-
If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
-
Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
Direction of SARP's Elves
- Thread starter Ametheliana
- Start date
-
- Tags
- elf
BloodyScarlet
Well-Known Member
I had a few ideas after looking over the page, but this is a better call, just to see if it is actually wanted.
My main things I was planning if I was going to do this was revamp the look (away from the elven people in space look), have them stand out as something different in both appearance and lore, give them some of their own tech using the resources from their planet.
My main things I was planning if I was going to do this was revamp the look (away from the elven people in space look), have them stand out as something different in both appearance and lore, give them some of their own tech using the resources from their planet.
BloodyScarlet
Well-Known Member
Oh yea, maybe actually detail what magic they have, nothing over the top but something interesting.
I mean, I remember Elves basically being "gone" when I was first here in 2005, other than few besides Hanako herself. I kind of like that they're sort of this background element that's a reminder of "things used to be this way."
And there's always the Jack Vance (and basically everyone since) route of "Magic is just super advanced Nano/pico/femto/atto tech"
And there's always the Jack Vance (and basically everyone since) route of "Magic is just super advanced Nano/pico/femto/atto tech"
I mean it's been part of the setting so well worth keeping. I do hope the magic portion can be flushed out since it's not really defined.
Finally figuring out what "Magic" is and how it works (Non-Spoiler: it would almost certainly be heretofore opaque Black Claw Star Empire Tech) could be an interesting plot that leads to some kind of major breakthrough. Like "well we have these anti-magic fields, so we can counter it with our technology, so it must be made of technology, but we didn't have the science to understand it at the time, only fight it" well now we do
Charmaylarg Dufrain
🎖️ Game Master
In regards to magic, its gone now but if i recall correctly (and im always wrong it seems), it had to do with a satalite thing above the planet that gave the elves and others near mystical and magical powers and a bunch of other stuff i cant recall or go into good detail about but yamatai removed it and put up a new one that gave everyone stuff like free internet and in return killed off the magic forever with the exception of a magical lake the elves can use to make a handful of super special potions every year that sell for a kings randsom and somehow elves use latent magic to make that one yamatai super metal nobody is allowed to have but is also used in most SA ships so they are (my interpretation) slaved to an assembly line to do it cause i doubt there are enough elves making it of their own free will and free time for like the 77,000 ships yamatai has~
But that's how i remember and picture that.
In regards to saving the elves tho? TL;DR Asteria ruined the fucking elves and took all their lore on the way out in a great retconning. I made an attempt and plea to save them but was constantly put down and outright berated and even accused of slander because of it and the research and things i was told that i that i quoted from them. I liked the elves (The very fist char i made on this site like a decade ago was an elf.) and didnt want to see any lore, no matter how old or under utilized be lost.
That whining and griping out of the way the direction i would propose they go would be to outline their cultural advance since the plague due to their low-key isolationist tendencies from it and re-expanding on their lost culture like their life vocations, training, language, the one fleet a lot of them joined tho i cant remember which one it was, And maybe some new and more current lore.
But that's how i remember and picture that.
In regards to saving the elves tho? TL;DR Asteria ruined the fucking elves and took all their lore on the way out in a great retconning. I made an attempt and plea to save them but was constantly put down and outright berated and even accused of slander because of it and the research and things i was told that i that i quoted from them. I liked the elves (The very fist char i made on this site like a decade ago was an elf.) and didnt want to see any lore, no matter how old or under utilized be lost.
That whining and griping out of the way the direction i would propose they go would be to outline their cultural advance since the plague due to their low-key isolationist tendencies from it and re-expanding on their lost culture like their life vocations, training, language, the one fleet a lot of them joined tho i cant remember which one it was, And maybe some new and more current lore.
BloodyScarlet
Well-Known Member
@Charmaylarg Dufrain hmm interesting thing about the magic, could do some backstory to that, maybe with them trying to get it back. The potions would also be a good avenue to write up some things.
With what happened, it is a total shame that it happened, but hopefully we can move on with them.
I want to bring them back as a big thing, with the old lore then add to it since then, maybe the new war has brought them back out of isolation because they know they are needed.
With what happened, it is a total shame that it happened, but hopefully we can move on with them.
