Are the Aslan a major race?

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Given the extent of Aslan exploration, settlement, engagement and intermingling with other races and polities, and the longevity of the Hierate, would that not be sufficient for them to be able to be classified as a Major Race? The converse are the Droyne, but they still get the epithet don't they?

As far as any real effect being considered a Major Race may have on the social order, how the Aslan got Jump Drive isn’t much of an issue. The real problem is how many wigs the Geonee will flip when they find out what the Aslan did to join the club.

 

[mike wightman]

The terms major race and minor race are in-setting labels applied by in-setting racists to keep the so called less advanced races - human and non-human - in a second class mindset.

The Aslan are a major race because they have a bloody great empire, who cares how they got the jump drive.

The Geonee are a classic - they are browbeaten into being a minor race due to Vilani social superiority, and the fact the Vilani won.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

The Geonee are a classic - they are browbeaten into being a minor race due to Vilani social superiority, and the fact the Vilani won.

To further illustrate your point: The Geonee were outright ethnically cleansed by the Vilani; whole regions (subsectors, or maybe even sectors) worth of Geonee worlds were forcibly depopulated and replaced with Vilani 'consolidators'.

Prior to that, the Geonee spent the previous 4,000 years of their existence serving as the only serious counterweight to Vilani Hegemony. It is entirely likely that the Vilani invented the whole Jump Inventor = Major Race concept as a specific attack on Geonee legitimacy.

 

[GypsyComet]

To further illustrate your point: The Geonee were outright ethnically cleansed by the Vilani; whole regions (subsectors, or maybe even sectors) worth of Geonee worlds were forcibly depopulated and replaced with Vilani 'consolidators'.

Prior to that, the Geonee spent the previous 4,000 years of their existence serving as the only serious counterweight to Vilani Hegemony.

The Suerrat were also present for much of that, having bought jump drive from Vilani operating at the edge of their sortie range around -8100. While they were late to the jump drive, the Suerrat had already settled a considerable area by STL, so they became a regional power over night. Unlike the Geonee, the Suerrat apparently practiced commercial expansion, so they weren't spread far and wide. Controlling access to Ilelish and Verge is still considerable, though.

By comparison, the Geonee were exploring aggressively, "reclaiming" Ancients sites and artifacts, and spreading across many sectors thinly. As such, the Vilani attempts to contain and reduce them is what frames most of the Consolidation Wars. The Vilani kept going until every "unlicensed" jump drive was under their jurisdiction. That goal is what set the borders of the Ziru Sirka.

The irony of that effort is that the Vilani merchants who had been selling unlicensed jump drives to borderland worlds apparently went right back to doing so after the Wars concluded, permission or not.

It is entirely likely that the Vilani invented the whole Jump Inventor = Major Race concept as a specific attack on Geonee legitimacy.

I don't think there is any doubt except for that engendered by this all being ancient history. The Vilani certainly invented the distinction and used it against all of the other races it encountered to keep them in line, but the Geonee were likely the first and only case where the Vilani recognized that they had to deal with a jump drive not derived their their own. That difference probably slowed them down only long enough for lawyers to reword the definition...