting war crimes, we figured out how to break the code. It was midbattle when we broke free. One minute we are tearing people apart, the next we froze, then we turned and ran. For a century we lived underground trying to hide from the Sapiens. We came to call ourselves Homo sapien cyber to differentiate ourselves from our creaters. Centuries pass, and some of us being scientists, have refined and upgraded our bodies to the point we can blending with Sapiens. We integrate into their society while developing our own. Our system is a Social Democracy led by a councel, each representing a group of our kind, and headed by a grand councel men. They wanted me to lead without a councel, but I managed to convince majority to form the councel. I don't want to lead. This gives me the position to check the councel and the counsel checks me. By the time the Orville comes about we have infiltrated the Union. I take the roll of lead astrobotanist on the Orville. With the handling of the Kaylon and the insuing war, Cybers were impressed. By this time our technology had developed far beyond that of Sapiens, we only need a couple of hours of sleep and a quarter of the calories that Sapiens do. The counsel decided that it was time to reintroduce ourselves. We made the announcement to the president and made ourselves known in all places. Then requested a meeting with the unioin counsel where we request citizenship and recognition of us being a sub species of Homo Sapiens. However, at this point, after telling them out story, I used my right as grand counselman to put a condition on this. We offered all access to our science, technology, and wepons, exceeding that which they lost with the Moclans leaving. However this hinged on the humans returning that which they stole from us. Our mates, we had found out that our reproductive organs were preserved in our carapaces, with the third iteration of our bodies we found that we could reproduce, any child birthed was sapien, until the fifth iterations that was made with full itegration of quantum bots, robots so small that they function on a quantum level. They fully itegrate with our biological systems. Children born after this were born fully integrated Cybers, and any children they produced had the quantum bot technology in them too. At the end of the meeting, Admiral Tom Halsy stands up and promises that no matter what the counsel decides, Sapiens will find and return our families. Thats where the dream/daydream ends. Should I write this? Please comment with your opinion.

[kemetic-dreams]

Early northern Africa dispersal

Populations of Homo sapiens migrated to the Levant and to Europe between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, and possibly in earlier waves as early as 185,000 years ago.

A fragment of a jawbone with eight teeth found at Misliya Cave has been dated to around 185,000 years ago. Layers dating from between 250,000 and 140,000 years ago in the same cave contained tools of the Levallois type which could put the date of the first migration even earlier if the tools can be associated with the modern human jawbone finds

These early migrations do not appear to have led to lasting colonisation and receded by about 80,000 years ago. There is a possibility that this first wave of expansion may have reached China (or even North America )as early as 125,000 years ago, but would have died out without leaving a trace in the genome of contemporary humans

There is some evidence that modern humans left Africa at least 125,000 years ago using two different routes: through the Nile Valley heading to the Middle East, at least into modern Israel (Qafzeh: 120,000–100,000 years ago); and a second route through the present-day Bab-el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea (at that time, with a much lower sea level and narrower extension), crossing to the Arabian Peninsula and settling in places like the present-day United Arab Emirates (125,000 years ago) and Oman (106,000 years ago),and possibly reaching the Indian Subcontinent (Jwalapuram: 75,000 years ago.) Although no human remains have yet been found in these three places, the apparent similarities between the stone tools found at Jebel Faya, those from Jwalapuram and some from Africa suggest that their creators were all modern humans.These findings might give some support to the claim that modern humans from Africa arrived at southern China about 100,000 years ago (Zhiren Cave, Zhirendong, Chongzuo City: 100,000 years ago;[note 9] and the Liujiang hominid (Liujiang County): controversially dated at 139,000–111,000 years ago ). Dating results of the Lunadong (Bubing Basin, Guangxi, southern China) teeth, which include a right upper second molar and a left lower second molar, indicate that the molars may be as old as 126,000 years.

