How the heck do Humans survive in fantasy worlds?

[Sheilawisz]

I would leave advanced technology out of the question of Homo Sapiens survival, because if you see things from that point of view, we could say that a super advanced civilization of humans (or space elves, maybe?) is capable of living inside a star simply because they have a starship with the capability to enter the sun and emerge intact later.

Without high technology humans would not survive in worlds with an incompatible atmosphere, extreme temperatures or maybe inhabited by truly dangerous wildlife, but most Fantasy worlds are very compatible with humans because they are often the most important species and the heroes themselves are human.

What would have happened if the air of Narnia had contained some twenty parts per million of Chlorine?

The Pevensies would have noticed immediately that there was something bad in the air, and it would have been just a matter of time for them to fall sick and eventually die because of the poisonous Narnian air.

I wonder why the composition of the air (and air density as well) are never mentioned in Fantasy stories... you can have a lot of fun with that =)

 

[Queshire]

I disagree. First off, I do not believe that advanced technology or high technology is a useful category. All existing technology was advanced technology once upon a time. Wouldn't the internet be considered advanced technology in ye old fantasy medieval times? Furthermore all technology advanced or not is ultimately based off of an understanding of the natural rules of the universe and then gaming those rules to change ourselves or our environment to our own benefit. To me, discounting the technology in speculative fiction which allows a human to survive on a hostile planet is the same as discounting the technology and practices that have allowed natives to survive on the cold frozen tundra of Siberia for hundreds of years. I don't think I even have to use such an extreme biome as an example. Do you think you could survive where you live without the benefit of anything which could have been considered advanced technology at one time or another? Our mastery of fire was an innovation at one time. So were basic agricultural practices. Even the clothes on your back.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Well, by saying high or advanced technology I mean the kind of things that we see in Avatar or in Star Trek... technology that seems awesome from our 21st Century point of view, the stuff that would allow humans to create settlements in Mars or in some other planet incompatible with human life.

They do not have that kind of technology in most Fantasy worlds, but the humans living there do not need it to survive because these worlds are often very Earth-like and they do not present serious challenges to human life.

I think that another factor that is not considered about the survival in Fantasy worlds is the lack of antibiotics.

Without them, a human population would face a considerable difficulty to reach large population numbers and thrive... Survival in most Fantasy worlds would perhaps be similar to life in Earth centuries ago, except that there may be dragons and other monsters around.

I would not want to live in Middle Earth, Westeros or Narnia, that is for sure! XD

 

[Queshire]

Fair enough. I understand what you're getting at, but I still do not think that it should be discounted. Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone, was inspired in the creation of the cell phone by the communicators on Star Trek. Advanced technology which has become real. Similarly, research is being put into making other advanced technology a reality. So since advanced technology is still a possibility, I think it's to early to discount them.

But even with say, magic the premise of the thread is the survival of humanity in a fantasy world and since magic is a fact in that fantasy world it needs to be included in one's calculations despite not existing in real life.

 

[Hainted]

IRL it came about because we are endurance hunters who eventually run any prey to exhaustion.

In Fantasy it's because Humans are the "Mary Sues. While other races are specialized creatures who can do one thing well, and have one or two physical advantages, they also have cultural stagnation, no diversity, and basically one personality type that describes EVERY member of the race( except one who will get his own book series detailing how he's different and all angsty about it). Humans can be anything, do anything, and have every personality type in existence and basically ALLOW the other races to exist because it showcases how awesome they are.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Just to have some fun, I came up with a scenario about a group of Homo Sapiens trying to survive in one of my Aylar worlds.

They would be twenty people from an Earth-like world, and they would count on modern technology to help them survive in that alien environment. The setting would be a moderate altitude valley in Lallhalya, a nice, snowy mountainous landscape 6500 feet above sea level.

This is what they would need:

1- An elevation of 6500 feet in Lallhalya is roughly equivalent to 24000 feet in Earth. The human visitors would require a high-tech refuge built with pressurized air, temperature controls and windows made of a special glass to filter the dangerous sky radiation that is encountered at elevations beyond 5770 feet.

2- The refuge would need a constant supply of electricity to keep the air pressure and the temperature controls working. Also, they would require means to produce their own supply of food within the refuge.

3- To go outdoors, the humans would need portable oxygen tanks with breathing regulators like the ones used at the Himalaya in Earth. They should also wear complete suits made of dense black fabric and filtering glasses to protect their skin and eyes from the sky radiation. Another danger would be the constant cold and wind, sometimes cold enough to flash freeze a human.

