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I was idly thinking about dwarves and the blow up about having non-human races have the same ethnicity as us humans.
A thing that we had in Traveller, and it's been so long I can't even remember if it was official canon, was the "homogeneous humaniti" project.
The goal of Homogeneous Humaniti was to keep breeding unlike bloodlines until there were no longer any physical distinctions like skin, eye or hair color. They were a splinter group that wasn't going to get near their goals.
But what if the Dwarf God believed that His (Her?) people should not be different because of blood?
What if They decided that Their people would distinguish themselves from one another in a different way?
Add in Niven's K'zinti and Chmeee losing his scars thanks to the Hindmost's kitty boosterspice...
An idea pops.
Dwarves look so very much like each other that they need to do something to stand out or be different.
Like scars, length of beard and the things woven into them.
Cutting off their beard is like stealing their ID.
The lowest social standings WOULD be made to wear the same clothes and cut their hair and beards the same.
More social rank means more freedom in the style of beard and hair decorations.
Well, to get weirdly normal to you and all your readers...
ReplyDeleteThis is a pure example of "Y'all look alike to me-ism." To a non-dwarf, dwarves look remarkably similar, some changes in hair color and eye color maybe, but the pattern is 4-tall, massive trunk, strong arms, short legs and such and facial hair, for both sexes. You know, a dwarf. But to dwarves, the differences are easily noticeable. And to dwarves, the Elves, Humans, Halflings all look alike due to "Y'all look alike to me-ism."
Same same for Others looking at elves and elves looking at others.
Same same for others looking at humans and humans looking at others. Though depending on the world, humans look radically different (hair, skin, eyes, size) from geographical place to geographical place, so even humans can be subject to "Y'all look alike to me-ism."
To get into weirder races, Lizardmen all look like... lizardmen to everyone else. But they can tell the difference.
Clothing, accoutrements, weapons, hair styles and colors (if haired) and other decorative stuffs are all there to either differentiate the individual or blend the individual into a group. Like the difference between soldiers in dress uniforms, battle dress and civilian clothing.
You misunderstand, they DO all look alike in what I was playing with.
DeleteAh, my bad.
DeleteThe Homogeneous Humanity reminds me of Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" where in the late stages everyone had intermingled and Mandella describes the new troops as "all looking vaguely Polynesian".
ReplyDelete