Since these previous exits from Africa did not leave traces in the results of genetic analyses based on the Y chromosome and on MtDNA (which represent only a small part of the human genetic material), it seems that those modern humans did not survive in large numbers and were assimilated by our major antecessors. An explanation for their extinction (or small genetic imprint) may be the Toba eruption (74,000 years ago), though some argue it scarcely affected human population

[scimita]

i know a lot of ppl would like to see the preds win more in comics and movies, not the humans, but i honestly find it really funny that the preds lose. Especially when i remember that their species has been around for millions of years and humans are barely 300,000 years old as a species (homo sapiens). THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS OLD. the preds are fighting babies and LOSING i love it

they even got horror stories abt us. can u imagine having horror stories abt babies and being genuinely scared? i cant, i'd punt chucky into the mesosphere, even if hes the size of my calf

on that note i'd also like to point out that the only reason humans actually win against preds is bcz the last human always has the longest time to observe the hunter (and sure, the pred gets cocky and starts not thinking abt the fight, but the human also get super determined to kill him so). like,, the only reason humans r suddenly winning more and killing more predators is bcz ONE of them (humans) managed to survive and learn their patterns and just started talking abt it to everyone who would listen

i just think its nice to show that humans' pattern-finding brain works so well it kills the apex predators of space

not that we ever get to *see* humans use their supposed ingenuity and cleverness and pattern-findings, they just randomly know what to do, and tbh it's pretty accurate to real life, but this isnt real life so i'd like to see humans be the horrors the preds are being told stories abt.

i also want to know if there are novels detailing the stories abt humans? if anyone knows, pls tell me 🙏

[racefortheironthrone]

On your old WOIAF review, you mentioned that the Brindled Men are close to Robert E. Howard's racist ideas about the relationship between humans and apes. Could you elaborate further? Also, what do you think about the theory that the Brindled Men and the Ibbenese are another species of men, like the Neatherthals and the Australoptecus were to us? Or do you think their depictions in WOIAF should be read as not 100% accurate, since the meisters are talking about things so distant from Westeros that they only heard about?

I want to clarify my current thinking, because I find myself a bit unsure as to what the situation is.

It's always difficult to divine a writer's intent, but I think that's particularly true in this case because of two simultaneously true facts: one, GRRM is fascinated by the idea of what if the non-homo sapiens hominids, like the Neanderthals and the Denisovians, were still around. Two, GRRM is a huge fan of the work of Robert E. Howard and that dude had some weird and unusually racist even for the 1920s beliefs about human beings, great apes, and how evolution and species works. (I'm going to leave aside H.P Lovecraft for the moment, because parsing the similarites and differences between their thinking on this when they spent years corresponding with each other about this and many other topics is pretty hard to do.)

To provide a short version of Howard's beliefs: in part because Howard was a white Texan born very close to the "closing of the American frontier," and in part because of how he personally related to America in the 1920s, Howard had this odd combination of beliefs, in which he saw "barbarism" (which he sort of used as a short-hand for both less-developed times, places, and definitely people, including pretty much all non-white people) as savage, unintelligent, driven entirely by base urges, but also honest and vibrant and energetic; similarly, he viewed "civilization" (which again, he used as a short-hand for certain peoples, places, and times that he considered to be the most similar to contemporary white people) as more enlightened, more refined, more intellectual, but also corrupt and decadent.

In Howard's mind, humanity was constantly in a loop of civilization growing ever more refined and decadent until it collapsed back into barbarism due to its own weakness and corruption, at which point it would be replaced by the rising dynamism of the barbarian who had toppled it, who would found a new civilization, and then so on. (Howard was probably borrowing from someone who had borrowed from Ibn Khaldun.)

What made Howard weird, though, is that he thought this could happen at the level of the species: if humanity became too "degenerate," they would literally go backwards and devolve into non-human apes; and vice-versa, apes could ascend and become human (or at least human-like).

