After the Ancients...

[kafka]

I am also interested in what happened in the in between times...the rise of the Vilani and the Fall of Ancients should have been punctuated by very interesting times indeed. Lots of High Tech civilizations trying to keep out of the way of wandering Ancient semi-sentient warmachines. Machines that think and carry on doing experiments for long dead masters. It would seem that one could easily port in a Gamma World type setting but on a much vaster scale.

 

[Dave Chase]

I think that would be interesting and cool/neat/entertaining but

BUT

I would also want to make sure that nothing 'earth shattering' high tech stuff is just left laying around for others to find which could change lots of things.

But then again, maybe that such a find will improve FTL to a non-Jump status or awaken one of the other deathmachines. The ones that were built to take on the ancient deathmachines.

Hmm.

Dave Chase

 

[rust]

By the way, the Ancient Echoes chapter of the Deconstruction of Falling
Stars PDF for the Babylon 5 RPG has a number of very interesting ideas
for relics of ancient species.

 

[alex_greene]

I kind of imagine silence falling between the stars as the last war machine falls into disuse when its fuel supply runs out.

And amid the silence, early hominids climb up out of the ruins and look around them, and start to build up their lives.

Some civilisations form and never completely die (e.g. the Zhodani); others form, die off, form again, perish and eventually start up, reach the stars and become a cosmic fixture (e.g. the Vilani).

What were Terran humans doing 300,000, 200,000 and 100,000 years ago? The ones the Ancients left behind?

 

[rust]

What were Terran humans doing 300,000 ... years ago? The ones the Ancients left behind?

This is a bit difficult to answer, mainly because Homo sapiens did not yet
exist 300,000 years ago ... :?

 

[EDG]

What were Terran humans doing 300,000, 200,000 and 100,000 years ago? The ones the Ancients left behind?

Going "oook ook", figuring out how to live in caves, and busily evolving toward Homo Sapiens?

This is a bit difficult to answer, mainly because Homo sapiens did not yet exist 300,000 years ago ... :?

Exactly. Given that they most likely weren't anything remotely like modern Homo Sapiens when they were kidnapped by the Ancients (I think they were actually Homo Erectus at that stage), there's absolutely no reason why Vilani, Zhodani, or any other minor human race out there should resemble Homo Sapiens as much as they supposedly do in the OTU, particularly given the alien environments and completely different environmental pressures that they evolved in.

 

[Gamerguy]

:shock:
"I would also want to make sure that nothing 'earth shattering' high tech stuff is just left laying around for others to find which could change lots of things."

Yea, I've ran lots of Traveller games where stuff lying around DID change Lots of things.......

And MTU is quite different from a canon Traveller universe because of it!!!!!

Oh - the "Orb of Power" and what happended to the Zhodani Consulate come to mind......

8)

 

[alex_greene]

It's a puzzle, that, why humans were "transplanted from Earth" at a time when Homo sapiens did not exist yet.

Ever wonder why I stick to my "advanced human time travellers" theory of the Ancients?

 

[Dave Chase]

Well you see, the Earth as known current is not the true home of Humans.

It is part of Grandfathers lie to this area of the galaxy.

You see, the true humans did not like Grandfather stealing ideas and such from them, so he ran to this area.

To help hide the Humans he stole, he modified them down to the caveman shape and dumped them on this planet called Earth (Terra).

Well, thats my attempt at exposing the facts of Grandfathers great big lie. And if doesn't make sense its because Grandfather twisted all the words around.

Darn Grandfather. The big liar.

Dave Chase

 

[BP]

It's a puzzle, that, why humans were "transplanted from Earth" at a time when Homo sapiens did not exist yet.

Oh - they existed - but Grandfather removed all the evidence and seeded his own version for us to evolve from

Ever wonder why I stick to my "advanced human time travellers" theory of the Ancients?

Nope - Grandfather told us why! - oops, I don't think I was supposed to reveal that...

 

[EDG]

It's a puzzle, that, why humans were "transplanted from Earth" at a time when Homo sapiens did not exist yet.

I'd prefer to think of it as either "designers didn't do their research" or "the research of the time indicated that Homo Sapiens was around".

What I find more problematic is why the Ancients had to go about 8 sectors to rimward of where they originated to find not one but two potential servitor races (canines and humans) and then uplift them and then go back and plonk the Vargr stupidly far from their home system for good measure. Were there really no other planets anywhere between the Marches and Earth than had any potentially useful lifeforms?!

