From: alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk
Date: Mon 09 May 1994 - 00:55:51 EEST
Martin C:
> Alex mentioned that I had said that dwarves don't have the man
> rune. I got this from Mike Dawson, who claims its official, but
> I've never seen the source. Anyway, it makes heaps of sense to
> me. The shape was convenient when "Mostal" started making his
> little helpers. He didn't need to reinvent the wheel, as it
> were.
Weirdness. Surely, then, he "reused" (
#include "debate_on_componentware_and_object_oriented_software";
)
the Man rune to obtain the ever-so-versatile "man shape". Perhaps
the thinking is that they're less connected with the rune since they
are (allegedly) not "descended" from it, as such, but this seems like
a pretty fine distinction in the broad sweep of mythic origins.
> Count me as a member of the "directed acyclic graph" taxonomy
> party. Now if I could only understand what it *means*... But
> yeah, I've been arguing for abandoning all Earth-based taxonomic
> systems and taxons (mammal, primate, blah blah).
You'll be downheartened when I explain it in terms analogous to those, then. Take a tree-shaped taxonomy of earthly animals, and add in unique Gloranthan species, with their alleged taxons, a la Petersen. Then equate, or merge, taxons which are "obviously" similar, or should be identified due to runic similarity. (That is, "linking" some divergent parts of the tree back up.) So for (brown) elves, I'd put them in the same Family as humans, but a different Kingdom (and accordingly, Order, Class, and Division). Thus:
Genus, species: Homo sapiens Dendro mreli
Family: gloranthomindae gloranthomindae
Order: primates dendranthopodes
Class: mammalia pandrya
Phylum: chordata ehilmspermata
Kingdom: mikyzoa gataphyta
Explanation:
gloranthomindae = all man-rune thingies
dendranthopodes = elves, "higher" runners
pandryta = dicotyledinae, plus all sentient Aldryami
ehilmspermata = angiosperma
mikyzoa = metazoa
gataphyta = plantae
Green elves would go into a different Division (since they're "conifers"), as well as being a distinct species of the genus Dendro. Red elves would be in a different Division, and may not be in gloranthomindae. They'd be a different Genus, at least. Yellow elves I'm not sure about, divisionwise, but would go in the same Genus.
Trolls: I'd go along with Sandy's suggestion of a styganthropes Order of the mammals, but'd still put them in the gloranthomindae.
And as a sample non-mammal (I think) :- Jelmre: chordata/polyemotia/eurmalides/gloranthomindae
The naming of the taxons could do with being "improved" by more use of the appropriate god: does the Mother of Mammals have a proper name, say?
Anyway, this is of course just (one of many) God Learner taxonomies, which everyone else thinks is Hazia-induced, naturally.
> Speaking of outmoded ideas, tree shrews' inclusion in the
> primates seems to depend on when you went to college.
Probably where, too: my encyclopaedia cheerily recounts both versions, seemingly with sentiment "take your pick".
> For all I know, they may be back in, now.
Someone give me a bell once they agree on the number of Kingdoms.
Alex.
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