Humans as an ancient race

I was thinking about it for some time.

How would you make humans on the same level as Dwarfs or Elves in terms of being an extremely old race?

My take is this:
>Humans were the fourth oldest race created by the gods
>First were the now extinct Draconians (due to too much fiends and cataclysms piling on them)
>Second were Dwarfs and Elves made in the same moment
>Humans were created as a fourth race shortly after the former two, yet were incomplete (due to a ginormous cataclysm that the gods had to stop personally and left them like this) when compared to Dwarfs and Elves
>This made them average in everything and something of a blank slate, yet at the same time they spawned more sub-species (that differ not only physically) and races (like Orcs being early barbarian tribes that mutated due to spiritual radiation in the lands from which they come) than all the other older races
>Their status as blank slates also resulted in them being capable of acquiring the capabilities of other races and including them into their own genepool

How'd you do it?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/fJpp-Uj3c64
economist.com/node/1213392).
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

I think Halo did this before.

So the power of humanity is cultural appropriation?

... I can work with that

Old races that aren't devolved due to circumstances or totally dead are cancer.

There's no reason for 5000 year old medieval kingdoms that don't ever develop new technology or social ideologies.

Isn't that what dwarves and elves are though?

Not trying to sound like an asshole.

In settings that try to make sense, the dwarves/ elves would fall down under "devolved". The old Kingdom, which was really great, has been lost and all the attempts to reclaim it fail. The remaining dwarves/ elves wander the land and either intermingle with humans or become obsessed about reclaiming their past.

>"There's no reason for 5000 year old medieval kingdoms that don't ever develop new technology or social ideologies"
>thinks advancements just occur randomly, without any particular individuals behind them

Personally, I'm not a fan of humans as an ancient race. It takes away from the main advantage humans have in fantasy settings; they're the ones with the most potential. Which I have a hard time seeing being the case if they've been around for as long as the other races but don't really have anything to show for it. They're basically just goblins at that point.

I mean, I could see it being done well, but I think it would be pretty depressing.

>humans create generic fantasy world for shits and giggles
>use some nanomachines or !!!science!!! to emulate magic
>go down and pretend to be heroes as part of an escapist fantasy

high tech LARP?

>There's no reason for 5000 year old medieval kingdoms that don't ever develop new technology or social ideologies.
You can make up kingdoms like that just fine. It would take some effort to explain if you bothered explaining it the way most fantasy settings don't, but you could do it. Hardest part is giving these people a culture (and necessarily a religion) that both suppressed advancement and managed to remain intact for thousands of years. If you can justify that though it's totally plausible for huge areas of the world to remain in effective 'medieval stasis' for, well, forever.

think about this for a second. humans have existed for 200,000 years. civilization has only been around for a little over 10,000 years.

westworld

>think about this for a second. humans have existed for 200,000 years. civilization has only been around for a little over 10,000 years.
And more importantly, a lot of basic things like writing, agriculture, accounting (so basis for money or financial system), alcohol, metal weapons and armor have existed for at least 6000 years, possibly 8000 in some cases.

And the same types of civilizations seem to arise independently, as if by default: theocratic states that build pyramids, like the aztecs, Egyptians, mound-builders, and ancient Babylonians with their ziggurats.

Yeah, why is that? I genuinely don't know. Modern humans wandered the earth in a tribal state for almost 200k years before suddenly civilizations appeared all over the world at the same time?

See China, and how it had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even the 19th century

OP, what is 40k, Nehekara, Gondor, Roman Empire, Dune...

Humanity having ancient origins is old.

Read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

China was ahead of Europe in just about anything until maybe late middle ages/ Renaissance. So sure, they had a few centuries of staggered development but not 5000 years of it.

Well, not the same time. The aztec empire began only a few centuries ago.
The pyramids are nearly always connected with sun worship, with the suns rays hitting the sides at specific angles on specific days of the year, acting as a calendar. In a farming society, the sun would be seen as life or death for crops.

I had this idea for a setting where humans were originally the only humanoid species. The first dominant civilization eventually delved into magic that altered them body, mind, and soul. They made pacts with various beings or drew raw power from various planes and infused it into themselves, becoming tieflings and elves and more. The people who forged deals with fiends and aberrations were reviled, but what brought about the end of the First Empire was a group who crossed the goddamn streams and drew on planes of evil, law, and negative energy, becoming the Void Bringers. After a narrowly avoided apocalypse that resulted in the entire world being set back in science, culture, and historical knowledge, the survivors no longer knew that their ancestors were universally human and regarded themselves as completely separate species.

