Way With Worlds: Let’s Talk About Race – Kind Of

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Genetics

And now, let’s talk about building races in your world. Or actually not talk about races. Well kind of.

It gets complicated.

Building “races” is a big thing in worldbuilding, especially in the areas of Science Fiction and Fantasy. People craft epicly different alien races. Games have different stats for the “player races.” Everyone seems happy when some fantasy world has Not Just Another Elf since so many races seem the same.

So if you’re worldbuilding, there’s a chance you need to create races. That’s the problem – when we talk about worldbuilding races, we’re not always talking races. If I’m going to talk race-creation I need to clarify what we’re talking about

We’re probably not talking about what you think we are

A Matter Of Terminology

The term race, if you want to get technical (and I do) refers to a group within a species that has certain identifiable characteristics. This definition occasionally shades into ethnicity when speaking of humans, but it’s “here’s an identifiable group of individuals that are distinct but part of X species.” Race is part of species.

Let’s talk about the word “race” where it most comes up in worldbuilding – constructing aliens and non-humans in science fiction and fantasy settings. We talk about the elven race, or the Klingon race or the Grashuka Race of The Gas Giants. We toss the word “race” around so much when building these settings, one issue gets missed.

We’re often using it wrong.

Note the above definition of race, it’s a way to identify categories within a species. The problem is when we think we’re building races we’re building species.

Those giant cephalopod philosophers from Aldebaran that you created are not race, they’re a species. They don’t come from the same origins as humans, and logically they couldn’t even crossbreed with us. They are not just distinct, they are literally an entire alien species.

But we’re likely to call them a race. Even I, typing this, find myself slipping into using “race” when I mean species.

Oh, and it gets more confusing, because . . .

Everyone On The Xenophilia Train

There’s a strong element of SF and fantasy fiction that involves the interbreeding of different species. Demons have children with humans, elves with humans, and . . . well we humans apparently are pretty promiscuous in literature. But you have different species, of different origins, interbreeding with others.

That makes everything a bit more complicated, because though humans may be made by one god and the Elves are crystalized starlight, though they are species, they are able to reproduce as if they were races.

Sure, this may not be “realistic” from a scientific point of view, but that doesn’t stop people. Hell, Science Fiction has been having human/alien crossbreeding long before Spock’s dad got round-ear fever. In literature the boundary between species and race is a bit fuzzy.

Plenty of species, who just act like races.

So What Do We Do Here?

I called this out because its important and because it’s a pet peeve, but what we do here is surrender.

My default stance is to refer to building any sentient species (or race) as a race, with occasional asides when we are truly talking species.

I suspect we can’t avoid this for two reasons:

  1. It seems to be the default.
  2. When we talk sentients there’s a tendency to see them as human. We see them as “like” us so we think of them as a variant of us – race, not species.

There I give in. But before we close out, a bit of advice for navigating this terminological divide.

What You Have To Look Out For

So, as a worldbuilder, here’s what you need to look out for when building races/species.

  1. Does your setting have species or races in the classic sense- are the various creatures and sentients in your setting of common origins or different ones? That will help you design them better (and realize when there are radical differences)
  2. Does your setting allow for the species/race boundary to be fuzzy? If your fantasy races can all interbreed because magic then you’l need to keep that in mind. There may be species whose interbreeding is more like races.
  3. What are the impacts of #1 and #2? If you have exotically different alien species who can all interbreed, what does that mean for their societies, for genetic health, for children. For that matter it brings in a whole new definition of “First Contact.”
  4. What terminology do people use to refer to their race/species depending on how distinct the identity is? Right here we just discussed race versus species – others in your world are going to have that debate.

In the end you need to know when you have species, when you have races, and when you have species that act like races.

Yes, it’s confusing. But it’s less confusing than not pausing to ask the race/species question.

So with his out of the way, next, up, let’s get into the nitty gritty of race creation. And my race, I sometimes mean species.

Sorry.

Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

Leonard Nimoy, Pop Culture

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Leonard Nimoy passed away February 27th, 2015.

You could watch the world react on the internet, in posts, on Twitter, on Facebook. You could feel the pain, the loss, the appreciation, the respect. The impact of his life was on display in the impact of his passing on people.

I spent hours almost crying, starting and stopping.

Nimoy was a fascinating person. Actor, director, photographer, poet, artist, and all around decent person. He’s remembered, of course, for his portrayal of Spock, the man who made the human alien and the alien human, but he was a man of great depths.