You see this trope all over Howard's writings. Here it is in "Tower of the Elephant":

""We saw men grow from the ape and build the shining cities of Valusia, Kamelia, Commoria, and their sisters. We saw them reel before the thrusts of the heathen Atlanteans and Picts and Lemurians. We saw the oceans rise and engulf Atlantis and Lemuria, and the isles of the Picts, and the shining cities of civilization. We saw the survivors of Pictdom and Atlantis build their stone age empires, and go down to ruin, locked in bloody wars. We saw the Picts sink into abysmal savagery, the Atlanteans into apedom again. We saw new savages drift southward in conquering waves from the arctic circle to build a new civilization, with new kingdoms called Nemedia, and Koth, and Aquilonia and their sisters. We saw your people rise under a new name from the jungles of the apes that had been Atlanteans. We saw the descendants of the Lemurians who had survived the cataclysm, rise again through savagery and ride westward, as Hyrkanians. And we saw this race of devils, survivors of the ancient civilization that was before Atlantis sank, come once more into culture and power—this accursed kingdom of Zamora."

Here it is in "Rogues in the House":

“That is Thak,” answered the priest, caressing his temple. “Some would call him an ape, but he is almost as different from a real ape as he is different from a real man. His people dwell far to the east, in the mountains that fringe the eastern frontiers of Zamora. There are not many of them; but, if they are not exterminated, I believe they will become human beings in perhaps a hundred thousand years. They are in the formative stage; they are neither apes, as their remote ancestors were, nor men, as their remote descendants may be. They dwell in the high crags of well-nigh inaccessible mountains, knowing nothing of fire or the making of shelter or garments, or the use of weapons. Yet they have a language of a sort, consisting mainly of grunts and clicks.

“I took Thak when he was a cub, and he learned what I taught him much more swiftly and thoroughly than any true animal could have done. He was at once bodyguard and servant. But I forgot that being partly a man, he could not be submerged into a mere shadow of myself, like a true animal. Apparently his semi-brain retained impressions of hate, resentment, and some sort of bestial ambition of its own."

And here it is again in "Queen of the Black Coast:"

"Cast in the mold of humanity, they were distinctly not men. They were winged and of heroic proportions; not a branch on the mysterious stalk of evolution that culminated in man, but the ripe blossom on an alien tree, separate and apart from that stalk. Aside from their wings, in physical appearance they resembled man only as man in his highest form resembles the great apes. In spiritual, esthetic and intellectual development they were superior to man as man is superior to the gorilla. But when they reared their colossal city, man’s primal ancestors had not yet risen from the slime of the primordial seas.

...Many died who drank of it; and in those who lived, the drinking wrought change, subtle, gradual and grisly. In adapting themselves to the changing conditions, they had sunk far below their original level. But the lethal waters altered them even more horribly, from generation to more bestial generation. They who had been winged gods became pinioned demons, with all that remained of their ancestors’ vast knowledge distorted and perverted and twisted into ghastly paths. As they had risen higher than mankind might dream, so they sank lower than man’s maddest nightmares reach. They died fast, by cannibalism, and horrible feuds fought out in the murk of the midnight jungle. And at last among the lichen-grown ruins of their city only a single shape lurked, a stunted abhorrent perversion of nature."

And here it is in "Shadows in the Moon":

"Out of the shadows of the cliffs moved a monstrous shambling bulk--an anthropomorphic horror, a grotesque travesty of creation.

In general outline it was not unlike a man. But its face, limned in the bright moonlight, was bestial, with close-set ears, flaring nostrils, and a great flabby-lipped mouth in which gleamed white tusk-like fangs. It was covered with shaggy grayish hair, shot with silver which shone in the moonlight, and its great misshapen paws hung nearly to the earth. Its bulk was tremendous; as it stood on its short bowed legs, its bullet-head rose above that of the man who faced it; the sweep of the hairy breast and giant shoulders was breathtaking; the huge arms were like knotted trees.

The moonlight scene swam, to Olivia's sight. This, then, was the end of the trail--for what human being could withstand the fury of that hairy mountain of thews and ferocity? Yet as she stared in wide-eyed horror at the bronzed figure facing the monster, she sensed a kinship in the antagonists that was almost appalling."

So you can see why I get a little nervus when in WOIAF GRRM invents a new group of people in the far-off land of Sothoryos and describes them in terms like this:

"And the native races grow ever more savage and primitive the farther one travels from the coasts.

