We have moved to new forum software and posting here is closed!

PLEASE BOOKMARK THE NEW FORUMS

Posted By: Nicholas Shanks Jun 01, 2004 - 05:22 am

In the nearly eight hundred years since intrepid settlers colonised Rio, the planet you now live on, you have had almost no interbreeding with humans from the Sol system - the prohibitive 30-year trip to Epseri being out of question for all but the richest or most dedicated. As a member of the forty-sixth generation you are well aware of the differences the 1.4G high insolation environment and low bio-diversity in your environ and diet (all foodstuffs brought along with the original expedition) have had on your race. At 5'4" you are quite tall for a male, with thick brown skin and almost no body hair consider yourself quite attractive.

But you know you are different.

Communications and transmissions from people on Earth and Mars show that over there, widespread interbreeding among races has normalised most people to a fair tanned complexion, and at six foot tall the average man from earth is quite the giant. The slender bodies of earthly women just don't attract you much.

Becoming sexually receptive at thirteen, the women of your culture are encouraged to foster large families through several partners - a holdover of earlier times when the population here was measured in just the tens or hundreds. With an average gap between generations of approximately 19 years, and a high abortion rate for medically 'anomalous' youngsters, there is a trend towards more stout, strong and robust children.

This is being recognised by the scientific community and watched with interest by those on Earth.

You somewhat feel part of an experiment, but you enjoy your life, try to provide the best you can for your wives and children, and ponder what the future may hold for your descendants.

Posted By: Queen Ehlana Jun 01, 2004 - 02:21 pm

Excuse me, but I am not a male. Otherwise, it sounds about right.

Posted By: grisette Sep 14, 2004 - 10:17 am

A conservative future, still relying largely on natural evolution. I tend to feel that whatever Terrans eventually settle an extrasolar world may not resemble hominids or even be organically based.

Then again, they might be benevolent gods who have some degree of loyalty to their intellectual-ancestors, and bring along information of the latter's genetic code so as to reconstruct them on a "safely confined and shielded from bumbling harm" terraformed neighboring body.

Also, "conservative" was meant as a thumbs-up in that your traditional non-posthuman future makes for a scenario that readers could better relate to, than the totally bizarre and possibly incomprehensible one that may be reigning then. Our "descendents" might even bypass outer-space and go an "inner-space" route of receding substrates of virtual realities (though the diversity that will surely exist even after a technological singularity ought to guarantee that some kind of nanotech based "critter" will yet inhabit and populate space).