I want to bring them back as a big thing, with the old lore then add to it since then, maybe the new war has brought them back out of isolation because they know they are needed.
Fred
Retired Staff
When I'd gone on a similar venture a few years ago, @Wes explained that the expression of elven magic he'd prefer, out of anything else, would be related to potion-making. He considered the days of PANTHEON-magic over.
Another detail that stymied my efforts was related to the low population elvenkind had in the Empire. They have less people than most in-setting factions, not to mention that it's hard for them to actually stand out in Yamatai as being elves considering how much the nekovalkyrja design aethestics hit a lot of elfin notes. They'd essentially be lost in a crowd.
Unlike Nekovalkyrja, an elf character in SARP is much longer lived (though they apparently don't have the super long lifespan fantasy often gifts them with) than nekovalkyrja, with the adult elves having lives longer than the average neko, and thus are culturally more mature (thanks to actually having a childhood and time to learn and experience things), and likely be better able to mature in certain fields: singing, playing instruments, painting, sculpting, gardening, woodworking, writing (from philosophy, poetry to research), engineering (one of the elven characters I created - Firiel Morningmist - is a starship design engineer), statecraft (Ametheliana once had an elf politician).
They have a few soldiers in the fourth fleet, which is unusual... but that reveals that it's not impossible for an elf to be a soldier. An elf would be as limited as a human is in space duty, so they'd face similar challenges as other non-neko species at starship operations unless they were willing to become Minkans. The spots they'd excel better would be rear-line roles where they wouldn't obviously underperform in relation to nekos; and better chances for their qualities to shine.
* * *
There are unconfirmed allusions that planet Yamatai, once known as Geshrintall, and before known as... I don't remember - did it have another name? - is actually an artificial construct where another entity terraformed the planet and seeded on it species drawn from human mythos. That'd be why SARP specifically has races called elves, angels and trolls. "Magic" was powered by the lingering terraforming nanites in something that eventually became (or inspired) the PANTHON nodal system. (this reminded me of the magic system of anime like Scrapped Princess, or the more recent Sword Art Online: Alicization )
Either something had interest in creating a human themepark, or the world was prepared for an human offshoot civilization to ventually stumble and interact with it. for what designs? Unknown (and that's assuming that theory even flies).
Historically, the Angels were the only one to actually break and become independent of that system to eventually graduate into its own species: the Elysians. This hints it's not impossible for the Trolls and Elves to attain the same status... though interest was clearly cultivated throughout several years before the Elysians gained their standing, and despite that their cohesion as a faction has historically been shaky at best. This brings about the question of if it is desirable for elves and trolls to gain more standing on the worry of it being something that can be sustained overtime.
Another concern is that - with StarArmy being a registered property - it might be damaging to actually do so. Not that I'm clear in the specifics, but the existance of elves and trolls line up a lot with MMOs Wes liked to play when he was younger (Dark Age of Camelot, where he played a Troll, and seemed to give a hard time in PvP to nubile elven maidens
) ... seeing them active in SARP might qualify as an embarrasing holdover of narrative elements hatched when he was younger, which could seem less desirable to promote today seeing the setting stands on the much stronger legs of its original content.
But this is conjecture. Only Wes can really know. But, it seemed useful to provide this as food for thought.
Another detail that stymied my efforts was related to the low population elvenkind had in the Empire. They have less people than most in-setting factions, not to mention that it's hard for them to actually stand out in Yamatai as being elves considering how much the nekovalkyrja design aethestics hit a lot of elfin notes. They'd essentially be lost in a crowd.
Unlike Nekovalkyrja, an elf character in SARP is much longer lived (though they apparently don't have the super long lifespan fantasy often gifts them with) than nekovalkyrja, with the adult elves having lives longer than the average neko, and thus are culturally more mature (thanks to actually having a childhood and time to learn and experience things), and likely be better able to mature in certain fields: singing, playing instruments, painting, sculpting, gardening, woodworking, writing (from philosophy, poetry to research), engineering (one of the elven characters I created - Firiel Morningmist - is a starship design engineer), statecraft (Ametheliana once had an elf politician).
