Worldbuilding Wednesdays: The Nu Human Condition

Welcome to Worldbuilding Wednesdays!  Every Wednesday, we spend what is probably far too much time walking through our worldbuilding process.  This week, we're looking at something we won't actually be using:  a human culture that develops in isolation.

What We Have So Far

Our sample area has three intelligent species that, from our perspective, are just starting to interact and influence each other.  We have the nu humans, whom we'll be looking at in just a little bit; the furries, who occupy the upper reaches of the forests and who are slowly spreading to the ground; and the scalies, who mostly occupy the beaches, wetlands, and tide-washed roots.  Our nu humans are mostly guaranteed to be left alone on the megasavannas, grasslands that spread across areas comparable to the entire planet Earth, so we'll be starting there.  A few weeks back, we established that even in a single such savanna with as large a territorial spread as possible, there would be multiple cultures in a single savanna... but we aren't going to worry about that.  What we will be worrying about are the four parts of a culture that don't involve other people:  Language, Values, Norms, and Social Organization.

Terms and Conditions

We are intentionally avoiding certain aspects of culture that normally would be of interest.  Technology, for example.  Religion is another.  We'll be avoiding those aspects of culture that involve interacting with other cultures.  We'll also avoid the bits that would only arise after our species start developing civilization, like urban concerns.

Why?  Mostly because the culture we're developing is only going to be useful when it comes to making the culture we're actually interested in.  What we need is a baseline to tweak as it interacts with others into the culture that we'll actually be using on The Hill.  What we come up with this week is that baseline; it's only useful in the context of what it will become.

So long as it's understood that what we come up with is intentionally stunted and underdeveloped, we should be ready to go.  One proto-culture, coming up!

Language of the Grasslands

This is probably a biased statement, but every culture we've ever encountered has had its own language.  Multiple social species, even the non-human ones on Earth, also have rudimentary or pseudo-languages; whale songs are the most famous, but far from the only examples.  Intelligent simians, ravens, parrots, raccoons, elephants, and even certain species of bats have communication systems that share traits with languages.  So far as we can tell, if you're at all social and have more than a set minimum level of intelligence, language is something that happens.

How does it happen?  Haven't the foggiest.  Languages don't leave fossils, and as far as we can tell, people developed the first languages so far back that the first true languages might pre-date homo sapiens.  Apparently, the topic is so charged that it was banned from open discussion in linguistic circles for about a century.

What we do know is that, once it's there, a language develops to suit the needs of its users.  This makes sense- it would be really weird if human languages featured noises that we can't make.  Similarly, a language will favor those sounds that are easy to make and of use to the people speaking it, especially considering where they spend most of their time.  Words will be developed that have the most utility, and this is where we casually mention the old adage about how many different words for snow that polar-dwelling tribes developed.  It works both ways, of course; some languages don't have different words for blue and green, simply because the speakers don't need a different word.

With that in mind, let's consider our nu humans.  Out in the endless grassy plains, they'll have much to say about grass, the color green, and the skies above.  They'll have rather less to say about other biomes, but we can imagine that they would be encountered on the edges of the savanna.  The oceans would be places of extreme danger to nu humans, with the most vicious predators on the planet crawling out of the waves faster than a person can sprint.  The discussions of the day are mostly about hunting, gathering, or getting out of the rain.

We can get an idea of what the basic language would sound like by looking at people on Earth who live in savannas and plains.  Two examples are the Lakota people of North America and the Maasai of East Africa.  Both have more than two dozen consonants and 8 or 9 vowels, both have explosive sounds and glottal stops, and both use tone to change the meaning of a word.  The upshot is that the noises they use can be used quietly or projected easily, and carry readily through open spaces.  More importantly, you can easily tell what someone says if they shout it at you from a distance.

One particular kind of noise would be special in the nu human tongue:  susurration.  Noises reminiscent of rustling grasses wouldn't be used often, since they would be lost among the actual rustling grasses.  Such noises would be reserved for those things you wish to say and have the savanna swallow.

Values, or Why Humans Are Best

Taboos, religion, and social mores tend to be developed in response to other cultures as a method to convince people that their culture is the best is that everyone who believes otherwise is wrong.  Since we are viewing our culture in isolation, we'll be ignoring those.  Instead, we'll be focusing on values and beliefs- those tools that a culture uses to exemplify those traits that are most valuable.

In a hunting and gathering society, with a species that rises to dominance through mastery of ranged attacks, we can expect a few values to pop up:

  Endurance.  Especially in a world where everything is ten times farther away than it would be on Earth, human cultures are going to encourage and celebrate stamina.  Expect stories of nu humans walking for "three days and three nights" or something similar... and remember that this world's days and nights are about 20 hours long each.