4- Try to hide the settlement from the Aylars, because if they discover it, nothing will stop their attack.

Take a group of humans from an average Fantasy world like Middle Earth or Westeros, transport them to that same valley and they would drop dead in less than an hour.

 

[Ireth]

Take a group of humans from an average Fantasy world like Middle Earth or Westeros, transport them to that same valley and they would drop dead in less than an hour.

To be fair to the people of Westeros, they'd at least be used to constant cold, what with the winters that last 100 years and such. Then again, everything else you mentioned would kind of negate that advantage. XD

 

[ThinkerX]

Towards the end of his 'Rift War' series, Fiest did have the MC's spend a substantial amount of time on a sort of 'alternate world' that had been 'demon-formed' I guess you could call it, with an atmosphere, sun, flora, and fauna lethal to normal humans. They survived via a arduous polymorph.

One of my few surviving fantasy worlds (most of the others got merged) is either Mars like or Venus like (the distinction is mute). One of the few habitable area is either a chain of large basins (for the Mars like world) some 20 - 100 miles wide extending maybe a 600 - 800 miles. Air at the bottom of these basins has about the same air pressure as earth at 10,000 - 12,000 feet. For the Venus type world, this would be a series of linked, flat plateau's of about the same size projecting above the densest part of the atmosphere, above the toxic cloud layer. These worlds would be botched or partial terra-formed planets, the work of the 'ancient aliens' for the projects they considered to be extremely dangerous. The ancient aliens are gone, but a major Lovecraftian entity claims overlordship of sorts, and keeps the place semi habitable for reasons of its own.

 

[Saigonnus]

Just to have some fun, I came up with a scenario about a group of Homo Sapiens trying to survive in one of my Aylar worlds.

They would be twenty people from an Earth-like world, and they would count on modern technology to help them survive in that alien environment. The setting would be a moderate altitude valley in Lallhalya, a nice, snowy mountainous landscape 6500 feet above sea level.

I have to say your example; while entertaining is just a matter of being selective about where you are using for comparison... It's like taking members of a sub-saharan african tribe and sending them to climb Mt. Everest or the North Pole... obviously they will need some technology to survive, shelters or whatnot. In that scenario, they would so far out of their element that they would die; simply from lack of know-how on creating even something so basic as shelter in the snow.

I believe that if you take a group of average denizens of Middle Earth and drop them into a like climate (or even a climate within the range of "normal" human habitation) within the Forgotten Realms or drop them into Narnia, or Westeros and they'd likely be just fine adapting to the circumstances if not the technology of the world. Adaptation to the new is something Humans excel at, and I think it's something that isn't addressed well within fantasy.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Those sound like truly hostile worlds and a true challenge for human characters, ThinkerX.

I prefer the second world, the one with the huge plateaus that rise above a toxic atmosphere. The other world with the thin air at the bottom of the basins is intriguing as well... What is the weather like in those worlds? It's good to know that not all of our Fantasy worlds are human-friendly.

@Saig: To be more fair, I admit that the best scenario for human settlers to survive in Lallhalya would be at sea level. That would be much more tolerable as it's the equivalent of 12000 feet in Earth, the cold would be less dangerous and also they would not be exposed to sky radiation.

The best humans from Earth for this scenario would be Sherpas (I guess they would do pretty well), but there is a complication:

A settlement at sea level (in a forest, open field or the coast) would be very easy for the Aylar inhabitants to detect. The mountains would be a safer bet for the settlers, or at least, they could remain hidden up there for a much longer time.

 

[Julian S Bartz]

I have to say that the discussion in this thread is fantastic.

I think it is such an interesting question that is often overlooked in fantasy writing.

Personally I think the key is that the majority of books tend to have their other races very defined and unique. When you have tall elves that live in trees, dwarves in mountain holds and goblins dancing around fires you tend to make them all reasonably similar. Sure some books may have different factions, or dark elves etc. But for the most part we write them as one type. In part because it can be hard enough to imagine another race other than humans, without creating multiple sub types of that race.

Humans are something the readers and writers are familiar with and are multifaceted through thousands of years of culture, readily available to us. It is easier for us to write about and to comprehend the various aspects of humans. Therefore the humans in our stories have all of the qualities that you have all mentioned which makes them survive. We give them more attention, more time because we can relate to them. We want them to survive because we are humans!