They have a few soldiers in the fourth fleet, which is unusual... but that reveals that it's not impossible for an elf to be a soldier. An elf would be as limited as a human is in space duty, so they'd face similar challenges as other non-neko species at starship operations unless they were willing to become Minkans. The spots they'd excel better would be rear-line roles where they wouldn't obviously underperform in relation to nekos; and better chances for their qualities to shine.
* * *
There are unconfirmed allusions that planet Yamatai, once known as Geshrintall, and before known as... I don't remember - did it have another name? - is actually an artificial construct where another entity terraformed the planet and seeded on it species drawn from human mythos. That'd be why SARP specifically has races called elves, angels and trolls. "Magic" was powered by the lingering terraforming nanites in something that eventually became (or inspired) the PANTHON nodal system. (this reminded me of the magic system of anime like Scrapped Princess, or the more recent Sword Art Online: Alicization )
Either something had interest in creating a human themepark, or the world was prepared for an human offshoot civilization to ventually stumble and interact with it. for what designs? Unknown (and that's assuming that theory even flies).
Historically, the Angels were the only one to actually break and become independent of that system to eventually graduate into its own species: the Elysians. This hints it's not impossible for the Trolls and Elves to attain the same status... though interest was clearly cultivated throughout several years before the Elysians gained their standing, and despite that their cohesion as a faction has historically been shaky at best. This brings about the question of if it is desirable for elves and trolls to gain more standing on the worry of it being something that can be sustained overtime.
Another concern is that - with StarArmy being a registered property - it might be damaging to actually do so. Not that I'm clear in the specifics, but the existance of elves and trolls line up a lot with MMOs Wes liked to play when he was younger (Dark Age of Camelot, where he played a Troll, and seemed to give a hard time in PvP to nubile elven maidens
) ... seeing them active in SARP might qualify as an embarrasing holdover of narrative elements hatched when he was younger, which could seem less desirable to promote today seeing the setting stands on the much stronger legs of its original content.But this is conjecture. Only Wes can really know. But, it seemed useful to provide this as food for thought.
Last edited:
Wow is that ever a screen full, Fred. Great insight from a long time member! Personally, I've never had much interaction with Elves in my time on Star Army, but I think that even if they don't see use again, it'd be great for them to get some kind of Wes-approved lore makeover.
I don't think something broken is ever lost, Char, as far as them being "ruined" but the direction you proposed is close to what I was thinking up. Fred mentioned I used to have an Elven diplomat and I still do. In her senate application, these were my goals for what I thought would be best:
"What plans do you have to help this star system and the YSE? Bolster niche exports, aid Yamatai by finding new areas of research, rekindle cultural identity"
I don't think magic is going to be a tree to bark up. Potion making could be a vestigial of what used to be that stuck around, because I have seen Wes mention the want to have them be able to make potions, too. But to the a lot of people that did say magic, magic doesn't work or exist in the same ways that it once did for Elves. Anything they canonically do with magic now is a shadow of what they once did, easily within most of their lifetimes. What Fred said too, in the sense that whatever they do in the future should be a helpful addition to the space opera narrative we have now.
A new culture of Elves isn't really something I think would work. Bloodyscarlet mentioned plans in discord of having a new type of Elf that outclasses the current elves and I think that muddies the situation. The elves we have are special and what they have had happen to them can be built on rather easily without adding something new to overshadow them. Plus saying a whole bunch of NPCs are on the lower side of a caste system is a slap to the players of those NPCs. That wasn't mentioned in this thread, but hearing about it made me start this thread to be sure we go a direction that is beneficial not detrimental.
"What plans do you have to help this star system and the YSE? Bolster niche exports, aid Yamatai by finding new areas of research, rekindle cultural identity"
I don't think magic is going to be a tree to bark up. Potion making could be a vestigial of what used to be that stuck around, because I have seen Wes mention the want to have them be able to make potions, too. But to the a lot of people that did say magic, magic doesn't work or exist in the same ways that it once did for Elves. Anything they canonically do with magic now is a shadow of what they once did, easily within most of their lifetimes. What Fred said too, in the sense that whatever they do in the future should be a helpful addition to the space opera narrative we have now.