  Excellent Senses.  Not all grasses will be giant-sized on this new world, but many of them will be.  Continent-sized swaths of savanna will have grass at least as tall as a full-grown human, making long-distance detection and targeting of prey both difficult and essential for a successful hunt.  Heroes will be those who can spot a shift in the grass a mile away, and plant a dart in the eye of an animal from a similar distance.

  Cleverness.  This value will likely be common to all cultures, since being able to adapt and overcome when encountering the new and unusual is a hallmark of cultures that survive contact with others.  We can expect each species to have its own unique spin on what counts as clever behavior.  At least initially, they'll all have something in common- the ability to overcome dangers that can't be defeated outright with the use of their natural gifts.  The tricksters in human stories will build simple but clever contraptions that allow them to see further and hunt from farther away, but they'll also employ tactics that let them manage what a normal human couldn't, such as using braces and lines to safely make sharp turns and stops on a world that it is, for them at least, much more slippery than our world is.

  Traditionalism.  This one is more propaganda than the rest, and likely will also be a universal trait.  The greatest secret to overcoming the various trials of life, the tales say, will always be conforming to the rules set forth by the elders.  Read that as, "Mother Knows Best."

Normal Behavior

Humans don't have the best eyes during the day or at night, and it makes sense to presume that this also applies to nu humans.  Should that be the case, we can also make the assumption that, like humans, nu humans do excel in areas of shifting light.  This makes sense at small scales, as the nu humans who can tell the difference between shifting grasses and an ominous shadow are the nu humans that live to have babies.  This also means that, at large scales, nu humans are going to have the biggest advantage over other creatures near sunrise and sunset.  When the shadows are long, and the light is neither too bright nor too dim, a human can see about as well as in full daylight, and they also don't have a big glowing orb to blind them.

This means that nu humans will be most active during those hours.  They'll avoid the heat of the midday sun, and they'll settle in when the night is too dark.  With how long the day-night cycle is, they'll likely sleep through both periods.

So far, this isn't too different than how ancestral humans behaved.  The earliest humans would gather throughout the day, taking a long nap when it got too warm or bright, and huddling together near the light of the fire as the evening drew to a close.  The biggest difference is that, for nu humans, the heat of the day signals the end of activity for just as long as the chill of nightfall.

For an idea of what kind of behaviors this would inspire, our closest real-world approximation would be those peoples that live in equatorial areas.  By and large, humans who need to avoid the middle of the day develop a strong element of play and socialization.  This is possible thanks to all the light and the lack of scheduled activities, and we can go ahead and expect similar behaviors from our nu humans.  People work from before dawn until late morning, then take a break to play, socialize, and sleep before resuming their work once the sun starts to dip.  The night is for song and story, as nu humans gather close until morning.

Friend Zones

Humans and nu humans have the same social dynamics at their core.  Because of this, what we say about humans socializing will also go for nu humans.  For example, we can say that nu humans will prefer to gather in groups of a few hundred.  Human brains develop social circles almost instinctively, with the core family group in the center, then the extended family around that, blended with the "like a family" friendships, then the semi-regularly tapped connections, and finally the random acquaintances that you know well enough to have some minor opinion on.  Human brains are complex but not infinite, and each circle is assigned less and less brain power while containing more and more people.  By and large, while there is no real limit to how many people a human can care about in theory, in practice, you probably won't spare a passing thought to more than, say, 500 people.

By a complete non-coincidence, initial social groups won't get much larger than that.  This has all sorts of advantages and disadvantages, such as reducing the fear of exhausting resources or increasing the odds that you'll hear that stupid story from Uncle Ron again.  When the time comes to settle down, social organizations can grow larger through the clever use of Venn diagrams.  For example, you won't need to know every blacksmith in town; knowing one or two will probably be plenty.  In this fashion, you can fill your social circle with people from entirely different social circles, without running into your soft limit.

Conclusion

You would be forgiven for thinking that we don't have much in the way of detail about our culture.  It certainly sounds generic when you spend 2000 words writing about it.  How about we condense it down a little?

  Nu Human Culture.  The basic nu human society consists of around 500 humans, organized into extended families, that move semi-nomadically through the savannas.  They speak a language of complicated noises, most designed to be understood easily across the sea of grass, with a few reserved for more secretive discussions that sound like rustling grass. 

  Nu humans move as a group through the savannas, taking a long break during the heat of the day to shelter in the shadow of the grass and play games that hone their hunting skills.  At night, humans seek shelter and build fires with which to cook and protect themselves from nocturnal predators.  When they gather around the fires at night, nu humans will sing or tell each other stories, with their more active pastimes reserved for their first break near noon.

  In the stories that nu humans tell, their heroes are courageous, clever, but above all, durable.  Feats of strength tend to exemplify, not lifting strength nor power, but perseverance and fortitude.

With this, we should have enough to tweak, but if not, we have a basic framework from which to develop as needed.  That's the goal for these next few weeks, and we've got two more species to do it with.  Next week, we'll look at furries, and see how their culture differs from that of nu humans.  See you then!