All things Zhodani
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
Precisely.
'MAKING people happy' is a topic dealt with in Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind and a planet Ijon Tichy visits in The Star Diaries.
In the former, people are happy and secure but the human race is dying out due to no motivation (something similar happens in RUR before shall we say a bad programming decision kicks in). The solution is to reintroduce disease, random death, shorter then allotted 400 year lives, money, dead languages and culture, all the stuff that made people miserable before, but apparently worth living because it had meaning.
In the latter the 21st Voyage is more about being able to do anything to life including make it, alter it, and change it including their thought processes and politics thoroughly, really a romp through transhumanism remarkably in the early 70s. After duking it out with genetic and behavioral artistry and wars, they end up concluding there is no point to forcing people to X pattern because they didn't choose it and nothing was 'won' or 'proved'.
In the former, people are happy and secure but the human race is dying out due to no motivation (something similar happens in RUR before shall we say a bad programming decision kicks in). The solution is to reintroduce disease, random death, shorter then allotted 400 year lives, money, dead languages and culture, all the stuff that made people miserable before, but apparently worth living because it had meaning.
In the latter the 21st Voyage is more about being able to do anything to life including make it, alter it, and change it including their thought processes and politics thoroughly, really a romp through transhumanism remarkably in the early 70s. After duking it out with genetic and behavioral artistry and wars, they end up concluding there is no point to forcing people to X pattern because they didn't choose it and nothing was 'won' or 'proved'.
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization."
I know! the consulate is disney land! it's the small world after all ride, over and over again, all your life! the proles rebel, happy clown smiles on their faces as they hurl bullets and nukes in every direction, desperately seeking unhappiness ....
actually I came up with an adventure involving zhodani along these lines ....
It's a world of laughter, a world of tears
It's a world of hopes and a world of fears
There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world
There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world
Sorry I couldn't help it.
It's a world of hopes and a world of fears
There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world
There is just one moon and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world
Sorry I couldn't help it.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Virus only set fire to the corpse, as the period on the end of the sentence that began with the Rebellion. Its other, longer range purpose was to bring AI into the setting without the previously mandated TL increase, per more recent SF.
TNE was already using more "liberal" psionics rules compared to the dangerous and exhausting rules of CT and MT.
Indeed.
The voices in my head area screaming "Make it stop!" :smirk:
The voices in my head area screaming "Make it stop!" :smirk:
dmccoy1693
SOC-13
I just want to say thank you for explaining it like this. I get it now. Earlier this month, I ran an adventure of imperials with zho internal problems in the fore. It went really well. I'll turn it into a published adventure at some point.
The question about what happens when the Nobles disagree is really interesting - I'm tempted to be facetious and say it depends which edition's psionics rules you're using
More broadly, on whether the Zhodani or the Imperials are the bad guys - I don't think you can ever answer this question because it depends on your perspective. You've got two completely different societies with completely different moral frameworks. Each considers the other to be "evil" - or more accurately, each society considers the other is set up in such a way that the population's basic rights (to freedom / happiness) are trampled. You can assess it from a 3rd party perspective (like ours), but you'll never prove one or the other is "evil" in a way that would satisfy fully-paid-up members of both societies.
EDIT: which of course is what makes it compelling. It's anyway implausible to imagine a whole society set up on the basis of "skeletor evil" - we are bad because WE JUST LIKE BEING BAD. (Even ideologically committed Nazis had reasons for what they did and thought they were serving a greater good.) Even if you could describe a society like that, they become functionally equivalent to a natural disaster, like the aliens in Independence Day.
More broadly, on whether the Zhodani or the Imperials are the bad guys - I don't think you can ever answer this question because it depends on your perspective. You've got two completely different societies with completely different moral frameworks. Each considers the other to be "evil" - or more accurately, each society considers the other is set up in such a way that the population's basic rights (to freedom / happiness) are trampled. You can assess it from a 3rd party perspective (like ours), but you'll never prove one or the other is "evil" in a way that would satisfy fully-paid-up members of both societies.
EDIT: which of course is what makes it compelling. It's anyway implausible to imagine a whole society set up on the basis of "skeletor evil" - we are bad because WE JUST LIKE BEING BAD. (Even ideologically committed Nazis had reasons for what they did and thought they were serving a greater good.) Even if you could describe a society like that, they become functionally equivalent to a natural disaster, like the aliens in Independence Day.
dmccoy1693
SOC-13
Zhodani skin colors, what are they? I don't have much to work off of in the books. There's like 2 color images ever (and I'm including steve jackson book in that). The best description I can find is from SJGames Classic Alien Races 1 p 5
I can't find where, but I vaguely remember reading that they have yellow-gold skin, but I might be remembering darrians, and I'm not sure. I'm trying to get the art right for a future book that I am getting ready to place the art order for.
I can't find where, but I vaguely remember reading that they have yellow-gold skin, but I might be remembering darrians, and I'm not sure. I'm trying to get the art right for a future book that I am getting ready to place the art order for.
Zhodani illos on AM 4 (two of which are color) show swarthy mediterranean type coloring.
And, to quote from AM 4:
And, to quote from AM 4:
Though human in all respects, the Zhodani differ slightly in appearance from humans of the more commonly encountered Solomani or Vilani ancestry. They tend to be tall and lithe, averaging close to 2.0 meters in height, and massing roughly 90 kilograms. Complexions are predominantly swarthy and haircolor is usually black or brown. Blonde hair is uncommon; a mutation which occurred on Zhdant in the last 10,000 years has made prematurely grey hair twice as common as red hair.
Yes, that is the Darrians due to the protomelanin in their skin.
dmccoy1693
SOC-13
Thank you.
Swarthy, olive skinned, gotcha.
Swarthy, olive skinned, gotcha.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So how are Solomani described...
I find it ridiculous that the skin tone and general appearance of a 'race' can be summarised in such a stereotypical way.
Vilani, Zhodani and every transplanted human minor race have had 300,000 years of evolution - enough time for there to be a mix of skin tones and body shape just as we have here on Earth.
I find it ridiculous that the skin tone and general appearance of a 'race' can be summarised in such a stereotypical way.
Vilani, Zhodani and every transplanted human minor race have had 300,000 years of evolution - enough time for there to be a mix of skin tones and body shape just as we have here on Earth.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
The Vilani do have a fair amount of variation, IIRC.
The Zhodani, on the other hand, had a near-extinction level dieback within recorded history. That tends to simplify the genepool a bit.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Really - two thirds of their population was lost - this is not near extinction.
Note that solomani - and I mean here in the real world - suffered a much greater near-extinction level event but it is not in out 'recorded' history it is found in the evidence of our genetic history around 70000 years ago. More modern theories are dismissive of the toba super volcano climatic change being the cause of this, but the evidence still exists that the human race was bottlenecked to only a few thousand people.
Zhodan, Vilani, Solomani and every minor human race that was the result of ancient translocation will have as much ethnic diversity as we see here on earth today.
Note that solomani - and I mean here in the real world - suffered a much greater near-extinction level event but it is not in out 'recorded' history it is found in the evidence of our genetic history around 70000 years ago. More modern theories are dismissive of the toba super volcano climatic change being the cause of this, but the evidence still exists that the human race was bottlenecked to only a few thousand people.
Zhodan, Vilani, Solomani and every minor human race that was the result of ancient translocation will have as much ethnic diversity as we see here on earth today.
Just a generalization. I see your point.
Interfertility leads to heterogeneity (diversity) anyway.
Still, different sun, less diversity of environment, geneering by the ancients... Not all human races are likely to follow the same exact genotypical pattern as the Terrans.
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