A new culture of Elves isn't really something I think would work. Bloodyscarlet mentioned plans in discord of having a new type of Elf that outclasses the current elves and I think that muddies the situation. The elves we have are special and what they have had happen to them can be built on rather easily without adding something new to overshadow them. Plus saying a whole bunch of NPCs are on the lower side of a caste system is a slap to the players of those NPCs. That wasn't mentioned in this thread, but hearing about it made me start this thread to be sure we go a direction that is beneficial not detrimental.
BloodyScarlet
Well-Known Member
@Ametheliana yes I thought of doing that but then after we talked about it, it was changed from a class thing to an age thing, that since the lore doesn't talk about how long they live anymore, I wanted to work with people to make this race more than just a basic page of a species.
Charmaylarg Dufrain
🎖️ Game Master
What fred said. Except then after all that the neps shows up and enslaved took over the lives of the elves for their own protection~
Frankly I don't see much of an issue with neko having elf ears and elves being around as if it takes away from the elves. The difference is in the culture like fred pointed out. An elf would have a much longer life and pool of experience and culture to draw upon and a fluid grace even the neko lacked in most aspects from decades or even centuries of experience in their craft, trade, and lives as their deep seeded and diverse culture of arts, musics, literature, etc. put them as beacons of valued professional in their trade where an elf harpist could perform notes that resonated to the very core in one way and pluck a bowstring that could fire an arrow farther than the nepleslian settlers that sought to conquer them could even shoot.
A neko is powerful in their own right due to their super powers (for lack of a better term) but an elf is in a whole different league in different ways on the other side of the spectrum where they can take their rather mundane bodies and do extra-ordinary feats with them due to decades of mastery and I see no way it would just be like making a minkin or neko with elf ears and just be special snowflake or bland or anything not that im advocating for them to be made PCs again.
I started and stopped this response like 10 times cause im on my phone and im loosing my internet fast but its hard to re-read so sorry if none of this makes less sense its hard to keep my train of thought while also hiking!
Frankly I don't see much of an issue with neko having elf ears and elves being around as if it takes away from the elves. The difference is in the culture like fred pointed out. An elf would have a much longer life and pool of experience and culture to draw upon and a fluid grace even the neko lacked in most aspects from decades or even centuries of experience in their craft, trade, and lives as their deep seeded and diverse culture of arts, musics, literature, etc. put them as beacons of valued professional in their trade where an elf harpist could perform notes that resonated to the very core in one way and pluck a bowstring that could fire an arrow farther than the nepleslian settlers that sought to conquer them could even shoot.
A neko is powerful in their own right due to their super powers (for lack of a better term) but an elf is in a whole different league in different ways on the other side of the spectrum where they can take their rather mundane bodies and do extra-ordinary feats with them due to decades of mastery and I see no way it would just be like making a minkin or neko with elf ears and just be special snowflake or bland or anything not that im advocating for them to be made PCs again.
I started and stopped this response like 10 times cause im on my phone and im loosing my internet fast but its hard to re-read so sorry if none of this makes less sense its hard to keep my train of thought while also hiking!
Char I get you and agree with masters of craft but there is an issue to me in attaining that. This is a military sci fi setting. For example, my character I mentioned earlier used to be a chocolatier. That was her thing where she had, to use your words, "...centuries of experience in their craft, trade..." but wars changed her views on what she should be doing day to day and she shifted into a political career. Even Fred's mentioned Elf is a starship design engineer and I wonder if she was in the same position where her craft shifted with the times.
That masterful life of artisanal creating that I think a lot of people ascribe to Elves, especially in settings like ours without magic, is hyper cool... but in a setting focused on wars, their masterful creation side sometimes needs to be shelves to work into play. The issue is that master crafters don't have a good role in RP, yet.
It actually makes me think that Fred's character had the right idea and to modernize the trades Elves have. There are likely tons of starship components or weaponry in general that elves could focus their attention on perfecting in the coming years. A good example to me of Elf-made weaponry is WoW's glaive throwers and are just inspiration for me right now in the form of "you can make a beast of a machine cool in elf society but it will not look like everything else, too" Is it just that well crafted, time spent on them feel? It makes me wonder what sci fi weaponry we utilize in our setting could have that craftsman feel?
