The thing with the Immortality issue.

I actually had a breif discussion on Vent just now that discussed certain aspects of the immortality effect of Felarya.

Spoiler:

Now, I'm not trying to start an argument or anything, really just start a general conversation to refine the idea.

Starting points I would like to discuss:

#1: Is an "Immortality" effect truly needed?

#2: I can understand a Longevety effect, one that reduces aging to a crawl once prime age has been reached, but a completely unaging effect? And if this is the case, and it is the direct result of Felarya's related "Healing" capability, then how do things like scars remain?

#3: If this is a truly undying effect, then why are their certain characters, who have aging problems? I'm not talking about immigrants to felarya or those who have spent any time offworld, I'm talking about natives. I understand that it took an internmidable length of time to get to that stage, but the fact is, if they reached that stage, doesn't it mitigate the "Unaging" part?

Please discuss.

I always figured that "immortality" on Felarya was just really slowed aging that lets you live a long time.


(The problem is, we've never actually pinned down just how much longer you live. Ten times? Hundred times? Thousand?)

Also, it affects some entities differently. I figure Guardians age even slower. I know that Trejal is supposedly "really old looking" but I think that's because he's the oldest of the guardians - he's so very, very, very old that even his super Guardian body shows he - he may have been one of the first sentient creature on Felarya, or at least from a really, really far back time. Most Guardians were fairly established when the Corrector War broke out - 14,000 years ago.

Immortality literally means unaging.

And alot of people reffer to it as unaging, often stating "Age doesn't matter", however, you raise in interesting point, and it was the same one I'm raising, is it actual immortality, or just extreme life extension?

I'm pretty sure that Notys is the only actual "Eternal" I can think of, being that she is the rumored creator and everything.

Honestly, i think its largely a non-issue.

No one lives long enough to blow a big hole into the immortality factor.

Aging may not be able to kill you, but many other things can. Getting shot, getting stabbed, getting hit with a magic attack, getting eaten, drowning...I mean, someone is perfectly capable of falling down the stairs, or out of a tree and breaking their neck. Look at how many people on Earth die from accidents in and around the home.

No one is going to die of aging, but most Felaryans will eventually die one way or another.

rcs619 wrote:

Honestly, i think its largely a non-issue.

No one lives long enough to blow a big hole into the immortality factor.

Aging may not be able to kill you, but many other things can. Getting shot, getting stabbed, getting hit with a magic attack, getting eaten...I mean, someone is perfectly capable of falling down the stairs and breaking their neck. Look at how many people on Earth die from accidents in and around the home.

No one is going to die of aging, but most Felaryans will eventually die one way or another.

I dunno... I think there are some bendings to that.

Some tribal villager, yes, will likely die before immortality becomes an issue.

A Negavian commoner might live a very considerable length before dying of something.

But what about a wealthy Negavian who has everything they need, and great personal protection of all sorts? They could, if immortality on Felarya is total, live indefinitely. Someone that rich probably doesn't even need to use the stairs. To be accident prone there would need to be aging. And if there is aging, at whatever rate... then its not really immortality, is it?

I think you're taking this a bit too seriously Dark.

Yes, the "immortality" aspect should be looked on, but to hastily demand it's removal altogether is going way too quickly in the wrong direction.

Personally, I think no aging is a bit overkill. I know that the implication is that too few survive for it to become a factor. But let's go to the darker side of the Internet. Basically, anyone with no experience at all with balancing, or just taking a nooblet, could potentially create a human character who is somehow thousands of years old. I know we can call them out for that, but the fact is that it is a possibility and that nooblets will most likely abuse it. I've done it myself and I regretted it. I think slow aging might be better to prevent newcomers from creating a 5000 years old swordsman who runs around cutting peoples' head off.

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But what about a wealthy Negavian who has everything they need, and great personal protection of all sorts? They could, if immortality on Felarya is total, live indefinitely. Someone that rich probably doesn't even need to use the stairs. To be accident prone there would need to be aging. And if there is aging, at whatever rate... then its not really immortality, is it?

