From: Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG (Bernuetz.Oliver@cbsc.ic.gc.ca)
Date: Thu 04 Sep 1997 - 22:31:55 EEST
Sure it's a bad pun are there any good ones?)
>>Bill McKinley sez:
>>Many years ago, I read a trashy post-apocalyptic science fiction
>>novel in which the cataclysmic disaster (whatever it was) caused some
>>humans to withdraw into themselves, suppress their intelligence, and
>>roam in herds as fixed-INT creatures.
>Olof Nergard said
>This sounds like the "War with the Cthorr" series by David Gerrold, I
>think. Its a great description about herdification of the humans.
There's also "I, weapon" by Charles W. Runyon which I read years ago.
It also has "herd men" and the humans herding them of course have
taboos against sex with them, etc., etc. It struck me as a good read when
I read it but that was quite some time ago.
Speaking of herd men it strikes me that the closest you'd get to herd men
in the RW are RW baboons. Okay, so they're a lot more aggressive than
herd men would probably be but perhaps the morocanths have bred
aggression out. Dietarily and behavior wise I think they'd be a pretty
close match. They couldn't possibly be monogamous because the
morocanths don't allow all the male calves(?) to grow up. The male-
female ratio would probably be pretty bad. The question is how would
you herd baboons? (Very carefully I'd imagine). Herd men don't have
the natural weaponry a baboon has and their diet probably contains more
vegetation than a baboon's. Still they're the closest the RW comes to a
plains dwelling, group living primate.
I don't agree with Sandy about them being long lived. I know it's not an
obvious connection but my feeling is that along with the curse of fixed
intelligence you get a reduced lifespan. Morocanths live about as long
as humans don't they? I don't imagine tapirs live as long as humans though.
I would imagine that freeing a bison's intelligence might increase their
lifespan
as well.
Just my two cents worth.
Oliver D. Bernuetz
bernuetz.oliver@cbsc.ic.gc.ca
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Fresser's Laws of Dining:
1) If it doesn't move and it's not nailed down, eat it.
2) If it moves and others are eating it, eat it.
3) If no one else is around and you want to eat something nailed down,
go for it!
4) To live is to dine, to dine is to live.
5) When in Raibanth, do like the Raibanthi.
>From Fresser's Gourmet Guide to Glorantha
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