Endless series

40k? AT?

You're not wrong. I was just hoping someone would take the bait. For help us if they ever get off-planet. They'll end up The Eternal Empire. Been here since civilization was a goddam thing and will be around forever. Tiny boots on our necks forever.

What said. Also, there's an evolutionary hypothesis which supposes that humanity evolved to be as intelligent as it is almost entirely because of social and sexual selection. We evolved to the point where we were capable of social interaction, and then, because social interactions can always become more complex and someone can always figure out how to do them better, there's no limit on how much intelligence and charisma can benefit you. So humans kept trying to out-social each other for thousands of years until their brains were complex enough to go, "Time for agriculture!". And because the same process was being carried out in largely the same way all over the world we all hit that innovation at roughly the same time.

...I gather you haven't read the book yourself then? Else you would've answered the question.

>the same process was being carried out in largely the same way all over the world we all hit that innovation at roughly the same time
That doesn't make any sense at all.

In my setting, the world has undergone two cataclysms in one generation. Humans got sick of all the dark magic fuckery and fucked off with a cataclysmic spell which dimension jumped the entire species (to earth actually). The spell backlashed (intentionally) and desolated the western continent while also destroying every planar gateway, cutting off my setting from other planes. Magic is fucked, the dead have nowhere to go, multiple God's who were not on the material plane are just gone forever. With their main predator out of the way, Dragons have taken over, draconic God's have filled the old gaps, and a version of dragonborn I'm still fleshing out have risen to take on the mantle of dominant species. The only thing left of humanity are ruins and the occasional skeleton.

It took a long, long time for anyone to figure out farming, and likely even longer for anyone to see any benefit to it compared to hunter-gathering, which everyone was already comfortable and familiar with.

>How would you make humans on the same level as Dwarfs or Elves in terms of being an extremely old race?
>There's no reason for 5000 year old medieval kingdoms that don't ever develop new technology or social ideologies.

The answer is religion. Cultural progress has stagnated at some point, because some sort of cult and/or divine force "enslaved" and indoctrinated the species. This has been going on for millennia.

Could you please explain what's confusing you?

Isn't this the normal way? Monstrous races like orcs and gobbos are usually younger than humans, and humans always have a million offshoots.

This is stupid. Religion has never done that.

Veeky Forums has made some scenarios with this. May favorite is the sci-fi

>Humans had achieved some transhumanist utopia.
>Start uplifiting animals to serve with their day to day lives
>Animal uplifts are still primitive, treat mundane jobs as tasks from godlike entities
>10000 years later
>Humans gone, all that's left are remnants of their technology and the uplifts that fight each other thinking they were the true inheritor's of humanity's legacy
>Earth becomes a holy site where none of the uplifts dare fight.

The Glitch in Starbound hunt down any other Glitch that try to advance technology, seeing it as heresy.

bump

How about something similar to Arlathan from Dragon Age, where the vast majority of magic/technology relies on this specific something, but a great cataclysm for one reason or another occurs, destroying that specific something, leaving the vast majority of advanced tech/magic inoperable (or at least more difficult/expensive to use) and the race of people who used it undergo a sharp decline and are supplanted by other races who's tech/magic transcends their, now obsolete, society.

I'd take the lore of any other ancient race. Erase the race name, and replace it with Human.

>Religion has never done that.
the sun go's round the earth?

Egypt. China. A lot of ancient cultures could be stuck in the Bronze or Iron age for extended periods of time.

Egypt is probably a pretty good example. They were a major power at one point, built the pyramids and everything, but then suffered a collapse and never really recovered to their height.

by going really far into the future,
and focusing on a different race

...

...

It's been done in a few settings. Terry Brooks had, IIRC, humans as the original race, with all the dwarves, gnomes and trolls and so on being nuclear war mutant spinoffs.

Theoretical knowledge is very different than technological development. That idea is a product of capitalist society. Prior to modern secular society, there was no fundamental difference between natural philosophy and natural science. Cosmological theories were inexplicitly tied towards theology. This means every theory about the cosmos would have to be expressed in a religious manner with religious implications.

