Chris Lemens:
> I think elves have a complex structure similar to property ownership.
[description of same _as_ property ownership snipped]
I don't think this is so, partly because it contradicts Known Stuff about elves (and we know little enough), and partly because I don't think it gives the Correct Alien Feel.
Personally, I feel elves follow something similar to _Vaccuum Flowers_ (no pun intended) style Communism. (Of course, in Look and Feel, it's not Nasty Authoritarian State Communism, rather nice fuzzy-wuzzy anarcho-whatsit type "Socialism", but still.) To wit, if people won't fit the Prefect Society, don't change the society, change the people. Except of course you don't need to actually _alter_ elves' pyschoprogramming, they have it since seedhood. I don't think they're anything like a "hive mind", though, I agree with Chris on that. They act in fairly "individualistic" ways, and they go Rootless sometimes, and even Renegade.
Typically, an elf acts for the collective good of the forest because he _wants_ to, his "reward mechanism" being "wired" (xylemed?) that way. This is why the aldryami "economy" Works in a way which no human one ever would, in which elves do what they please, and exchange goods without payment, as what they _feel_ like doing has been subverted by the Needs of the Forest in the first place. In roughly the same way as a human's "programming" is subverted by thoughts of food, sex, the needs of their children, or indulging whatever strange activity they've become habituted to get pleasure from, like posting to the Glorantha Digest. R&R elves are ones in which this programming is insufficient, or Erroneous, or has been subverted by other thoughts in the suffering elf's brain.
Having said that, I think most elves wouldn't be eager to sacrifice themselves in fighting over a shrub or two. Most aren't martially inclined in the first place, and think enough of themselves to only fight for something _they_ think is worth the risk (albeit subvertedly). Nor do I want to over-generalise: what's written about elves seems rather brown-elfish in hue, and may be less applicable to other shades of opinion than it purports to be. Certainly, green elves may be rather more of a hierarchical bent, whereas yellow elf society seems somewhat manic and disorganised. Any ideas, anyone?
Subversively,
Alex.
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