The Sothoryi are big-boned creatures, massively muscled, with long arms, sloped foreheads, huge square teeth, heavy jaws, and coarse black hair. Their broad, flat noses suggest snouts, and their thick skins are brindled in patterns of brown and white that seem more hoglike than human. Sothoryi women cannot breed with any save their own males; when mated with men from Essos or Westeros, they bring forth only stillbirths, many hideously malformed.

The Sothoryi that dwell closest to the sea have learned to speak the trade talk. The Ghiscari consider them too slow of wit to make good slaves, but they are fierce fighters. Farther south, the trappings of civilization fall away, and the Brindled Men become ever more savage and barbaric. These Sothoryi worship dark gods with obscene rites. Many are cannibals, and more are ghouls; when they cannot feast upon the flesh of foes and strangers, they eat their own dead."

Are these Neanderthals and/or a non-sapiens hominid species, or is GRRM unwisely indulging in a bit of Howard pastiche in a more problematic way than just dropping the city of K'dath or Carcosa on to the map of furthest Essos? It's hard to say. Some of the details - the description of the bones, the long arms, the foreheads, the jaws, the mention of them not being able to cross-breed - suggest a non-sapiens hominid like the Neandethals. But others - the fact that some of them can learn to talk but further into the interior they become more bestial, the mention of "dark gods with obscene rites," the invocation of cannibalism and corpse-eating - feel like Howard pastiche. And then the eponymous skin seems like all GRRM's invention, but it's hardly flattering.

Either way, I think this is an aspect of the world-building that should have been edited out. I don't really see the benefits being worth the potential downsides.

[knightinkosherarmour]

Post Human Studies: Homo Radiogensis

Homo Radiogensis do not have any common name I can use in this lecture that does not have an extremely negative connotation. Homo Radiogensis are one of many post human species and among a select grouping that have emerged artificially. As a reminder, the key definition of a "post human" species is that it has its roots generic roots at least partially in homo spaiens and post human cultures most similarly have their roots in cultural groups that existed within human space before the Galactic Springtime. It is possible to be post human culturally but not specially and post human specially but not culturally.

Thankfully for today's studies, Homo Radiogensis fulfills both critiea. Homo Radiogensis owes it's orgin to a group of humans known as the 'icenecks'. Icenecks were extreme survivalists who lived on the edge of society mining asteroids and meteors for that most precious of substances: water. That culture that flourished as extreme isolationists, only interacting with the greater galactic community when needed to deliver ice to their planet and station bound clientele. Spicers had already grown into the wider subspecies known as homo sapien inanis, one of the first subspecies to evolve a true adaptations to the void in devoid of almost any form of melanin long soft bones soft by bone standards not truly soft as would evolve in later generations, and and decreased muscle mass.

It was from this particular crop of humans did the first homo radiogensis take form. The isolationism and survivalism of their culture saw any form of accepting help from outside as anathema to all that they stood for. It was at this time that one of the Iceneck's number rediscovered the properties of Deinococcus Radiodurans while cleaning out a hydroponics lap. Deinococcus Radiodurans is able to synthesis celluaral energy from radiation alone - at least that is how that icenecks related it and understood it. At once readily available genetic manipulation technology because you be used to modify at first one clan with these genes making them less dependent upon hydroponics. In the sector of space of that they were in this triggered a genetic arms race of other icenecks incorporating genetics from xenobacteria, xenofaun, xenofungi, as well as their Earthbound equivalents into their genetics for the ultimate arms race of being the most independent and free from influence, shells made of lead began to be introduced as bones withered away so that nothing but the feeding portions would be expoded to radiation in some clans while others embraced tht destruction of their skeletaal system entirely.

Homo Radiogensis is an incredibly phenotypical diverse species but some common traits include fingers that stretch upwards of three meters, extreme expanded craniums, withered eyes and bones, radio- auto- and homophagi being incredibly common traits, reinforced teeth to be able to protect their dwellings, mergers with whatever technology remains on their derelict stations, and a stiff phobia of those from outside their immediate area.

