Darrian 'Elves'

You know, I really liked the classic Aliens books with the anatomical skeletons on the inside cover (I think they stole that idea from a Niven Kzinti book), but when I saw the point-eared Darrians, I started to have some serious doubts about where DGP was going (or at least the Parkers - going by memory here - but I think that book was mostly them).

But I didn't really get disturbed until Ithklur-Claus (Yeah, I sorta get the meta thing Nilsen was trying to do, but... no Dave, not over it, or your response).
 
I should also say that my wife is a Traveller fan. In fact, we met playing Traveller.
And even SHE refers to Daryen as 'space elves'! And it annoys me when she does it too... so you guys are in good company.
 
Darrians are "elves" in the loose pop-culture archetypical sense. Physically lithe, intellectual, a little holier-than-thou, skilled at war though holding it in low regard, "higher" (in a technological rather than magical or spiritual sense, in this case), and pointy ears.

Calling them "space elves" is just short-hand for the loose collection of ideas that would help someone with no exposure to Traveller understand them. It's like calling Aslan cat people, K'kree horse-people, Ithklur "lizards" and Bwaps "newts" (which is an in-universe thing, at that).

Geonee are dwarves, by the same logic. Short, stocky, stubborn, known for their engineering, only the men are seen out and about; they even have the Llyrnians to cover the "tunnelling deep" aspect.

It's like a vague silhouette that the race/culture in question can fit, as an initial attempt to get a grip on them, before you come to understand who/what they are. If someone asked, "who are these Aslan, then?", I could give an overview, but it's easier to say "proud warrior race cat people". If someone asks who the Darrians are, I might say "scholarly human race, space elves".

The Thoughtless Guide to Traveller Factions:

Vilani: Hyper-conservative control freaks; fallen empire
Solomani: Reckless, innovative nationalists; breakaway province
Zhodani: Thought Police Utopia
Aslan: Proud Warrior Race cat-people
Vargr: Chaotic pirate dog-people
Droyne: Psychic winged lizards suspiciously under the radar
Hiver: Manipulative land-starfish
K'kree: Militant vegetarian horse-people
Darrian: Space elves
Sword Worlder: Viking LARP
Luriani: Hot-blooded quasi-Polynesians
Geonee: Dwarves
Suerrat: Hirsute tree-lovers
Hhkar: Dragon-people
Virushi: Pacifist rhino-people
Ithklur: Cheerful psychotic lizard-people
Gurvin: Money-obsessed mink-people
Bwaps: Bureaucratic newt-people
Vegans: Willowy ETs
Dolphins: Dolphins.
Ursa: It's a talking bear. Humans made a talking bear, because you know what those other, more powerful humans don't have? Talking bears.
 
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As a Scandinavian, I was amused to read how the female Sword Worlders are generally docile and stay at home to raise children. As if! :)

Also horrified every time I see how they manage to mangle the Scandinavian languages to make their 'Sagamaal'. Could they not afford one Scandi proof-reader? :)
 
Grognardia said:
Also horrified every time I see how they manage to mangle the Scandinavian languages to make their 'Sagamaal'. Could they not afford one Scandi proof-reader? :)
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If it's any consolation, it probably makes more sense for it to be mangled than not. It's the far future and they're constructing something that isn't actually based in authenticity. Really, the Sword Worlders are doing exactly what I just did in the previous post -- taking a vague silhouette and applying it to their new creation. They like to say they're recreating Icelandic sagas or Scandinavian homesteader virtues but really they're just incorporating something vaguely Terran Northern European into their new culture as a supposed solid link to their roots. Their homebrew setting is faux-Norse with liftings from Old Earth Union military virtues, deliberate not-Darrianisms and implicitly the Aslan (they spent a few years transiting Aslan space to become the Sword Worlders).
 
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Grognardia said:
Also horrified every time I see how they manage to mangle the Scandinavian languages to make their 'Sagamaal'. Could they not afford one Scandi proof-reader? :)
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But remember they are creating a language that will exist 3500 years in the future that has absorbed and been influenced by other Terran and non-Terran languages (including German and French and possibly some Spanish if you look at the names of the naval ranks and also the names of some of their Merchant Lines going back to CT), and that entirely apart from its own independent native linguistic evolution.

Anglo-Saxon, Middle-English, and Modern English are all English (and Anglo-Saxon itself evolved from an earlier NW Coastal Common Germanic Language), and if I were to put an Anglo-Saxon text in front of an Englsh speaking non-Scholar (or even have it read aloud), he would be lost. Even Middle English would likely be very slow reading with lots of confusion and misunderstanding.

And the modern descendants of the NW Coastal Germanic Languages: Platt-Deutsch, Dutch, Flemish, and English (and also the Danish and Norwegian tongues, derived from the Old Norse North Germanic that influenced them) are today mutually incomprehensible.