Perhaps the next move is to try and expand on the typical stereotypes that we place on other fantasy races.

 

[Hainted]

I was in a discussion on these boards, and part of a panel at Mysticon that covered the lack of diversity in speculative fiction. Not just moving away from the "white straight farmboy" protagonist, but why not ethnically and culturally diverse fantasy races as well? Dwarves(for example) don't have to be Nordic or have Scottish accents, nearly every culture in the world from the Zulu to the Cherokee have a race of small people that live underground. Why can't they be the basis for a fantasy race? why can't they be a new type of dwarf?

 

[SM-Dreamer]

I think that I agree most with what Queshire said: adaptability. One of the things that has allowed our species to survive is our ability to adapt to most environments we come across. We don't need to evolve our species; instead, we evolve our technology and social structure to the best benefit. That, I think, is why humans survive so well in fantasy worlds. Whether humans come across elven magic or dwarven craftsmanship, humans are going to adapt to it and innovate on it. Its what we do.

And of course, we procreate so well. Even with disease and accidents, our reproduction rate seems to be higher than elves and dwarves in traditional fantasy, so we make up for a short life span with high birth rate. Even if only half of all births live, we're still generally producing more offspring than the rest of them.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Something that I really admire about human nature, and that I believe to be more important than adaptability and technological development, is the human spirit to survive.

There is a particular something that pushes humans to face challenges, endure difficulties, seek a better life, cling to life in the middle of a disaster and even climb mountains simply because the mountains are there and they represent a challenge. That is what has really helped humanity to survive so many disasters and trouble, and without it, the adaptability skills would be of little advantage.

This human spirit to endure and survive is clearly seen in my story The Ghost, which is about these spiritual, body-snatcher aliens that invade and conquer Earth in the 2070's.

The cold and cruel Ghosts counted with very advanced technology and they had adapted to thousands of worlds, but they did not realize that the humans would not surrender so easily. The surviving human forces eventually fought back and recovered Earth, starting a new world.

Anyway, I disagree strongly with how Fantasy usually portrays humans as the best of the best while the other species are reduced to stereotypes... That needs to change in the world of Fantasy literature, and the addition of new, interesting species could help a lot to solve the problem.

Aylars have a nature that is similar to humans in many ways, but they are radically different in others.

 

[Queshire]

Something that I really admire about human nature, and that I believe to be more important than adaptability and technological development, is the human spirit to survive.

There is a particular something that pushes humans to face challenges, endure difficulties, seek a better life, cling to life in the middle of a disaster and even climb mountains simply because the mountains are there and they represent a challenge. That is what has really helped humanity to survive so many disasters and trouble, and without it, the adaptability skills would be of little advantage.

This human spirit to endure and survive is clearly seen in my story The Ghost, which is about these spiritual, body-snatcher aliens that invade and conquer Earth in the 2070's.

The cold and cruel Ghosts counted with very advanced technology and they had adapted to thousands of worlds, but they did not realize that the humans would not surrender so easily. The surviving human forces eventually fought back and recovered Earth, starting a new world.

Anyway, I disagree strongly with how Fantasy usually portrays humans as the best of the best while the other species are reduced to stereotypes... That needs to change in the world of Fantasy literature, and the addition of new, interesting species could help a lot to solve the problem.

Aylars have a nature that is similar to humans in many ways, but they are radically different in others.

It certainly makes a better story than adaptation and technological development being responsible. As a writer, I can admire that view point, however in addition to being a writer I'm an armchair anthropologist and if I wear my armchair anthropologist hat instead of my hobbyist writer hat, I can't agree with that, not by itself.

I do not believe that the human spirit to survive is objectively exceptional enough to be considered a defining feature in Humanity’s success as a species. All life wants to survive, from the smallest bacteria to the largest whale. Plants don’t particularly want to die, neither does the pig whose flesh you eat for breakfast. I do not believe that the human spirit to survive is different from any other species. Facing challenges head on instead of backing down can be a result of wanting to get rid of a threat so you don’t have to face it in the future or protecting your territory and food source from being taken from you and thus being forced to seek out another, potentially less ideal, alternative. Enduring difficulties helps ensure that you survive long enough to propagate your genes. Seeking a better life can be seen as trying to obtain better conditions to ensure your survival or to increase your attractiveness to a potential mate, again to pass on your genes but with the added condition that it can potentially be passed on to your offspring thus improving the chance that your genes continue on beyond you. Clinging to life in a disaster is the same as enduring difficulties. Climbing mountains can be seen as a cross between seeing what’s there with the possibility that what’s there is something which can help ensure the continuation of your genes (intellectually, yes, we know that no such thing is there, instinctually, perhaps not) and increasing your fame and, as a result, attractiveness to a potential mate.