That masterful life of artisanal creating that I think a lot of people ascribe to Elves, especially in settings like ours without magic, is hyper cool... but in a setting focused on wars, their masterful creation side sometimes needs to be shelves to work into play. The issue is that master crafters don't have a good role in RP, yet.
It actually makes me think that Fred's character had the right idea and to modernize the trades Elves have. There are likely tons of starship components or weaponry in general that elves could focus their attention on perfecting in the coming years. A good example to me of Elf-made weaponry is WoW's glaive throwers and are just inspiration for me right now in the form of "you can make a beast of a machine cool in elf society but it will not look like everything else, too" Is it just that well crafted, time spent on them feel? It makes me wonder what sci fi weaponry we utilize in our setting could have that craftsman feel?
Soban
Convention Veteran
One of the things that I think the Elves can bring isn't their skills or magic or whatnot but perspective. The fact is that almost the entire empire is less than 40 years old. People like Admiral Fletcher are rare, and they are still youngsters compared to Elves. Unless the empire as a whole collapses, then everyone in it is immortal, and very young immortals at that. With the singular exception of the elves who do have very long lives. They have at this point in time more life experience on average than anyone else. They have the long term perspective that the empire needs but as a whole doesn't have.
Charmaylarg Dufrain
🎖️ Game Master
Soban said that in a way I couldn't quite bring to words with my current mobile ability to posts.
Its the Experience earned and perspective from a long life. Even a 100 year old chocolatier can have a wise stance and wisdom to give just from having lived for so long through so much. And even then, despite the elves vocation they excelled in its not the one and only thing they can do and have experienced.
I meant it more as Neko have pre-programed experience and maturity but elves existed before even Uesu and have lived through more and can give more in different ways than just being a mass cloned soldier thrown into a war, or as someone who survived the plague but without needing to be a hardened and old veteran and can call on experience and times before the star empire. Its just feels a nice difference from the arguably young races of a young star empire but without the simple nature of the troll or obscurity of the lorr or the.... Elysians.
Even young elves are most times older than many minkin or geshrin and can be written differently and with more scope for their pre-rp and experiences than the short term of a new neko or the slightly longer one of a minkin, etc. Its also a nice side-RP option to have a character who can see things and do things differently and have some non-military skills (not to say neko and others cant or don't.).
Still not good at wording things out at mobile!
Its the Experience earned and perspective from a long life. Even a 100 year old chocolatier can have a wise stance and wisdom to give just from having lived for so long through so much. And even then, despite the elves vocation they excelled in its not the one and only thing they can do and have experienced.
I meant it more as Neko have pre-programed experience and maturity but elves existed before even Uesu and have lived through more and can give more in different ways than just being a mass cloned soldier thrown into a war, or as someone who survived the plague but without needing to be a hardened and old veteran and can call on experience and times before the star empire. Its just feels a nice difference from the arguably young races of a young star empire but without the simple nature of the troll or obscurity of the lorr or the.... Elysians.
Even young elves are most times older than many minkin or geshrin and can be written differently and with more scope for their pre-rp and experiences than the short term of a new neko or the slightly longer one of a minkin, etc. Its also a nice side-RP option to have a character who can see things and do things differently and have some non-military skills (not to say neko and others cant or don't.).
Still not good at wording things out at mobile!
Fred
Retired Staff
I remember Wes going counter to the longer-lived perception of elves as presented in modern fantasy such as Lord of the Rings, or D&D (the latter which I believe prevalent in most people's mind).
For instance, I say the elf has the advantage of time on the neko in that a playable elf has had a childhood... but I don't think the time to reach adulthood is any greater than a normal humans. Nor do I feel they were as infertile as the usual trope regarding elves indicate they are. Otherwise their prior enslavement and exposure to the 'Elysian plague' would have torn them down to an unsustainable level on grounds of their gene pool permitting reproductive perpetuity.
On one hand, I figure they'd have had to be fertile enough to compensate for lost lives (Hanako being taken in by Yui practically saved her life, a lot of other elves were far less fortunate, hinting to me that the rate of mortallity was high).
