09-26-2017, 08:26 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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The ones who are expected to face danger are the adult males. Often this is simply being on guard at the mine entrance (with a genetically male worker dwarf at hand to run messages). But if someone needs to go on a trade journey, or take part in a war, or engage in diplomatic negotiations, that's male work. Of course, if you think about it, that's also largely male work in humans, and human males aren't quite thought of as cannon fodder, at least not in their relationship to their families, even though biologically we're the expendable ones.
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09-26-2017, 10:59 PM | #32 |
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Re: Our dwarves are different
Trust you to subvert the cliche.
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09-27-2017, 12:01 AM | #33 |
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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09-27-2017, 12:04 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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Among Dwarves it is a good reason why females are so seldom seen. Besides the fact that they are slow breeders. And the fact that Dwarves are fanatically protective of their patrimony. And the fact that if Dwarves venerate ancestry maybe they want to have a posterity to venerate them.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 09-27-2017 at 12:09 PM. |
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09-27-2017, 12:13 PM | #35 |
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Re: Our dwarves are different
I think that most human cultures romanticize and idealize violent self sacrifice ala the 300 fiction. But that when push comes to shove, it's really almost unnatural mentality for anything other than moment's action for important enough reasons or emotion. Our species wouldn't have lasted this long if half of us were so prone to dying at a moment's notice.
Self preservation and preservation of relatives is paramount to species that take 20 years of heavy resource investment to mature. Eusocial dwarves could change that assumption realistically, but I personally consider that a too obvious direction to take. They're eusocial like ants... okay, this is the worker caste, warrior caste, and royal. That's not quite how naked mole rats live and they're arguable a eusocial mammal.
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09-27-2017, 12:31 PM | #36 | |
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Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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Among Dwarves the same dynamic could apply of course.
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09-27-2017, 01:16 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Our dwarves are different
In parallel, in humans, at least, there is something of a universal cult of motherhood, which goes with the fact that women are risking their lives to bear children. Indeed from a traditional point of view it could be said to be unfair to ask women to face death in battle since they were already facing death to bear the next generation of soldiers. There is also the old saying that "Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to save her kittens," which applies more broadly than to our species.
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09-27-2017, 01:59 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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For Dwarves, if Dwarves have an intense ancestral veneration that includes desire to be venerated by posterity. As well as an intense parental protectiveness that both includes and is separate from this desire this can add to that. As well, their family feeling can be clannish and not just individual, so that a maiden aunt or bachelor uncle can hope to be remembered by posterity. That can encourage them to sacrifice in a way they wouldn't otherwise.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 09-27-2017 at 02:07 PM. |
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09-27-2017, 02:15 PM | #39 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Our dwarves are different
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09-27-2017, 02:54 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Our dwarves are different
In point of fact I got the idea from the Niezcheans in Andromeda except their flightiness and amorality did not seem to have much survival value, and more to the point was not what I would expect from Dwarves.
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