In essence, in the equation for success and survival the spirit to survive is a constant, a baseline between all species. It’s the means to achieve that survival which determines the difference between humans and say, rabbits who survive by means of having a bunch of kids. Furthermore, if the means for that survival is not sufficient to the task then the will to survive becomes irrelevant. It’s the difference between coming up with an idea for a story and actually being able to write that story.

 

[Lunaairis]

Hainted said what I was going to say about Us. We are/ were endurance hunters. A one point we were such masters a running we could have a race with a horse and once they would tigher out we would jump them. Not to mention we our muscles have a great capacity for holding energy, if we trained just a little any human could theoretically lift a car for an instant. Then with some breathing exercises we could hold our breath underwater of 10 minutes. There are different kinds of intelligence and ours lays in problem solving which is how we arrived at tools and technology, now. As you can see we are pretty well off. (Most of this info I got from national geographics. I don't know the volumes you guys can google this info)

We can work together and even though at times it may seem we are out to get rid of each other. If "twitch plays Pokemon "has taught the world anything is that even when there is a ton of people trying to stop humans from moving forward eventually we will move forward. Which brings me to communication. Although we kind of have no way of testing this unless we were to have connections with another sapient creature. We are able to communicate, form bonds , friendships what ever you would like to call it not only with members of our own species but with other creature entirely. Our communication lead to taming wolves, domesticating cattle, and training birds. We know how to "talk."

Which brings me to telling lies which is more my own thinking and less research. Being able to deceive is a sign of intelligence amung the animal kingdom. Koko the gorilla tried to blame her pet kitten for ripping the sink off the wall. The lie was bad one, and language could have a factor in telling lies but who's to say humans aren't just really good at that? We could trick elves into teaching us sacred magic. Or dwarves out of their shinny new armor. Maybe we told the other races that we have this super secret weapon that could wipe them off the face of the earth, and they are just incapable of seeing that, this was a lie.

I used parts from all of this in making humans in comic, are fully capable of standing up against any other sapeint creature, with their insane endurance. Their ability to form friendships with other creatures and The ace up their sleeves: lying the shit out of almost any situation.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I'll use RPG logic:

Orcs - big, strong, dumb, melee brutes - shoot them.

Dwarves - short, stocky, miners - seal the mine.

Elves - magic, flawless marksmen, live in trees - start a forest fire.

Halflings - light weight - toss them off a cliff.

Humans - big, strong, dumb, melee brutes, short, stocky, miners, magic, flawless marksmen, live everywhere, light weight, heavy weight, middle weight, highly intelligent, inventors, reproduce every two or three years on average instead of one kid per century or at a sorcerer's whim, infesting the planet, and how the hell do you kill them???

 

[psychotick]

Hi Sheilawisz,

That's not really a fair example with regard to the fantasy realm. I would expect fairly much everyone to die there - elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs - the lot. The question posed in the OP is how do humans survive in fantasy worlds against these other races?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Sheilawisz]

That was excellent, Legendary, thanks for a good laugh =)

Greg, my point is that there is no wonder about humans surviving in Fantasy worlds. Most settings are very compatible with human life, and at the same time, the other species are portrayed as inferior to the glory of the Homo Sapiens and incapable of competing against them.

I believe that this is a problem that needs to be addressed in the world of Fantasy literature, perhaps by introducing more challenging worlds and dangerous rival species that can get humans in trouble.

My own world Lallhalya would be seriously challenging (if not impossible) for humans to survive in, that's why I decided to use it as a good example.

Do you know about other Fantasy settings that would be very hostile for human life?

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I'm joking, but the serious side is that humans are often portrayed as Joe Average in RPG stats. In stories, they're really that diverse group that has people who are like orcs, people like dwarves, people like elves, and even some people like halflings. (Another way to say this is that a story can work without the other humanoid races, because those are just altered humans.)

There's what I always say in classicist horror stories, where demons and devils are popping up everywhere with not a hint of God in sight: "Who do you think sent the heroes?"

^This is my take on humans vs. supernatural forces of evil.