The vast majority of knowledge prior to the printing press and mass culture was secluded to religious officials. Before modernity, they were the ones who preserved and advanced all knowledge. Science is by nature quantitative, and founded upon principles of mathematics, principles originally advanced by the religious.

Even if you think about it today - anti-science religious people have done jack shit to stifle the growth of science and technology. Yes, politically motivated people can convince large masses of people (who are neither scientists nor inventors) of incorrect information and get all grumpy about new tech, but ultimately, their whining has done absolutely nothing to stem the tide of progress. Give me a concrete example of a religious movement going out of their way to stifle technological progress - and succeeding.

>The answer is religion. Cultural progress has stagnated at some point, because some sort of cult and/or divine force "enslaved" and indoctrinated the species. This has been going on for millennia.

This has to be bait, I refuse to believe someone is this retarded and edgy.

What would be funnier is to make humans a extinct race.
Players would only play Dwarves/Elves/Halflings, in a world where humans once were more technologically advanced than we were.

Here's something relevant.

The whole 10,000 years thing may not be accurate though. Globeki tepi in Turkey is at least 11k old.

Chrono trigger kingdom of zeal.

youtu.be/fJpp-Uj3c64

"This is the eternal kingdom of Zeal, where dreams can come true. But at what price?"

Basically when humanity has reached a point where reality can be altered to suit our needs as required. Bonus points if occurring in facet dimensions.

>How'd you do it?
Humans and Halflings came first via natural processes. All other races were created by the Gods using either Humans or Halflings as a template; with mixed results.

>My take is this:
>>Humans were the fourth oldest race created by the gods
>>First were the now extinct Draconians (due to too much fiends and cataclysms piling on them)

This is literally the background lore of Forgotten Realms. Humanity is one of the 'Creator Races' along Sarrukh, Batrachi, Aearee, and Fey

Of the five races only humanity is still around, the fey fucked off to their own dimension, and the other races died out/were usurped by their creations.

Bigger version

>Humans were first
>humans created all the other humanoid races, which is why they all look like them
>then the humans blew themselves up, as humans do
>Todays humans are just creations of the last of the original humans in a vain attempt to save their race
>no one remembers shit about the pre-cursor humans because they were so powerful and above everything they were basically myth
>this is why every race has a creator myth except the humans who just kind of shrug

>think about this for a second. humans have existed for 200,000 years. civilization has only been around for a little over 10,000 years.
80% of history wasn't recorded
And we occasionally find "out of place artifacts" or relics that predate our history of "civilization"

So what happened in that time? Were there civilizations that rose and fell lost to time?
Were we even alone on this world?

I fucking like that chart. I really do.

So many questions. What was the Finnish and Korean Empire hyper war? What of the Centaurian expansion? Why was Maldek destroyed? What was the height of Babylonian science?

...

Fucking hell, I want to be rational, I really do
But shit like this occasionally makes me question reality

People in Best Korea believe that the Kim family are demigods because thats what they have been taught. They aren't idiots, they just believe that because anything else has been taught is ridiculous.

What if there actually was a hidden history that our current overlords are covering up for their own interest?

To be fair, China and the rest of the Asian nations have really only been around for thousands of years in name and not much else. China's been through so many Dynasties it's ridiculous. The current nation calling itself China has only been around since, like, the 60's. Built on the husk of the nation that used to be called China.

It's fun to spin yarns about but it's not something that would hold up, globally, for a very long period of time. Governments are only as competant as their people, and therefore, are quite inept. It works in NK because of isolationism, poverty, because the country is so small, and because it hasn't been around for very long (like, 30 years?)

Every once in a while I marathon a bunch of fringe psuedoscience conspiracy bullshit on youtube.
And every time I do I want to run a Delta Green/Unknown Armies/Whatever style game where at least a few of those batshit crazy theories are actually true.

I've already taken inspiration from them for other games, like the fuel and ftl propulsion of Bob Lazar's "Sports Model" UFO for sci-fi games and Graham Hancock's theory that humans once had a global civilization like 12-20 thousand years ago

Its good story fodder

I really like The Secret World

where ALL of the conspiracies are real

>Were we even alone on this world?
Of course not, we had doggos with us

>yfw doggos built the pyramid
>and let their human masters be buried with them

>Give me a concrete example of a religious movement going out of their way to stifle technological progress - and succeeding.
Not him, but Islam in the Middle East is a pretty good example. Despite being 20% of the world's population, they only managed to produce 2 scientific nobel prize winners. 2 individuals, not 2%.