On the flipside, if elves are indeed not that fertile and not bio-diverse enough to 'recoup' their population, this could also have interesting impacts. Firstly, every elven lives would be precious and it would be contentious for an elf to go to war. Secondly, it would reinforce the reality that the elven territories are a preserve of natives for more reasons than just low numbers. Also, there could be a clash tradition-wise before that reality and the interest of some to go to greater lengths to preserve the species; from medical procedures forcing insemination and pregnancy, to genetic re-engineering. They could also struggle (like they kind of do now) to actually have relevance in modern Yamataian society because they're members of preserve of natives whom are frail, less educated (hard to beat downloaded machine learning as a convenience), and less capable than even the ordinary Minkan - especially in contrast to the warlike culture Yamatai has.
The civilian-side of Yamatai, up to the Senate, could be solicitous to the elves for the sheer sake of feeling good about themselves. However, most of the higher placed Star Army characters often allude to the perception that they find the civilian-side of the Empire's population coddled and disconnected from what actually needs to be done to assure their safety (a safety that, in turn, allows the civilians room to complain in the first place). Elves are stock within the civilian-facet of Yamatai that's the least able to contribute to war, and that may carry an unspoken kind of stigma.
Of course, an elf could learn to fight as an art. Fighting arts could have been practiced and handed down through generations. A master, on an academic level, could be possible. But is there actual value in the Star Army for the rare individual that is so super skilled he might be invaluable, but still could be killed like anyone else by the simple vaguaries of war? Whereas, neko soldiers are trained just enough to get shit done. Veteran soldiers, even in the hands of PCs, are generally those that survived mistakes or avoided making mistakes while working in a team environment, rather than be a combat virtuoso. Of course, you can envision such an elven warrior-artist being a superb instructor... except that nekos might just go "Bitch, either I Sora Mai your face in, ventilate you with a NSP, or let a few dozen of my Mindy's drones take care of you."
A good Yamataian soldier is less her skills (which are acquired for free anyways), and more her decision-making ability. The latter is more something that ties to the roleplay decisions we do, than something we can tag as "oh, an elf would have more experience in this case". So, saying elves have that advantage is nice, but insustancial fluff.
On the other end of the spectrum is how long their lifespan is. Lifespan is a tricky issue, because there's so little of it that's actually relevant to the SARP experience, and there's actually little we can do to properly display a character with a lifespan greater than our own. So, giving an elf a greater lifespan is fluff, rather than a true actual asset were the SARP roleplaying experience is concerned. The most it will do is determine how far back a starting character will remember things... and many people here are actually iffy on the level of what could have happened before YE 27 because that's around when this setting really got to put meat on its bones. And the advantage of living further into the future are tenuous without a timeskip of somekind, and even more so if you consider that a neko could just swap bodies and essentially be immortal as long as the technology to mind transfer is present.
That concern aside, we know that the Angels (Elysians) were essentially the stewards of the 'fantasy themepark', and that they could live multiple centuries. I believe the answer I got to the question was "way back when, around 300+ years". Considering the angels were la-crème-de-la-crème where species on that world were concerned, we know that the elves lived for less than 300 years. Based on that metric, I'd perceive the elven lifespan being something like around 200 to 250 years.
Bear in mind that Mind Transfering is derived from Soul Transfer, which was originally as Elysian (Angel) asset. the longevity of the Elysians could just as much be ascribed to them being able to create new bodies and swapping through them, earning effective immortality, whereas the 'elven savages on the ground' lacked such an advantage. Therefore, when we speak of advantages derived from long lifespans, the Elysians should stand as a pre-existing example of an upper-limit in that respect.
For instance, I say the elf has the advantage of time on the neko in that a playable elf has had a childhood... but I don't think the time to reach adulthood is any greater than a normal humans. Nor do I feel they were as infertile as the usual trope regarding elves indicate they are. Otherwise their prior enslavement and exposure to the 'Elysian plague' would have torn them down to an unsustainable level on grounds of their gene pool permitting reproductive perpetuity.
On one hand, I figure they'd have had to be fertile enough to compensate for lost lives (Hanako being taken in by Yui practically saved her life, a lot of other elves were far less fortunate, hinting to me that the rate of mortallity was high).
