Castle Paradox

Fenrir-Lunaris · **WUT** Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Posts: 1747

Time for an elaboration. Firstly, there's really only one example of a self-aware species forming civilization, namely human beings. Whether or not our predecessors did the same may likely be suspect. I doubt somehow there was a nation founded by Neanderthal Man, although it has been debated whether they felt spiritual. Clearly preparing the dead for an afterlife by providing them with food, weapons, and small works of art would be seen as indicitive of a life beyond this own. If this in itself is anything reflective of culture, or of civilization, then it is entirely possible that more than one species can exist on a planet whom has society.

What has not been made clear is whether those two societies would ultimately evolve together (a symbiotic relationship), or the weaker of the two simply die out (as what happened with Neanderthal). History has shown that the culture with the greater level of technology, and greater acess to resources ultimately is better equipped to survive. This seems almost as simple logic - the Romans were so easily able to conquer their lesser prepared neighbors, the Spaniards totally dominated Latin America, and so on.

This however applies only when the same resources are being sought after by more than one culture. Food, land, water, energy, and so on are finite. In a fictitious world this may not be the case - a mage may create food with magic obviously, or food so plentiful that humans and elves have no need to war with eachother. Likely the best explaination that a world with multiple races would exist, is that each race is more specialized to collect and use particular resources (elves require little food, live much longer, and waste little wheras dwarves are almost the opposite).

And "People" could realistically be simply something that's self aware. That's open to a LOT of interpretation of course, but given the apparent lack of other kinds of "People", it's totally understandable. Apes that use sign language would probably be people under this definition.

Me · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 7:48 pm Post subject:

When cultures collide, though, the subordinate culture doesn't "die out," ever. While it might be diminished, I don't know if there's a case in history where a conquered culture disappeared completely (short of that people being killed off entirely). There are still traditions and worldviews in Central and South America that are directly from the indigenous races there before the Spanish took over. German, Gaelic, Welsh, and Basque are spoken as languages in their areas of Europe despite the fact that their are was taken over by the Romans in the past.

Also,

Fenrir-Lunaris · **WUT** Joined: 03 Feb 2003 Posts: 1747

Me · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject:

Mr B · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382

Here's a thought: what if the only cultures that we remember are the ones that have been assimilated? A culture that is completely erradicated would not leave anything behind for it to be remembered by, thus guaranteeing that it is not remembered.

Me · Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 5:22 pm Post subject:

Shaede · **Tuck in your shirt.** Joined: 08 Jan 2004 Posts: 107

Actually, it's not so impossible at all. Assimilated cultures often are completely lost (or very close to it). There's been a recent movement to try to record or recover cultures that are dissapearing and soon to be forever lost. A good example of such a culture would be the Ainu, who were the original inhabitants of Japan before the Mongoloids travelled across the Korea Strait during the 2nd and 1st century BC, bringing their Shinto beliefs with them. I can think of an example very simular to this for almost every major world region.

pharo212 · Joined: 29 Dec 2007 Posts: 52

Has anyone ever tried a game without humans? Its actually hard, because most of the common things in rpg's, from inns to castles to swords are human things, and you end up with humans who just look different.