Homo radiophagi often form the backbone of whatever voidborne ecosystem they can be found in acting as a keystones species yet their appearance and often fierce territoriality has lead to them being cast as well as a boogeyman in many cultures stories about abandoned wrecks or stations that are floating between the void.

Should you ever find one between the stars, ensure it is truly empty. Though homo radiophagi maintenance independent spirits I have never known one to be adverse to adding more resources to their foodweb.

[foone]

Ghosts and Baseball

This is me ranting about names for humanity, before turning into a brief sci-fi story about Ghosts and Baseball. From twitter, last year.

Alternative names for humanity along the lines of "Homo sapiens" (Wise man) and "Pan narrans" (Storytelling Chimpanzee) that I'm too lazy to look up/make up Latin for:

chef ape

throwing ape

walking ape

The idea being that we're apparently unique in the animal kingdom in that we cook our food, so we're the Chef Apes. We're also one of the best animals at throwing things: humans have more accuracy and strength when throwing stuff than other apes, by a long shot

And apparently our ability to walk slowly for ages was key to our early survival as persistence predators. We can't outrun a gazelle or mammoth or whatever, but we don't tire easily and so we can just keep following it until it runs out of stamina.

OK I looked it up... maybe we're "Pan basipila": the baseball playing Bonobo

If only baseball had a cooking element, it would be the perfect Human Sport. We need to devise a sport where you cook something, follow someone for a long time, and then throw it at them.

The most human thing is the surprise pie to the face

Also as much as I like Terry Pratchett's suggestion of "Pan narrans" I wouldn't be surprised if we turn out to not be the only animal that tells stories... Elephants. I bet elephants do.

Like, there was that case where an injured elephant went to a ranger station for help. One it had never been to before, but other elephants had. The theory being then that some other elephant had told this elephant "hey if you're hurt, go here, the humans will help".

That, combined with how they have burial rituals (some which might indicate there's an elephant religion!), and that we're working on figuring out how elephants communicate...

It wouldn't surprise me if we learn sometimes in the next decade or two that "oh yeah, elephants tell stories too. They've got FICTION."

So "Pan narrans" isn't what I'd want to bet on as our uniquely human thing. But at the end of the day, maybe the whole idea of there being a uniquely human thing is, in itself, just another story we're telling.

So maybe it is a good fit after all.

But I especially like the idea that we're the Baseball Ape because I have this image in my head of a galactic council of aliens. Some angry alien who looks like Cthulhu had a baby with a spider has the floor, and they're ranting about "why do the Hu-mons deserve a seat?"

The Crogath are stronger, the Eldru are smarter, the Cybernetic Essense lives longer, the Dromans go farther and faster, the Moltriri have us beat in fiction and poetry, what is so special about these damn bipedal fleshbags that makes them unique in the universe?

And then WHAM. Right between the eyes. A handheld translator device, a bit bigger than a modern smartphone, beans the speaker out of nowhere.

And there's an (untranslated) yell in the chamber as the prime representative calls for order.

"WE CAN THROW, MOTHERFUCKER!"

And it's true. even after the World Series becomes the Galactic Series, no non-human team ever manages to win.

The Eldrul Librarians almost make the cut in 2486 but accidentally piss off the ghost of Colonel Sanders and end up inheriting the Hanshin Tigers' curse.

Alien textbooks describe The Colonel as some kind of human patron deity of baseball and cooked avian food, who should not be disrespected at all costs, or his vengeance from his place beyond the grave will be swift and punishing.

(they're right)

"Look, we can't PROVE he was why Gemini Noctis went supernova unexpectedly, but given the protests that had happened right beforehand, and the incredible powers ascribed to the human spirits, do you really want to risk it?"

The funniest possible future: Humanity gets a key place in galactic politics because we're never able to adequately convince the universe at large that our ghost stories are just that, stories, and they're terrified shitless that we'll unleash spectral torment on them.

