"Among the Imperishable Ones" is now complete!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Thanks to a donation from fuzzyred, you can now read the rest of "Among the Imperishable Ones."  Aidan meets an old friend and exchanges the treasures in his cache.  

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> So is Aidan an immortal, then? <<

Yes.

>> And him being from ancient Egypt that far back, <<

He's from a lot farther back than that, but probably somewhere in Africa, and from a tribe with considerable diversity.

>> I assume he's black? <<

Originally he had skin of fairly dark brown, almost black. Getting caught by the Sterbenfeld device left him with awful burns and much paler, pinkish skin. That is gradually drifting toward its earlier color, so presently he's kind of a light brown or toasty color. He has nappy hair but it's red rather than brown or black. Ironically people tend to think of him as mixed-race, but he actually gets his mix of features from Africa's greater-than-diaspora genetic diversity.

See “The Candle Burns Not For Us” and "Their Anguish Personal."

Re: Well ...

[see_also_friend]

Hunh, I'd thought he was Proto-Indo-European.

I wonder if he is old enough to remember other human species.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Hunh, I'd thought he was Proto-Indo-European.<<

He speaks some version of it.

>> I wonder if he is old enough to remember other human species.<<

Possibly?

Re: Well ...

[see_also_friend]

Well, if he was in Ancient Egypt during the time of the pyramids, then Homo Florensis was still around during his lifetime. Whether or not he was in the same geographic area during that time is another question...

That also doesn't preclude him meeting remnant species unknown to modern science.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Also patterns of extinction and survival may vary from one world to another.

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[see_also_friend]

Fair enough.

Now, if he /did/ know other human species, it would be interesting if he could meet that lady scientist from Africa who was working on human de-extinction.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I agree, that would be fascinating.

Let's see, the last records of Homo neanderthalensis date to around 40,000 years ago -- not counting the remnants in Homo sapiens where they merged. It's entirely possible that they lasted longer, just not showing up separately as such in the archaeological records.

Homo floresiensis dates to around 50,000 years ago in local-Earth but may well have lasted longer in Terramagne (and almost certainly in Peculiar-Earth, though I'm still sorting through non-hominid species there).

Denisovans lasted to around 25,000 years ago and left strong imprints in some populations, such as Tibetans.

And there's at least one other that we don't even know who they were, other than ghost DNA they left with us. ("What was your name again?")

Re: Well ...

[see_also_friend]

Maybe I was remembering pygmy mammoths living during the time of the Egyptian pyramids (but not in Egypt!)

For Peculiar-Earth, I'd suggest looking specifically at New World hominid species, which gives us three possibilities:

1) Might Denisovians have come over along the landbridge, either as a distinct species, or as hybrids among the proto-Indigenous folk? Look along the Roky and Andes mountain chains; Denisovians seem to favor altitude, though I can't tell if it is a species trait or if modern humans outcompeted them in the lowlands. (Do highlander/Tibetian folk ever suffer health problems in the lowlands and/or have some sort of less efficient body plan, metabolism, etc? If so, specialization seems likely, if not, outcompeting seems more likely.)

2) Might a totally different species have arrived here, likely /before/ the proto-Indigenous folks? For this one, check American legends for fey folk and teachers in the time of legends who don't seem quite human.

3) Might the legends of Bigfoot talk about a different sort of human or great ape species?

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> 1) Might Denisovians have come over along the landbridge, either as a distinct species, or as hybrids among the proto-Indigenous folk? Look along the Roky and Andes mountain chains; <<

That makes sense.

>> 2) Might a totally different species have arrived here, likely /before/ the proto-Indigenous folks? For this one, check American legends for fey folk and teachers in the time of legends who don't seem quite human. <<

Possible.

>> 3) Might the legends of Bigfoot talk about a different sort of human or great ape species? <<

That's the one I had thought about previously, because such legends appear in many parts of the world.

Re: Well ...

[see_also_friend]

Actually, for geographical co-ordinates, look at small islands too. There may be remnants of earlier populations that were displaced by later waves of migration.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Like Homo floresiensis or the pygmy mammoth.

Re: Well ...

[see_also_friend]

And lemurs, kangaroos, monotremes, etc.

Or, heck, look at language family distribution in both the British Isles and Japan. The most 'different' languages cluster at the furthest point from where the mainlanders immigrate from, and these isolated languages tend to be very different from or outright extinct on the mainland. I would expect that pattern holds true for a lot of island nations around the world. (Admittedly, I do know more about the British Isles than Japan...)

Anyway, back to Peculiar-verse:

Even in our world, a lot of the people who were the 'first' to settle a given area will have folklore about earlier settlers (think like the Fey in Europe). These earlier inhabitants are often somehow different in appearance, behavior and technology - and are often quite difficult for our narrators to describe, and in many cases /find/. These Fey-settled may be friendly, neutral, or dangerous, but they are always portrayed as other, even when intermarriage and children are involved. (Remember the film THe Secret of Roan Inish? The seal-children were always quiet, shy and sea-affiliated even after hundreds of years.)

So in Peculiar-verse, a remnant human species would make a lot of sense in those cases. Most of the good places would be inhabited by whoever the current dominant species is, with the precursors limited to places that are inhospitable (desert), uninhabitable by the dominants (mountaintops, also see water re: marsupials), or just plain hard to find/get to (islands, remote swamps).

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[fayanora]

Neato burrito! Even more interesting than I'd hoped! Red haired black people don't get much recognition or representation, and most people don't even know they exist, even though Malcolm X was a redhead. I've got at least one in my Ravenstone series, her name is Zabi Rahim.

I think one of the teachers might have been a black redhead as well, but I don't recall offhand and I'm not at my laptop to check my notes at the moment. If I'm right about that teacher being a black redhead, then her twin would also be one.

Re: Well ...

[fayanora]

Oh also there are a few talking cats in my Ravenstone series, two of those are actually Cait Sidhe, and the third is a telepathic species of magical cats called a shadow-cat.

Well actually, one of the talking cat characters is half Cait Sidhe and half shadow-cat.