It is best to consider Sagmaal as a future language loosely based on modern Scandinavian (etc al) in general, just as Rule of Man era Anglic is likely different from Modern English, to say nothing of Imperial era Galanglic (both of which are known to have significant French and Vilani influence, and likely Spanish/Portugese as well).
 
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It is just shorthand, really. Tolkienesque Elves are a recognisable trope and so, if you want a quick way to refer to Darrians in a casual gamer context it is simple enough.
 
WHULorigan said:
But remember they are creating a language that will exist 3500 years in the future that has absorbed and been influenced by other Terran and non-Terran languages (including German and French and possibly some Spanish if you look at the names of the naval ranks and also the names of some of their Merchant Lines going back to CT), and that entirely apart from its own independent native linguistic evolution.

Anglo-Saxon, Middle-English, and Modern English are all English (and Anglo-Saxon itself evolved from an earlier NW Coastal Common Germanic Language), and if I were to put an Anglo-Saxon text in front of an Englsh speaking non-Scholar (or even have it read aloud), he would be lost. Even Middle English would likely be very slow reading with lots of confusion and misunderstanding.

And the modern descendants of the NW Coastal Germanic Languages: Platt-Deutsch, Dutch, Flemish, and English (and also the Danish and Norwegian tongues, derived from the Old Norse North Germanic that influenced them) are today mutually incomprehensible.

It is best to consider Sagmaal asa future language loosely based on modern Scandinavian (etc al) in general, just as Rule of Man era Anglic is likely different from Modern English, to say nothing of Imperial era Galanglic (both of which are known to have significant French and Vilani influence, and likely Spanish as well).
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My wife took a lot of graphic design classes in college and one of her favorite assignments was designing HAZMAT symbols for a future civilization with no ties to our own. Same kind of thing.
 
TrippyHippy said:
It is just shorthand, really. Tolkienesque Elves are a recognisable trope and so, if you want a quick way to refer to Darrians in a casual gamer context it is simple enough.
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There's an inborn fallacy in that though. Casually judging an alien race by appearance alone gets you Aslan vehicles that look like something out of Thundercats and Vargr weapons with sighting systems that look like dog heads.
So how am I as a referee supposed to take an alien race seriously if the official artists don't?
 
Given some of the sword world systems are named after Tolkien swords, cultures being derived from Tolkien is already firmly embedded.

These people are not culturally anchored, they left their home system with whatever library records their ship contained and then spent generations in isolation teaching their offspring their version of history. It is no wonder it is scrambled.

Bristish English is a grab-bag of half remembered words from everyone who invaded us (or who we invaded). We have germanic words that are different to the equivalent german word because they evolved independently from a common root (assuming we even got the orgininal root word correct). If we can mangle it to that extent in only a few thousand years, I think we can cut the Sword Worlders some slack.

The Viking LARP bit made me laugh, IMTU I have enthusiasts who travel to Regiment in Tarsus for an annual "Pageant". Basically it is a massive military training exercise and recruitment event disguised as a re-enactment.

If you can accept a mystic alien who transported humans round the universe then accepting Space Elves is a snap :)
 
swordtart said:
Given some of the sword world systems are named after Tolkien swords, cultures being derived from Tolkien is already firmly embedded.
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I like to think that some Sword Worlders believe those old stories (or the forms they're familiar with) to be historical truth. A Sword Worlder traveller reaching Terra might be asking where the historical site of Pelennor Fields is, and going on about those lost Geonee colonies on pre-Jump Terra in the Blue Mountains.
 
G'Naakbusters said:
I like to think that some Sword Worlders believe those old stories (or the forms they're familiar with) to be historical truth. A Sword Worlder traveller reaching Terra might be asking where the historical site of Pelennor Fields is, and going on about those lost Geonee colonies on pre-Jump Terra in the Blue Mountains.
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Or even just as an authentic "mytho-historical account" that embodies the truths and cultural values they hold, even if the actual "historical" events are shrouded in the mists of time.

After all, that in a sense was the original goal of Tolkien's Legendarium in the first place: to create an authentic "Anglo-Saxon" mytho-history that embodied what was truly "English", and not something merely derivative of surrounding cultures.

There was probably a real military war-leader of some sort behind the figure of Arthur who staved off Germanic invasion of Brittania after the departure of the Legions in the 5th Century, around whom tall tales, and then later legend and Celtic myth and finally Medieval ideals finally were attributed. Perhaps the Sword Worlds see the Tolkien Legendarium the same way.
 
WHULorigan said:
There was probably a real military war-leader of some sort behind the figure of Arthur who staved off Germanic invasion of Brittania after the departure of the Legions in the 5th Century
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And some modern Arthurian fiction plays it that way - including a series of murder mysteries...
 
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