"Humans? look man, living humans are a pushover. you can easily rip them in half, crack their planets with a quark bomb, their ships are little more than tin cans with a tachyon drive taped on the side. but it's not the living humans you have to worry about... it's the ghosts."

"Humans are a bit like the Nontilek, with a two-stage lifespan, a grub and an adult. What you think of as "adult" humans is just their infant stage, and they only fully transform once they "die". Once fully hatched into Ghost form, their powers are almost limitless."

"You want humans off a colony planet and bomb them from orbit? good luck, now you have a few million ascended humans who can pass through solid matter and can't be killed, and they will never rest until you and your descendants are gone or dead."

"You don't believe me? look at this: One of their most popular stories is about them building an empire that spanned a large chunk of their little planet, then having it MURDER THEIR OWN GOD."

"It only worked for a few revolutions, and he just came back, promising that one day all of them would join him in the next phase of their lifespan. "

"They still, to this day, thousands of orbits later, erect little statues of the means they used to execute their deity."

Not even the Crogathi, who literally worship death itself, tell stories that frightening to their newly hatched grubs.

Humans are scary, man, stay away and just give them whatever they want.

The rest of the alien's education on the dangers of humans is just a selection of human movies: the sixth sense, poltergeist, ghostbusters, the shining, the devil's backbone, and, of course, field of dreams.

Ghosts AND baseball? it's everything they're scared about humans all in one package!

The obvious twist you could do, of course, is simple:

the aliens are right.

Humans are a two-phase species where the elder form has immense power but leaves communication and decision making to the younger form, which will be confused and angry if you acknowledge the presence of their elder-stage members among them.

This often leads to them cutting off contact or their elder-stage members causing immense damage through seeming "accidents" on the contacting vessel. This is believed to be some kind of religious prohibition that they are not able to explain.

so it's official contact protocol to pretend you cannot perceive the elder-stage humans among them, and to give them what they want to avoid possible retribution.

No means to combat elder-stage humans has yet been found, and the limits of their power is not known.

All alien captains are required to study the fate of the SS Ennolon, which contacted a lone human craft in the galactic year of 12,783. They had initiated contact and were getting along fine, until the human showed the Droman captain a picture of their "late father".

Captain Droless, accounting for the difficulty in telling humans apart, then pointed at the father sitting in a chair nearby and said "That is them, correct?".

The human looked at the chair, reacted in confusion, then anger, and asked the contacting crew to immediately leave.

It was another 400 cycles before contact could be reestablished between the Droman Federation and the Human Alliance.

The intergalactic guide describes humans as a powerful race of immortal energy beings who have the strange habit of sending their larvae out on missions around the galaxy, occasionally contacting other races, but refusing to acknowledge their elders, except in stories.

They seem to frequently put their young in dangerous situations without lifting a hand to help, so this is suspected to be some sort of pilgrimage or coming-of-age ritual.

[madamlaydebug]

There are genetic and fossil evidence that suggests that the earliest modern human species – otherwise known as Homo Sapiens – evolved from Africa over 200,000 years ago.

Presently, research spearheaded by author Vanessa Hayes, a geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the University of Sydney in Australia has produced data that they believe is able to pinpoint exactly where in Africa these homo-sapiens originated (Chan et al., 2019). This research was conducted through genetic tracing of the ‘Eve Gene’ otherwise known as one of the oldest DNA lineages on Earth.

Scientifically, they are a collection of genes called ‘L0’ which are passed down maternally through mitochondria – also known as ‘the powerhouse of the cell’ – small bean-shaped structures in our cells that convert food into energy used for powering bodily functions and biochemical reactions that keep us alive (MitoQ, 2019). It is important to note that mitochondria have their own DNA that carry this particular ‘Eve’/L0 genome. This more commonly termed as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).

It is thus nicknamed the ‘Eve Gene’ as it is an inherited gene, paying reference to the story of creation in Genesis, the first chapter of the Bible. The story of creation describes Eve as first woman on earth, therefore in essence she would be the mother to us all. However, this has not been scientifically proven therefore, the term is used only to refer to the most recent female genetic ancestor of a species.