No civilization lives forever. Im sure there were some very old people in the Elven, Ur-Sagolian and Dridder empires before they collapsed.

Also, the stairs were just one example. There are dozens of ways for you to get seriously injured and/or die around your own home, or a large city like Negav. Also, super-rich Negavian aristocrats are such an infintesimally small portion of Felarya, that if a few live for a long, long, time...who cares? Its like a couple hundred people out of billions.

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Personally, I think no aging is a bit overkill. I know that the implication is that too few survive for it to become a factor. But let's go to the darker side of the Internet. Basically, anyone with no experience at all with balancing, or just taking a nooblet, could potentially create a human character who is somehow thousands of years old. I know we can call them out for that, but the fact is that it is a possibility and that nooblets will most likely abuse it. I've done it myself and I regretted it. I think slow aging might be better to prevent newcomers from creating a 5000 years old swordsman who runs around cutting peoples' head off.

You don't change the rules to explicitely prevent the most extreme cases. You have set rules that are good for everyone.

People will call BS on a 5000 year old human, same as they will a 5000 year old predator. No one will ever come close to living that long.

Funny that, I actually wanted to make a thread on this. I just couldn't find the right words.

Here's the thing- I was wondering if age doesn't have biological effects, does it have any other effects? Aside from the fact that an older character will require a longer and more detailed background, how does age affect predators?

I personally dislike the idea of experience simply accruing. People forget things, and they have time to make the same mistakes they used to make. However, I think that age making people become more obdurate with time is too cruel, Crisis is 60. Age affects everyone differently, I guess- but mostly it'd give people background and anecdotes.

Call me stupid, but hasn't there been an epic discussion on this before?

is the immortality effect needed? yes... yes it is.

Grave wrote:

Call me stupid, but hasn't there been an epic discussion on this before?

Yes, Karbo started it a while back. You can find the discussion here.


Personally I'm one of those that believe immortality should remain. It is one of those driving factors that help to create a desire for people to come to a world where death is likely, and it also provides its own miniature plot conflict when used appropriately.

Additionally, science has shown the how of human aging, just not the way to slow/prevent it or the reason why some age quicker/slower than others (use Google to see extreme examples, especially those related to two unique illnesses). Given how some creatures are able to create a facsimile of immortality already on earth, it is not too great a stretch of the imagination to think that Felarya could achieve such a feature with magic instead of science. After all, the translative magic of Felarya speaks volumes of just how magical Felarya is.

It should also be noted that not all areas of Felarya are equal. For example, the harsher realm South and West of the known map has been detailed somewhat in the wiki, and areas such as Lamina dampen and/or negate the effects of magic - including that of the life bearing soil.

Yeah, I'm agreeing with Aether and grave here. This thread has been done before. The decision then was to keep it, the decision now should be the same. It's a massive retcon, those are really bad.

to be honest, i am for the a very long living aspect.

immortality is just...too much. i mean, i dont think negav is expanding at all since it has huge walls that, i think, cant be moved. so the population is still growing, and is still being immortal. plus that many many people come from an outside world in negav...at some moment, i think it would inevitably cause a huge problem of over-population.

my point is the same for those living in the jungle. but we shall not take too much care bout them since they will mostly die eventually. the problem of immortality, in my opinion, lies in negav.

Krisexy26 wrote:

to be honest, i am for the a very long living aspect.

immortality is just...too much. i mean, i dont think negav is expanding at all since it has huge walls that, i think, cant be moved. so the population is still growing, and is still being immortal. plus that many many people come from an outside world in negav...at some moment, i think it would inevitably cause a huge problem of over-population.

my point is the same for those living in the jungle. but we shall not take too much care bout them since they will mostly die eventually. the problem of immortality, in my opinion, lies in negav.

People are going to be dying in Negav all the time. There's crime and violence, as well as accidents.