If anything snaps my suspenders of disbelief about Traveller, it's that. Given the nature of the OTU, I find it extremely hard to believe that there were no other potentially useful lifeforms closer to home for the Ancients, and you can't even argue that it's anything to do with picking them because they were close to sentience because canines sure as hell aren't.

 

[BP]

... What I find more problematic is why the Ancients had to go about 8 sectors to rimward of where they originated ...

Misjumps.

 

[alex_greene]

There'd be a problem with that, too, in that we evolved with the ability to consume the food indigenous to this planet, whereas the seed races of the Vilani and, to a lesser extent, the Zhodani, had to struggle against hostile ecosystems and indigestible local proteins.

The Ancients really had no idea about transplanting races. In OTU, Earth really is the world where humans and the seed species that became the Vargr originated.

I'll bet the arguments in scientific circles frequently keep the bouncers at the Regina University Students' Union bar on their toes, keeping the experts separated from each other ... I think I'll have to get into an argument with some of the grognards down at Fan Boy 3 some time, with this as the subject, just for the fun of it ...

 

[EDG]

... What I find more problematic is why the Ancients had to go about 8 sectors to rimward of where they originated ...

Misjumps.

And that just happened to find two species that they considered worth uplifting - apparently the likes of which they'd never seen anywhere else in all their travels - on a single non-descript habitable world that was not really much different from any of the hundreds of habitable life-bearing worlds closer to home?

 

[Cleon the Mad]

Exactly. Given that they most likely weren't anything remotely like modern Homo Sapiens when they were kidnapped by the Ancients (I think they were actually Homo Erectus at that stage).

I'll admit my memory is hazy, but I think at 300,000 years ago or so, there would have been possibly Neanderthal Man and maybe Homo heidelbergensis. At the time of the LBB's, Neanderthal may have been considered Homo Sapiens and not a seperate species. Homo heidelbergensis I'm a bit less clear about, but they may have been considered an archaic Homo sapiens species too. I do want to say that Homo heidelbergensis' brain volume overlaps modern Homo Sapiens also..their upper end of brain volume comes within our average brain volume.

So, if I am right (which I know I might not be at all), at the time of the LBB's one or both species that (I think) were around then were seen as sub species of Homo Sapiens instead.

But yes, I always did feel that the Vilani, Zhodani and the minor human races as a whole were a bit TOO "Homo Sapien" given the amount of time, they should be their own distinct species instead.

Having said that, here's an attempt to depict a Neanderthal child:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neanderthal_child.jpg

Cut and comb that kid's hair, and would he look THAT different from any other child if you just gave him a casual glance? Neanderthal is currently considered a different species. So maybe after 300,000 years there wouldn't be THAT Much of a difference. If the reconstruction done there is accurate at all (of course, how can we really know...), then well..that kid could be dressed in modern clothing, given a modern hairstyle and if raised like a modern child pass as well...just another kid.

 

[alex_greene]

And they ought to look distinctly different, too, particularly the Zhodani - perhaps beneath those huge turbans lie huge crania ...

 

[rust]

I'll admit my memory is hazy, but I think at 300,000 years ago or so, there would have been possibly Neanderthal Man and maybe Homo heidelbergensis.

Not quite, Homo neanderthalensis most probably existed between about
160,000 and about 30,000 years ago, the oldest finds are about 130,000
years old.
In a way, Homo neanderthalensis was a very "modern" human, not one
of the earlier predecessors of Homo sapiens that existed about 300,000
years ago.
Homo heidelbergensis was the immediate ancestor of Homo neandertha-
lensis, his species would probably be the "best" one available to Ancients
visiting Earth about 300,000 years ago.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

See, you all have it wrong...

The Ancients took Homo Erectus to the stars, force-evolved them into what we would consider Homo Sapiens and that was the species used around the galaxy.

Some of those Homo Sapiens returned to Earth after the final war and became what we are today.

There is no missing link. The Ancients made us what we are.

 

[EDG]

There is no missing link. The Ancients made us what we are.

That'd would work, except for the fact that there's 300,000 years between now and then. That's long enough for a species to evolve dramatically - we wouldn't just stay static in the form that we returned to earth 300,000 years ago - we'd still evolve in that time, and every other minor race would too. So all the human races should still all be very different.


That said, you pretty much have BSG there don't you - humans live happily with the Ancients (on the Colonies), then a big war happens that destroys them (Cylon Holocaust) and then the surviving humans flee (in a rag-tag fugitive fleet), looking for a mythical homeworld that they all originated on (Earth) while being chased by whatever destroyed their Colonies.

 

[Dave Chase]

"So easy a Cave man could do it."

Geico commerical


Dave Chase