tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433981734782687691.post9012362103935362774..comments2024-03-24T02:45:50.428-07:00Comments on Rise Up Comus: Two Non-Sentient Species of the Homo GenusJoshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11103061574208320331noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433981734782687691.post-74283051798094837522021-04-12T12:22:24.902-07:002021-04-12T12:22:24.902-07:00"Your mother/father was a gigas" would p..."Your mother/father was a gigas" would probably be a common insult. Since there is some degree of plausibility to it and a huge degree of discomfort from the implication.Gorinichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17232977766320497127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433981734782687691.post-40314162046359849132021-04-12T06:30:48.595-07:002021-04-12T06:30:48.595-07:00"Man After Man" is great stuff. And appa..."Man After Man" is great stuff. And apparently I need to add "Sword of Glass" to my read list?<br /><br />I feel like any setting that includes adaptive radiation of humans into multiple new species implies a) a decline in intercultural communication so severe that speciation is possible like the class divide hardening into the Morlock and Eloi species; b) probably a severe loss of biodiversity that opens up new niches for humans to fill; and c) some kind of lack of moral prohibitions against causing speciation or permitting it to happen.<br /><br />"Man After Man" does all that, with humans arriving alone on a big alien world with no other animals to help repopulate the biosphere. They grow apart both as they move to distinct habitats, and as they stop recognizing one another's shared humanity.<br /><br />"First Men on the Moon" arguably depicts the Selenites as arriving from elsewhere and having to bioengineer themselves to create a functioning ecology. (Yes, I think the Moon Calves are Selenites.)<br /><br />"A Mote in God's Eye" shows us a world where the dominant genus has so thoroughly devastated their own ecosystem that they've both evolved and deliberately bred themselves into a number of distinct species filling various niches.<br /><br />And of course Jack Vance's "Dragon Masters" shows humans and aliens pulling this trick on each other, breeding their captives into war-animals.Annehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15493700749333105771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433981734782687691.post-36458932847031907592021-04-11T21:23:26.686-07:002021-04-11T21:23:26.686-07:00"Gigas have been domesticated by gnolls, who ..."Gigas have been domesticated by gnolls, who train them to act as warhorses."<br /><br />Bad. Bad. This is bad. Why are the images in my head. Why was language invented? Just to make me suffer??Spwackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07247063374457045751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2433981734782687691.post-62477336771112785052021-04-11T12:30:45.680-07:002021-04-11T12:30:45.680-07:00Something about the Uncanny Valley implying that i...Something about the Uncanny Valley implying that it was once evolutionarily useful to be suspicious of/repelled by things that look almost human.<br /><br />Dougal Dixon's Man After Man has got a whole bunch of these sort-of-humans.shutteredroomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15073596151712727089noreply@blogger.com