Keep in mind, it isn't like people are ONLY coming to Negav. As more people come in, many others are leaving to other worlds. Combine this with the people who go off into the jungle and people who die within the city walls, and you have a relatively stable population. There are also the Commons, where people live outside of Negav's walls, but inside the protective range of the Isolon Eye.

what about crime and violence? okay..theres crime and violence in new york as well...

crime and violence in new york = balanced population? come on :/ not EVERYONE is dying of violence.

Krisexy26 wrote:

what about crime and violence? okay..theres crime and violence in new york as well...

crime and violence in new york = balanced population? come on :/ not EVERYONE is dying of violence.

Now is New York a good comparison?

New York is a city of millions, Negav is only home to roughly 900,000...where a decent chunk of that population is transitory.

New York has a stable population, Negav has people constantly coming and going. Negav is more akin to an old port town, instead of a modern, stable city.

The only real stable populations within Negav are the middle tier, upper tier, and the shop/inn/saloon-keepers of the lower tier. The rest of Negav's population is constantly shifting, with people entering Felarya, leaving for other worlds, and such. When you couple this with the people that die from crime, accidents, and people who go off into the jungle and never return...and the population is going to reach an equilibrium.

Negav being just one location. We're talking about the populations of ALL species in total.

Natural selection needs to take place IMHO, Death by external factors can only go so far. Death rates by human-sized creatures are attrociously high, thats true, but the law of averages dictates that some will survive, and indeed have survived that length and possibly more. Predator dietary concerns, crime and just plain bad luck will not stop population blowouts on their own.

Heh, well...

I'm not a demographics specialist, but let's assume five hundred thousand people in Negav. That's 500000. We'll say females compose half this number, now, or 250000 women in there.

Now, let's assume a quasi-stationary state. If the same number of people are born as the people who die or leave, that means the amount of able-bodied women (ages 15 and above) equals the number of women minus the number of women who can't bear children yet. Assuming equal numbers of male and female births, we'll say we've got all the women who were born within 14 years reducing the number of fertile wombs available.

We've got ourselves an inequation. There's 14 times X, where X is the number of girls born every year, reducing Y, which is the number of women in Negav to a modified value for breeding availability. (Y-14X) can't exceed 8X/3, since we'll assume a 9-month gestation and half of the kids are boys.

The number of girls born every year (X) is restricted by the breeding body, that has to produce an equal number of boys. Therefore, Y-14X is greater than 8X/3.

Y-14X > 8X/3
Y = 250000
250K - 14X > 8X/3
250K > 50X/3
X < (750/50)*10^3

We've got a maximum of 15000 girls born every year for half a million people. We need 31250 deaths or egresses. That's a maximum of 30000/365=82,19 deaths/egresses every day, Cliff, to take care of the population excedent, in a worst case scenario. 30K/500K=6%, and that's the highest possible birth rate.

Reduce by whatever factor you like, depending on how common do you expect birth control to be in Negav. Adjust depending on how many newcomers or emigrants you expect.

You you factoring in infant mortality here stabs? (Yes it's a horrible thing, but it's going to happen.)
There aren't public hospitals like we know of today. The High tier would have private practices, as would the middle tier. But the low tier? I doubt it.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

You you factoring in infant mortality here stabs? (Yes it's a horrible thing, but it's going to happen.)
There aren't public hospitals like we know of today. The High tier would have private practices, as would the middle tier. But the low tier? I doubt it.

I don't see what would change about the above argument with infant mortality, frankly, but it'd be a mitigating factor in this case, so I didn't factor it in.

Eh, you're right.

Anyway, I believe were are forgetting that cultural and sociological things effect birth rates. Here's a hypothesis:
The people of Negav believe that Ur-Sagol was destroyed because they were too big and prosperous.
In order for the same thing not to happen to them, they have small families. (one or two children).

However, they are not certain what caused the Guardians to wipe out Ur-Sagol, to them, it's just one theory. Combine this with the restrictions in place due to other theories and they would eventually become extinct due to death rates already in place. Then we have factors like genetic diversity.

