How come the Vilani are still alive?

[Jame]

Whyvare the Vilani still alive?
Because *redacted* *redacted*, ad *fike source corrupted*, of course.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Whyvare the Vilani still alive?
Because *redacted* *redacted*, ad *fike source corrupted*, of course.

You left out [DATA EXPUNGED].

 

[Jame]

You left out [DATA EXPUNGED].

I wasn't allowed, that *unavailable * when our techs began *null set*. Sorry.

 

[RossWinn]

IMTU, what we call the Vilani are a distinct cultural area. Although remnants of the culture exist as social mores and norms, it is not a separate species and interbreed completely with the existing imperial population.

 

[aramis]

IMTU, what we call the Vilani are a distinct cultural area. Although remnants of the culture exist as social mores and norms, it is not a separate species and interbreed completely with the existing imperial population.

That should be mostly true for the OTU, with a few odd exceptions due to isolated groups which cannot (such as some of the Gene-mods in the former Solomoni Sphere). Certain ones are likely at the "no reproductive crossings" divergence due to 300k±20k years...
but canonically Solomani, Sword Worlder, Vilani, Zhodani, and Sylean are all fully interbredable but also each has certain genetic tags. Oh, and there are dental differences across the range. I don't recall exactly which was how many teeth.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

That should be mostly true for the OTU,

Yes, very much so. It is literally how it is stated in the Library Data:

Throughout much of the Imperium today, it is virtually impossible to distinguish Vilani from Solomani and in the middle classes, traditionally both geographically and socially mobile, the distinction has become meaningless as extensive intermarriage has blended the two. The tendency during the Rule of Man for wealthy Vilani to change their names to Solomani surnames has further rendered any wish to make fine genetic distinctions problematical. Only in the Solomani Rim, where many planetary populations have remained overwhelmingly Solomani in character throughout, and in the upper levels of society where individual geneologies [sic] are known with a fair degree of certainty, is there any possibility of making a meaningful distinction. Even between genetically pure Vilani and Solomani, the differences are slight.

Supplement 8 -- Library Data (A-M)​

I presume this was before the notion that unmixed Vilani live for umpteen decades more than the average Solomani, because I would not regard that ordinarily as a 'slight' difference.

Vilani & Vargr does add that there are pockets of genetically near-pure Vilani in the area around Vland itself, but even there it only accounts for about 25-30% of the most Vilani-centric worlds in that region. Out in the bulk of Imperial space, about 85% of the population is "mostly non-Vilani ancestry" in stock, while out in the Spinward Marches -- which never had a serious Vilani presence during the Shangarim Era -- barely 8% of the population can show any significant Vilani ancestry in their genetic makeup.

with a few odd exceptions due to isolated groups which cannot (such as some of the Gene-mods in the former Solomoni Sphere). Certain ones are likely at the "no reproductive crossings" divergence due to 300k±20k years...

Right off the top of my head, we've got the Luriani, those four-armed guys (the Sydites, I had to look it up), and of course the Florians. The gene-modified Jonkeereen and Nexxies in the Marches are probably non-crossable two, on top of the Solomani Sphere experiments.

but canonically Solomani, Sword Worlder, Vilani, Zhodani, and Sylean are all fully interbredable but also each has certain genetic tags. Oh, and there are dental differences across the range. I don't recall exactly which was how many teeth.

That would be the Zhodani, who (presumably) do not have any wisdom teeth, so they only get 28.

The Dynchia either don't have any teeth, or (depending on how you look at it) one each, top to bottom. And that is just one of the weird things about their makeup. I would have put them on the list of non-interbreedable humans (and originally I did), but there is nothing I can find in the literature that supports it, so I left them out. But a Dynchia-Solomani mix would be one weird, weird kid.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

That is a very good point - Vilani would have no problem eating other Vilani...

Gaaniidushala lu gaazigu kasu pushuda! ("They would curse themselves who eat of the stinking flesh!")

-- Shugiliigi Medukhare ("The Admonishments of the Shugilii")

Rotting indigenous carcasses would not necessarily smell bad on Vland, but ex-human carcasses certainly still would!

Is this a secret history of the Vilani thing - they practiced cannibalism?

This is actually brought up as an urban legend about the Ancient Vilani in FFE's Vilani Language Reference Document, and debunked.

The notion probably arrived because Vilani grammatically divides all objects (nouns) into Animate and Nonanimate categories, with Animate referring to anything that was/is compatible with human life (originally: edible or not). But to say that a Vilani would be willing to eat a human arm (Animate) because of this makes about as much sense as saying that a woman isn't safe anywhere near the average Spaniard around dinnertime because meat (la carne) is a feminine noun.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

And, for the record, the Vilani were not completely naive to elements of the Terrestrial biome(s) prior to contact with Terra. The Ancients had made a close mockup of the planet on Urunishu, complete with a wide variety of Terran wildlife to fill it up.

Supposedly, this included a race of humans, but I personally suspect that they were closely related hominids that the Solomani, once they showed up and had a good look at them, said, "Nah, man. Those are just apes."

Nevertheless, that would give the Vilani a little bit of experience in dealing with zoonotic spillover (and probably was the cause of some of the earlier, milder, pre-Solomani contact plagues that are briefly brought up in GURPS:IW). But that would not provide for anywhere near the amount of spillover that the Solomani had to deal on a routine, yearly level, and for the amount of immunological robustness (and enhanced group fertility) that that would ultimately provide for them.

 

[GypsyComet]

The GURPS material also establishes that the Vilani basically bred the Yileans out of genetically distinct existence, and came close with the Syleans. The Human variants that we know in the late 3rd Imperium are those that, for political, geographic, or genetic reasons, the Vilani were unable to genetically drown in the thousands of years they were in control.