Biologically, 50% of any humans’ DNA is inherited from their mother and the other 50% from their father. However mitochondrial DNA is inherited solely from your mother and can remain unchanged for tens of thousands of years (Specktor, 2019). It is a unique genetic code that is passed down for generations. This characteristic has proved to be extremely useful for research, as mtDNA can be used a biomarker (proof of biological process in the body) to trace back the matrilineal history of our species.

For clarification, the Eve Gene does not necessarily reference the first female human or of any species, but it is more accurately used to refer to the most historically recent female from which humans can trace their ancestry. Whilst currently the genome can only be traced to one female, this does not mean that no other female predates her or there are none that may have lived at the same time as her. There are a variety of reasons why the genetic lineage can only be traced to this one particular female; for example, she may have been the only one with surviving female children that would have been able to pass on her mtDNA (Learn, 2016).

The data extracted from this research after studying the genomes of over 1,200 Africans have pinpointed an area called Makgadikgadi in present-day Botswana (Southern Africa) as modern humans’ ancestral homeland and concluded that mitochondrial Eve and her descendants lived in this region for about 30,000 years, 200,000-170,000 years ago before the L0 lineage split into its first subgroup and further subgroups in order to create the variety and diversity of humanity we see today (Specktor, 2019).

Bibliography

https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/the-eve-gene/

Chan, E.K.F., Timmermann, A., Baldi, B.F., Moore, A.E., Lyons, R.J., Lee, S.-S., Kalsbeek, A.M.F., Petersen, D.C., Rautenbach, H., Förtsch, H.E.A., Bornman, M.S.R. and Hayes, V.M. (2019). Human origins in a southern African palaeo-wetland and first migrations. Nature, [online] 575(7781), pp.185–189. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1714-1 [Accessed 25 Mar. 2020].

Learn, J.R. (2016). No, a Mitochondrial “Eve” Is Not the First Female in a Species. [online] Smithsonian Magazine. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/.../no-mitochondrial-eve.../ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2020].

MitoQ (2019). What are Mitochondria? [online] www.mitoq.com. Available at: https://www.mitoq.com/blog/science/what-are-mitochondria [Accessed 25 Mar. 2020].

Specktor, B. (2019). Scientists Think They’ve Found “Mitochondrial Eve’s” First Homeland. [online] livescience.com. Available at: https://www.livescience.com/mitochondrial-eve-first-human... [Accessed 25 Mar. 2020].

[wintersettled]

i am once again thinking about the hilichurl rogue :(

the first time i fought it was actually yesterday after climbing a mountain in fontaine cause i wanted to see what it was and the drops really reminded me of neanderthal flower burials + how both neanderthals and hilichurls are/have been seen as primitive beings despite tons of evidence to the contrary (ignoring what we know about khaenri'ah since the curse of the wild seems to cause them to be catatonic for a period of time).

theres tons of literature on how neanderthals actually appear to be similar to homo sapiens and have higher mental functioning as evidenced through their tools, their presumed social structures (taking care of injured/disabled neanderthals rather than abandoning them as would be thought of beings focused only on survival), but most notably for this the evidence of "flower burials" at Shanidar.

Basically, two neanderthals were found buried in primarily medicinal flowers (indicating their possible role in their group). I believe there were 11(?) other neanderthals found there who appeared to have been crushed by rockfall whos ages (if my memory is correct) were from around 7 to mid 40s. The reason i bring this up is because of one of the flowers found at Shanidar: Achillea/Yarrows. I find these flowers to be fairly similar in appearance of the petals (excluding size) to the hilichurl rogues drops

Now, each drops description:

A Flower Yet to Bloom "a wildflower that a hilichurl rogue treasured. it was plucked before it could bloom. the hilichurl takes nothing with it in its sojourn across the wilderness save this flower."