Also, Spain (not the entire Spanish speaking world, just Spain) alone manages to translate more foreign books into Spanish in a single year than the entire Middle East in Arabic and other languages over the past 1000 years (economist.com/node/1213392). That's a hell of a lot of shit they're missing out on, considering every single major scientific paper almost instantly gets translated into most major languages. How far the Middle East lags behind scientifically cannot be overstated.

The reason for this is Islam, which makes absolute claims about the nature of the world that are demonstrably false, including but not limited to shooting stars being projectiles Allah shoots at demons trying to escape from hell. The dogmatic nature of Islam dictates that any observation not in accordance to Islam is false, end of story. This is why close to zero scientific progress comes from the region that was once the craddle of civilization itself. It probably also has something to do with Al-Ghezali condemning Greek philosophy for being pagan, calling mathematics of the devil and embracing an extreme version of occassionalism where causality is an illussion. How are you going to do science when there's neither cause nor effect and all is the will of Allah? (Though admittedly Westernized Islamic thinkers are now bending over backwards to find interpretations where Al-Ghezali can reject causality without rejecting causality, including a reading that tries to equate it to the Copenhagen Interpretation. This is probably a good development, at least science wise).

Halo did it terribly

fucking hell Halo went front decent to awful real quick

Because it's the most stable shape.
Throw some rocks into a pile and what shape do the fall into..?

Tribalism/Nothing
No
No. There was a large variety of other organisms, you mongoloid.

>We evolved to the point where we were capable of social interaction, and then, because social interactions can always become more complex and someone can always figure out how to do them better, there's no limit on how much intelligence and charisma can benefit you. So humans kept trying to out-social each other for thousands of years until their brains were complex enough to go, "Time for agriculture!".
Where do autists fit into this? Supposedly a theory on autism is that due to their literally autismal obsession with things they turned out to be decent enough hunters to hunt and reproduce (I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with no broke nigger since the stone age). You'd think social selection would've driven them into extinction if it worked like that, like probably a plethora of mental and physical disorders we'll never know about.

>(69 years)

...

...

>autism seems to be more common among the offsprings produced by older parents
>there are some links that point towards autism being caused by mother's hormonal imbalances during pregnancy
>presumably whatever genetic defects that are behind such hormonal imbalances have more pronounced effect in older females
>for most of the human history people didn't wait until their late-30s/40s before starting to pump out kid

This came to mind a little while ago while I was playing with my sisters puppy.
Slightly stole from a previous Veeky Forums story time.
>Sci-fi setting
>Humans manage to defeat a galaxy consuming swarm of alien hivemind type things.
>made the our home system completely uninhabitable in the process.
>about 5000 humans left alive today. Currently drifting traders and diplomats. Held in high regard by every civilised race due to the aforementioned annilation of thw bigbadevilxenos
>When humans started exploring the galaxy the only discovered less advanced civilisations.
>most advanced was still experimenting with rockets when humans figured out cybornetics and cryo sleep
>They also discovered that most alien races reacted to external stimulus much slower then humans.
>Humans simply think faster then most species. To any other species its like watching a dog. They seem to be able to react quicker then they can.
>so can the most dangerous preditory aliens.
>Players in setting would be of alien races with slower brain 'tick' speeds
>Encountering a Human with military training amd equipment is one of the most onesided fights you can imagine.
>Theyve started to artificially extent their life due to dwindling birth rates with more and more cybonetics.

No idea what to do with this idea though.

Define "Ancient".
If you mean long-lived, well, that's not really humanity's good point.

If you mean "constant progression of civilization with a full knowledge of their history", well, here's my take.

Lets assume humanity has an immortal, benevolent, and empathetic source of history and knowledge. Preferably former humans, and preferably they culturally take a kind of granparental role to their civilization.

Having people who can connect the lives of the past to the lives of the present to improve the lives of the future will give humanity a genuine sense of timelessness.

fucking 343 man, cant write for shit.