“The internet’s grandfather” as I heard i put several times.

But in the end, Spock.

Spock the geek icon before we had a word for it. The unexpected sex symbol of Star Trek, to judge by man tweets I’ve seen and conversations I had. Spock the half-alien, bridge between worlds, part of neither, yet an observer with clever insights.

He’s a reminder. Pop culture is important. It matters. He mattered.

Pop Culture Maters

Pop culture matters. Star Trek didn’t just break ethnic and racial boundaries, even if carefully or half-heartedly at times, it also presented different heroes. Sure there was Kirk, the smart but cocky guy. There was Bones, the emotional and dedicated doctor. Scotty had a passion for machines that bordered on romantic.

Spock gave us the idea of intellectual hero; second in command (and in a few cases it seemed the power behind the chair), scientist, philosopher, and warrior when needed. The nuance of his halfbreed character was powerful and deep.

You could see the internet mourn, and read stories of people inspired by this character.

And all this came from a show that lasted three seasons that many would have written off. A show that had ambition, but probably seemed silly to many when it began.

Nimoy mattered. Because Spock mattered. Because pop culture can touch us like anything else and make us better people.

The Galaxy Quest Phenomena

The movie Galaxy Quest embodied this importance better than anything else. If you haven’t seen it, essentially the cast of a Trek-like show discovers they inspired an entire alien civilization. At first it seems ridiculous, but then at time you realize how much this inspiration matters to people in the real world.

Found a whole civilization on Star Trek? How many of our dreams of space travel and a better world come from Trek, or related and similar tales. How many ideas have to be dreamed up before they become real?

Sure I’m not going to lionize much of pop culture. It’s often shallow, disposable, pandering, or stupid. Now admittedly there’s a time for those things, but it’s not often deep, and at times is deliberately shallow.

Of course, how may classics of the past were seen as throwaways or just done to make a quick buck? Classic may be pop culture once we’ve had a time out.

Pop culture, that weird, shallow, strange, casual thing also seems to spawn greatness. Maybe it’s because there’s so much of it, or because freed of the constraints of what we think is good, we sometimes make the great. Or maybe it’s just the monkeys and typewriters things.

And because pop culture is popular, broad, wide, it’s something we can all share. It’s something we can relate to. It’s something we can use, be inspired by, and communicate with. All flaws aside, it has its use.

Tell anyone fifty years ago that the world would mourn an actor who played a half-human alien on a TV series with a questionable future in the 60’s and they probably wouldn’t believe it.

Pop culture’s power is often . . . “well, you never know.”

It matters.

Taking It Seriously The Right Way

In the end, pop culture is something I think we treat with extremes. Heated rivalries and outright personal wars over games and shows. Brushing off attempts to explore real issues. Writing off talented people as one-shots. Creating elaborate plans that remove the soul of the property.

But when I saw the reaction to Leonard Nimoy passing, the power he had, it reminded me that Pop culture, like anything else is a tool. Use it right, it’s powerful.

It is broad and accessible.

It often lacks pretension to greatness which removes pressure.

It has churn, so greatness may arise.

It lets people make money, even if crazy budgets are worrying me.

I’m all for great literature and serious in-depth works. I want more of it. But let’s remember what pop culture can do.

That way when we create it, we create it with eyes open,to maximize what is good.

That way when we consume it we approach it appropriately.

That way we can have fun and think deeply – often at the same time. Trust me, I’ve been inspired by utter crap.

Let’s remember what Trek did, what Spock meant, what Leonard achieved. Every tear is a reminder of what pop culture can do.

Even now in his passing, I’m learning something from him. And as I type this I’m holding back tears.

 
Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

Way With Worlds: A Team Effort

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people identity

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

A lot of my discussions on world building here involve solo efforts, single-person worldbuilding. I’m pretty much speaking to you as a “you” because . . . well that’s my chosen audience focus; single readers and solo world builder. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take some time to discuss group world building efforts.

Group world building is actually an activity a lot of us engage in. We may do it as part of a defined team, or be a Game Master who takes a lot of player input. We might be running a shared RP, or we may be just having an idea jam at a convention. I don’t think we do it as often as solo world building, but we do it.

We might not even realize we’re doing it, we just think of “well we’re cooperating” or “she’s helping me out.”

So I wanted to take some time to discuss group world building – it’s advantages and challenges. I’ve been there as well, as have many of my friends, and I figure it’s worth exploring.

Besides, maybe you’ve not considered it and it might be for you . . .

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