Altess Immortality?

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jtjr26
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Altess Immortality?

Unread post by jtjr26 »

Was reading Dimension Book 5 and in the RCC description is listed the Altess lifespan at 250 years. Later in the Altess Dynasty description, it lists Exclusive Immortality and it says they age at 1/100the rate of a regular human. Assuming the average humans in the three galaxies lives for 85 years (I know its more on some worlds) so there would be no way that a lifespan of an Altess Noble would be as short as 250 years. Is this a typo or am I missing something?

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Re: Altess Immortality?

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

taken the 2 together it just means that they look young until they die.
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Re: Altess Immortality?

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

i would presume also that with the wealth they all have, they can easily afford life extension treatments and such so that they are effectively immortal, and the 250 years limit is their "natural" lifespan without all that
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The Beast
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Re: Altess Immortality?

Unread post by The Beast »

glitterboy2098 wrote:i would presume also that with the wealth they all have, they can easily afford life extension treatments and such so that they are effectively immortal, and the 250 years limit is their "natural" lifespan without all that


This is what I would go with.
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Nuristas
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Re: Altess Immortality?

Unread post by Nuristas »

The Beast wrote:
glitterboy2098 wrote:i would presume also that with the wealth they all have, they can easily afford life extension treatments and such so that they are effectively immortal, and the 250 years limit is their "natural" lifespan without all that


This is what I would go with.


So basically they would live 25000 year barring early demise?
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Axelmania
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Re: Altess Immortality?

Unread post by Axelmania »

Pg 64 says "Average Life Span"

For comparison, the average human life span is not necessarily calculated as "average age at death from natural causes alone", but could also take into account things like car accidents, crib death, plagues, etc.

So if Altess aging at 1/100 the rate of humans (who let's say on average could live 80 years w/o "unnatural" early terminations) means they should on average live 8000 years, they can still die an average of 250 years in (1/32 the expected time) due to outside interventions.

Perhaps they eventually get bored and engage in risk-taking behaviors. They could get a sense of "I can't die" due to being MDC creatures (ie just jump off a 1 mile cliff for fun, their body can take it) but eventually push the limit too far and fall into some volcano they can't swim out of.

Some of the described attributes of this RCC: "super, smug, secure"

One might misread their laziness and avoiding soldiering as being risk-averse, but I don't actually think so. They "engage in petty contests and challenges to prove their superiority in mind and body" that last part possibly taking the form of "hey let's see who can get hit with the biggest gun and not fall into a coma".

We should keep in mind after all that there probably aren't many examples of humans living beyond 250 years to draw upon as an example of staying in mentally the same place at that point in time. Unlike elves there isn't necessarily centuries of experience about how to get there and stay sane/cerebral/careful. Elves (well, classic type, not Asgardian/Star Elves) remaining SDC probably keeps them humble and avoiding progressive risk-taking which could become addictive to humans like Altess.

Even if we look at other long-lived MDC humans like Sea Titans or Atlantean Undead Slayers they still had SDC childhoods to shape their psychology, and both societies come with a lot more structured responsibility that would keep you away from "let's see who can win a naked battle with the biggest Metzla" ego contests.

Another explanation for average OUTCOME lifespan being much lower than the average POTENTIAL lifespan is mentioned on pg 111 in the 3rd paragraph about "Altess despots" in particular Jurgo Kilter.

7 billion were reduced to 200 million (this is 1/35 the number) and if we assume the majority of those were pretty young, that would greatly drag down the average lifespan if you were calculating that average from the beginning of the Altess.
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