Mm, I don't think the half split is a good approximation of male to female for a Negavian ratio, or any location for that matter. Read up on men-to-women ratios to see what I mean here, and compare world demographics for age groups. If you think about it from a scientific standpoint it and negate after birth instances it makes sense to use a 50/50 split that tends to favor males slightly, but this isn't realistic for the entire demographic. Generally speaking, at birth men outnumber women, but later in life women outnumber men.

It is between the ages of 15-64 you start seeing a shift in the men-to-women ratio as detailed above. There are a variety of factors that contribute to this, but I think we can safely negate some of them - like China's sex-selective abortions. I would also say you could negate 'war', though Negav does have an abysmal crime rate in the lower wards coupled with a high mortality rate outside of the city walls due to the environment. Still, I call for negation of 'war' because generally speaking war lowers male populations vice female ones, and while I believe more males die per unit population I don't believe it is that skewed. Disease is another attributer we can effectively rule out.

In other realms of consideration, generally speaking and without getting into a sexist debate, the number of men who leave Negav for one reason or another is going to be significantly higher than the number of women leaving. This is going to skew your numbers as for the most part there is a healthy mortality rate for anyone who leaves the city.

Does it come close to 83 people a day? Not sure... but Felarya is a large place, and most everyone writes about sapient predator interaction - not those that include deaths to the local non-sapient fauna/flora which probably amount to a greater number than the interactions most of us choose to write about. I'd say you could make an argument for it that could stand on its own feet.

You start seeing major discrepancies in the men-to-women ratio where localized populations are concerned, generally due to factors solely limited to human interaction (war, gender selection, et cetera). I could think it would be appropriate to make such a claim for Negav in support of women having a higher ratio over men due to the factors that occur after birth.

I don't believe genetic diversity is too great a problem for Negav, as the city has a huge migratory pattern. People coming in looking for the quick and glorious fame and fortune routine whom for whatever reason wind up staying in the city would contribute to keeping the genetic stock fairly diversified.




The immortality thing doesn't honestly bother me for a city discussion because I don't believe the breeding rate is significantly high. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) needs to be around 2.06-2.1 in order for parents to be 'replaced' by their children, with developing countries requiring a TFR of 2.2~3 due to mortality rate. Now, Felarya's obviously needs to be less than this because our goal is not to replace parents, but to replace losses - seeing as the parents do not die from disease or age.

TFR by itself does not show the whole picture though, because even if you have a decline in TFR the number of children born to one generation will not affect the TFR of that generation - ie the children don't start bearing children till a certain age - which can skew populations despite a seemingly low TFR. The current world value for reproduction ratio (r) is 1.2% (TFR-world at 3.4 as of '91), but I don't think Negav would have this sort of rate.

Also, for comparison sake an r value of 1.2% leads to population doubling (not factoring in any deaths, basing on the assumptions that r value does not change exponential growth assumptions and just using raw numbers) every 57.5 years.

Negav doesn't need the families to produce children for labor as the workforce isn't 'dying out' or 'losing effectiveness' with age, only with factors such as crime and becoming something's dinner. These factors will contribute negatively to TFR, so I'd say that it is safe to assume the rate could be as low as 6% if not even more so (though lower values skew the death rates - I'm sure we can make some integral of r to show what would be required to get to ZPG for a society that does not need to replace the parents for death by aging/disease reasons). Negav has been fairly well established since the beginning, and we can assume that TFR has been low ever since the stabilization period that followed the first collapse of the city.





All that being said, who really cares? You can make the debate either way with the right numbers and assumptions for your 'ideal' population of Negav/Felarya. I can't believe I'm saying this but there is such a thing as too much detail; looking too hard at one particular note and passing over the rest if they don't fit within the criteria of one's own opinion. None of us, including myself, is innocent of that. As seen previously though, a majority of us like the idea of keeping immortality, hence why it was kept.

well there is also the fact that I don't think humans are meant to live forever. I'm just not sure we have the right mindset for that.
As I see it there is many people who would simply leave the world, loose the will to live or taking un-necessary risks, or become demented. Some of course would reach very long life span but they would be a minority.
I'm not a psychologist though but that's how I see things ^^