On the flipside, if elves are indeed not that fertile and not bio-diverse enough to 'recoup' their population, this could also have interesting impacts. Firstly, every elven lives would be precious and it would be contentious for an elf to go to war. Secondly, it would reinforce the reality that the elven territories are a preserve of natives for more reasons than just low numbers. Also, there could be a clash tradition-wise before that reality and the interest of some to go to greater lengths to preserve the species; from medical procedures forcing insemination and pregnancy, to genetic re-engineering. They could also struggle (like they kind of do now) to actually have relevance in modern Yamataian society because they're members of preserve of natives whom are frail, less educated (hard to beat downloaded machine learning as a convenience), and less capable than even the ordinary Minkan - especially in contrast to the warlike culture Yamatai has.
The civilian-side of Yamatai, up to the Senate, could be solicitous to the elves for the sheer sake of feeling good about themselves. However, most of the higher placed Star Army characters often allude to the perception that they find the civilian-side of the Empire's population coddled and disconnected from what actually needs to be done to assure their safety (a safety that, in turn, allows the civilians room to complain in the first place). Elves are stock within the civilian-facet of Yamatai that's the least able to contribute to war, and that may carry an unspoken kind of stigma.
Of course, an elf could learn to fight as an art. Fighting arts could have been practiced and handed down through generations. A master, on an academic level, could be possible. But is there actual value in the Star Army for the rare individual that is so super skilled he might be invaluable, but still could be killed like anyone else by the simple vaguaries of war? Whereas, neko soldiers are trained just enough to get shit done. Veteran soldiers, even in the hands of PCs, are generally those that survived mistakes or avoided making mistakes while working in a team environment, rather than be a combat virtuoso. Of course, you can envision such an elven warrior-artist being a superb instructor... except that nekos might just go "Bitch, either I Sora Mai your face in, ventilate you with a NSP, or let a few dozen of my Mindy's drones take care of you."
A good Yamataian soldier is less her skills (which are acquired for free anyways), and more her decision-making ability. The latter is more something that ties to the roleplay decisions we do, than something we can tag as "oh, an elf would have more experience in this case". So, saying elves have that advantage is nice, but insustancial fluff.
On the other end of the spectrum is how long their lifespan is. Lifespan is a tricky issue, because there's so little of it that's actually relevant to the SARP experience, and there's actually little we can do to properly display a character with a lifespan greater than our own. So, giving an elf a greater lifespan is fluff, rather than a true actual asset were the SARP roleplaying experience is concerned. The most it will do is determine how far back a starting character will remember things... and many people here are actually iffy on the level of what could have happened before YE 27 because that's around when this setting really got to put meat on its bones. And the advantage of living further into the future are tenuous without a timeskip of somekind, and even more so if you consider that a neko could just swap bodies and essentially be immortal as long as the technology to mind transfer is present.
That concern aside, we know that the Angels (Elysians) were essentially the stewards of the 'fantasy themepark', and that they could live multiple centuries. I believe the answer I got to the question was "way back when, around 300+ years". Considering the angels were la-crème-de-la-crème where species on that world were concerned, we know that the elves lived for less than 300 years. Based on that metric, I'd perceive the elven lifespan being something like around 200 to 250 years.
Bear in mind that Mind Transfering is derived from Soul Transfer, which was originally as Elysian (Angel) asset. the longevity of the Elysians could just as much be ascribed to them being able to create new bodies and swapping through them, earning effective immortality, whereas the 'elven savages on the ground' lacked such an advantage. Therefore, when we speak of advantages derived from long lifespans, the Elysians should stand as a pre-existing example of an upper-limit in that respect.
Edit: in light of the paragraph above, it could be that elves and elysians might both live the 80-100 years the human body seems capable of reaching if in good enough health; but that their boon is that they would retain youthfulness through the majority of their lifespan (i.e.: elves might only see the kind of decline we start having at 40-50 years old at around 80, and engage in a quicker decline, expiring around the next two decades while aging as to look like a human in his/her sixties - ailments of age could creep up on them, but only at the last fifth of their lifespan). Elysians would likely soul transfer around then, while the elf would be stuck just expiring in his only body.
As someone whom just turned 40, I kind of think retaining one's youth to his 80s, without the frailties and impairments of being geriatric, would be a pretty big deal and certainly something to envy.
Last edited:
I agree deeply with the last sentence and, thus, the rest.