Treasured Flower "a wild flower that a hilichurl picked bereft of any special qualities. flowers can be used as gifts or offerings to express ones feelings in many cultures"

for this description in specific i would actually like to quote Ralph S Solecki's "The Implications of the Shanidar Cave Neanderthal Flower Burial"

"Under normal circumstances, today, in many cultures, flowers and death go together, as one can see a funeral corteges and burials. The association of flowers as tokens of esteem, respect, or for the joy of looking at [...]. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'the flower has been a universal symbol of beauty in the civilizations of the world. Confucius included its cultivation among the arts that were essential to a man of culture.' We pride ourselves thinking that we know a lot about Neanderthal man, but the association of flowers with Neanderthals adds a whole new dimension to our knowledge of him, and his humanistic nature."

Wanderer's Blooming Flower "a blooming wild flower that a hilichurl rogue treasured, bereft of any special qualities. the eternal outlander asks not for reward, but only to see their deeds come to fruition"

TLDR (abstract lol); hilichurl rogue drops remind me of the neanderthal flower burials found at shanidar

below the cutoff are some sources if you want to do further reading on neanderthals

(im not an anthropologist or even studying it btw but here are some articles on neanderthals i used for a bibliography on neanderthal spirituality in an anth class last winter in case you want to read up on it, theyre formatted in SAA kinda)

Appenzeller, Tim

     2013    Neanderthal Culture: Old Masters. Nature 497:302-304. 

Hochadel, Oliver

     2020    The Flower People of Shanidar: Telling a New Tale of Neanderthal Brothers. In 

Narratives and Comparisons, edited by Martin Carrier, Rebecca Mertens, and Carsen Reinhardt, pp. 99-122. Bielefeld University Press, Bielefeld. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839454152-005

Mitchell, Mary Shirley

    2021   Geoarchaeological Methods and the Intentionality of Neanderthal Burial. Furthering

Perspectives 11:29-41. https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/handle/10217/233626/JOUF_FurtheringPerspectives_vol10.pdf?sequence=1#page=29

Morris-Kay, Gillian M. 

    2010    The Evolution of Human Artistic Creativity. Journal of Anatomy 216:158-176. 

Pomeroy, Emma, Paul Bennett, Chris O. Hunt, Tim Reynolds, Lucy Farr, and Marine Frouin

    2020      New Neanderthal Remains Associated with the ‘Flower Burial’ at Shanidar

Cave. Antiquity 94:11-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.207

[isawken]

thing that keeps me up at night #44

neanderthals existed from about 130,000 to 40,000 years ago

homo sapiens have existed for 3000,000 years

that's 90k years of potential intermingling

that's almost an entire third of our existence, another species running parallel to us. but what were the differences? how different were their faces? their language? i was reading something that said they had less sophisticated language capabilities than us. when we interacted with them, what was it like? were our languages similar enough to get by? or as foreign as english and sumerian? the first evidence of the written word we have is from 3400 BCE. as we all know, that doesn't mean that's the first time we wrote anything down. it's just the first time we wrote something down on a tablet that survived for 5k years. the same is true for other arts. we have cave paintings as old as 45k years. that doesn't mean that's the first art ever. just the first that lasted so long.

did homo sapiens and neanderthals ever fall in love?

did they ever sit in a cave together, painting bulls and elk on the walls? did they tell each other stories? could they?

did a homo sapien and a human ever hold hands? did a homo sapien ever see a neanderthal from across the river and feel their heart thump in their chest? did a neanderthal ever caress the face of a homo sapien? did they ever look in each other's eyes and smile?

did love exist back then like it does now? when was the first time one human looked at another and thought,

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and only you."

we'll never know! and it fucking kills me.

we can trace language and history and biology so far back, hundreds of thousands and millions and billions of years. we know what beings 65 millions years ago looked like. we can guess when the fucking universe started.

but we can't know when the first human loved another.

i know this is saccharine and cheesy and corny but it really does keep me up at night. the indefinable aspects that make up the core human experience. how inherently unknowable they are. how inextricable they are. we can never know how our ancestors loved. but, at the end of the day, i also know that doesn't really matter, because we love how we love now, and that's more than enough.

still.

wouldn't it be nice to know where it came from?